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Punnett, R.M.
1991.
The alternative vote re-visited.
Electoral Studies,
Vol. 10,
Issue. 4,
p.
281.
Article contents
The Second Labour Government and the Politics of Electoral Reform, 1929–1931
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
In his pioneering study of the British electoral system, David Butler notes that “One of the main problems of the historian of the second Labour Government is to discover what action the Liberals took to exact the fullest return for their support in the division lobbies.” Owing to the preponderance of economic issues in this period, however, scant attention has been focused on the constitutional question of electoral reform which had the greatest bearing on the relationship between the Liberal and Labour parties in Parliament. Robert Skidelsky's Politicians and the Slump, the most thorough economic and political analysis of the Second Labour Government, is curiously jejune on this subject. Recent biographers of Ramsay MacDonald and David Lloyd George, the Labour and Liberal protagonists, describe in detail a series of joint enterprises between the parties, but they fail to delineate the precise nature of their relationship in light of the critical electoral reform question. And Butler was never able to come to close quarters because of a paucity of primary sources. Now, however, it is possible to merge these separate strands, along with a neglected Conservative view, into a comprehensive explanation of the Liberal-Labour nexus.
Despite much suspicion by contemporaries, especially among Conservatives in Parliament and the press, of a supposed Lib-Lab “bargain, ” it was repeatedly denied by prominent Liberal and Labour members. In light of the inability of historians to produce even a shred of evidence to the contrary and the glaring lack of legislative cooperation, it must be concluded that there was never any formal alliance between the two parties. Nevertheless a strong, and as yet unspecified, attachment did exist as a result of the unique parliamentary circumstances emerging from the general election of 1929. What emerges is an unattractive picture of political manuevering, calumny, and subterfuge where the potential allies worked at cross-purposes—the object of the Government being to create conditions favorable to retaining office while the Liberals desired some greater prospect for attaining office in the future. Despite their interdependence, the party leaders were never able to reach an agreement on the vital issue of electoral reform, which would involve some possible sacrifice of their individual ends. The result was a process of mutual destruction which contributed to the fall of the Second Labour Government and opened the way for a Conservative bid for power.
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References
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4 These denials are spread throughout the public and parliamentary utterances of the period so often and so consistently that they assume a genuine air. A half century later Malcolm MacDonald, the former Prime Minister's son, still insists that he is “certain that there was no ‘bargain’ or ‘pact’ between the Labour and Liberal parties at that time.” Letter from MacDonald to the author, July 25, 1980. I wish to thank the Rt. Hon. Malcolm MacDonald for allowing me to use this quote and to cite passages from his father's papers.
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21 Hoare to Baldwin, April 28, 1930, Baldwin Papers, 52/267. During the course of their sittings Hoare reported to Neville Chamberlain that his colleagues were a “curious lot” and that “the powers that be must have taken names out of a hat. Linky [Lord Hugh Cecil] still rains letters upon me in favour of P.R. and Winston talks in apocalyptic phrases about the day of doom if we do not do a deal with the Liberals.” Hoare to Chamberlain, December 24, 1929, Chamberlain Paper, Birmingham University Library, NC 7/11/22/9. I am grateful to the university trustees for permission to use passages from the Chamberlain Papers and to Mr. B.S. Benedikz for his generous assistance in using them.
22 “The Second Labour Government, ” Templewood Papers, Cambridge University Library, VI:2. Also see Sinclair's notes in the Thurso Papers, Churchill College Library, 159/77. Virtually all extant printed materials for the conference can be found in the Thurso collection. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of Paul Paget, CVO, FAS, FRIBA, to use passages from the Templewood Papers.
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34 In a speech on March 27 at Epping, Churchill recognized “the key to the present political situation consisted in the reform of the electoral law” which he hoped would “enable the two non-Socialist parties to find a certain common measure of agreement.” But he thought it was “more than probable that some understanding had been reached behind the backs of Lord Ullswater's Conference” (The Times, March 28, 1930, p. 8Google Scholar).
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87 Diary, July 6, 1931, Chamberlain Papers, NC 2/22. These interchanges were effectively camoflauged by an attack that Lloyd George made “with astonishing venom and bitterness” on July 3 against Simon, who had recently defected to the Conservatives. “The Socialists rocked & rolled about with laughter and applause, ” Chamberlain recorded. “I thought it a sorry performance & wondered what the Socialists would have said if they had known that at the very moment they were applauding him L.G. was secretly negotiating with us!” N. Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain, ibid., NC 8/1/746.
88 Diaries, July 5, 1931, Bayford Papers, Conservative Central Office, Smith Square.
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