The Making of Modern British Politics

The third edition of this successful text has been revised to include a new chapter on the politics of the Second World War, and to reflect recent developments in research into the period.

• Third edition of this insightful survey of changes in British politics
• Now extended to cover the politics of the Second World War and the election of 1945
• Extensively revised in the light of recent research
• Looks at the Labour Party's evolution into a national rather than sectional party
• Includes updated suggestions for further reading

List of Tables viii

List of Illustrations x

Preface xi

Part One 1867–1900 1

1 Party and Participation 1867–1900 3

Voting and Non-voting 4

Electoral Practice and Malpractice 10

The Rise of the Party Activist 14

Party, Parliament and the ‘Independent Member’ 17

2 The Evolution of the Gladstonian Liberal Party 1867–1895 22

Liberalism, Reform and Religion 23

The Building Blocks of Liberalism 25

The Programme versus the Single Issue 30

1886: The Radicalization of the Party 35

3 The Conservative Revival 1874–1900 42

The Impact of Middle-class Conservatism 44

Organizing the Democracy 48

Tradition and Change 51

Salisbury and Liberal Unionism 54

The State and Social Reform 59

4 The Social Roots of Political Change in Late Victorian Britain 65

Trends and Issues 66

Rural Radicalism 70

Working-class Politics and Socialists 73

Women, Politics and Labour 78

Working-class Conservatism, Empire and Patriotism 80

The Lower Middle Class 86

Part Two 1895–1914 89

5 The Edwardian Crises 1895–1914 91

The Waning of Radicalism 91

Liberal Imperialism 96

‘National Efficiency’ and Tariff Reform 99

The Crisis of Conservatism 103

6 Edwardian Progressivism 107

Origins of the New Liberalism 107

The Politics of the Pact 1903–1914 115

Edwardian Labourism 123

The Workers and State Welfare 129

7 The Electoral Struggle 1906–1914 130

The Containment of Labour 131

The Franchise Factor 135

Regional Political Culture 138

The Unions, MacDonald and the Pact 1911–1914 141

Part Three 1914–1920s 147

8 The Impact of the Great War on British Politics 149

The Disintegration of the Progressive Alliance 1914–1916 151

Lloyd George and the Conservatives 1916–1918 153

Labour’s Change of Course 158

The Coupon Election of 1918 161

9 Patriotism, Ideology and the State in the Great War 165

Laissez-faire and Interventionism 166

Labour’s Socialist Commitment and the Liberal Inheritance 168

The Working Class, the State and Patriotism 171

Conservatism, Capitalism and the State 1914–1922 173

Part Four 1918–1945 179

10 The Elevation of Labour and the Restoration of Party Politics 1918–1931 181

The Fragmentation of the Coalition 181

The New Strategy 1922 183

Baldwin and Normality 1923 186

MacDonaldism and Socialism 188

The Rise and Fall of the Second Labour Government 194

11 Origins of the Conservative Electoral Hegemony 1918–1931 199

The Impact of the Electoral System 199

The Conservatives and the Constituencies 203

Labour’s Grass Roots 1918–1929 207

Women in Inter-war Politics 211

The General Strike and the Realignment of the Working Class 213

The Election of 1931 220

12 From the National Government to the Popular Front 1931–1939 222

The National Government and Liberal Toryism 222

The Threat from the British Union of Fascists 229

Labour, Socialism and Keynesianism 233

The Left, Rearmament and Public Opinion 235

The General Election of 1935 238

Labour and the Popular Front 1936–1939 240

13 The Politics of the ‘People’s War’ 1939–1945 243

The Churchill Coalition 243

Public Opinion and the Swing to the Left 247

Consensus Politics 249

The Labour Landslide of 1945 251

Conclusions 255

Notes 258

Guide to Further Reading 267

Index 283

"Is to be welcomed. This is a textbook of a superior sort as Pugh disavows the attempt to be a neutral assessor of the work of others and imposes his own interpretation upon the period. This leads to a clearer understanding of events." History Today - of the previous edition

"A commanding synthesis ... succeeds brilliantly in finding the right voice to explain what matters now." London Review of Books - of the previous edition

"Excellent book, by far the best of its kind on this period ... impressively lucid and consistent ... a remarkable book which will stimulate teachers as well as students for years to come." Society for the Study of Labour History Bulletin - of the previous edition

Martin Pugh is Research Professor in History at Liverpool John Moores University. His previous books include Electoral Reform in War and Peace (1978), The Tories and the People (1985), Women and the Women's Movement in Britain (1992) and The March of the Women: a revisionist analysis of the women's suffrage movement (2000). He is also the editor of Blackwell Publishers' Companion to Modern European History, 1871-1945 (1997). Since its first publication in 1982, The Making of Modern British Politics' has been widely acclaimed as the most sophisticated account of changes in British political history between the 1860s and the outbreak of the Second World War. For the third edition, the text has been extended to cover the politics of the Second World War and the election of 1945, following through to a more satisfying conclusion the changes of the last decades of the nineteenth century.

The book focuses on the problems of interpretation and analysis raised by the most recent work in the field. Several of the existing chapters have been revised in light of the latest research, particularly the material on Edwardian electoral politics and the high politics of 1918-1931. The new edition also incorporates current thinking on the Popular Front and Fascism, and looks at how the Labour Party evolved into a national rather than sectional party by recruiting Conservative voters and politicians into its ranks.