Was the Conservative party essays

Was the Conservative party essays In the aftermath of the First World War British politics faced a seismic change in the new electoral system that the 1918 General Election represented. In truth the first genuinely universal election of MPs across the UK was not until this year - when the franchise was vastly, and far more thoroughly than say the 1867 Reform Act, extended; not only this, but for the first time women over the age of 30 were also allocated voting powers. What this effectively meant was that the working class were finally granted an electoral voice for the first time in British history. Thus, we might presume, the Labour Party - the voice of the progressive and self-proclaimed representatives of the workers - would seize power at the cost of the Conservatives - who many see as merely the voice of the landed gentry. In fact, this was not the case: not only did the Tories manage to survive the advent of class politics (much at the expense of the middle-class Liberal party), but it also came to dominat e the new political arena. In fact, bar a brief ten months during 1924, a Conservative Party leader was Prime Minister of the country or a Conservative majority sat in the House of Commons, or both, from 1918 until the Tories humiliation at the second post-war election of 1945. Thus we can easily deduce that the Conservative Party did indeed survive the advent of class politics. What we must thus consider is why this happened. Why did the party of the upper classes so persuade the working class vote so as to win (at least some of) their vote? In examining this we shall indeed see that a combination of factors attributed to this - good fortune and political skill on the part of the Conservative hierarchy together with the nature of the working class vote in the inter-war period. Once we have evaluated these three factors, we shall conclude that in truth not one single dynamic stands out as being of singular importance, but ra...