Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had become Prime Minister in December 1905, after which he brought several Scottish Liberals, including his protégé John Sinclair, R. T. Reid and the 9th Earl of Elgin, into his government, the last of that trio becoming Secretary of State for the Colonies. Not everyone in the party, however, had been thrilled at the prospect of a ‘CB’ ministry. In September 1905, H. H. Asquith, R. B. Haldane and Lord Grey conferred (while in Scotland) as to the composition of the first Liberal administration in more than a decade.

The trio were concerned that Sir Henry was already too old to shoulder the burden of office, thus their ‘Relugas Compact’ stipulated that they would not join his government unless CB moved to the House of Lords, allowing Asquith to become de facto Prime Minister in the Commons, with Haldane as Lord Chancellor and Grey as Foreign Secretary. King Edward VII, who shared their fears, was sympathetic. Although Asquith et al. were correct as to CB's health, he still called their bluff. Only Grey received the stipulated seals of office; Asquith instead became Chancellor and Haldane went to the War Office.

Sir Henry – president of the Scottish Liberal Association since 1900 – also proved himself shrewd enough to capitalise on Conservative unpopularity by calling an immediate election. The Liberals won 397 seats to the Tories’ 156. In Scotland, the Liberals won 58 seats to the Unionists’ 10, an increase of 24 on 1900. The 1886 split and Rosebery's unhappy premiership seemed distant memories.

At a meeting of the SLA on 7 February 1906, activists congratulated themselves for having arranged 564 meetings in 57 constituencies during the campaign, something they believed to have ‘contributed materially to produce the excellent results for Liberalism which were obtained at the polls’ (there had been only 218 meetings in 1900). A general election committee comprising the SLA, East of Scotland Liberal League, the Scottish Reform Club and the Young Scots Society (of which more below), had also minimised overlapping activity and com-peting demands for speakers. For the first time, ‘conveyances and motor cars’ had been used to transfer likely Liberal voters to polling stations. It was, added one of those present, ‘a matter for extreme gratification that the voice of Scotland has been expressed with such unmistakable emphasis’.