Lancashire and the New Liberalism

This book calls into question many of the conventional assumptions about British politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

P. F. Clarke (Author)

9780521035576, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 March 2007

488 pages
22.7 x 17 x 1.7 cm, 0.734 kg

Why was there a Liberal Government in Britain from 1905 until the First World War? And why was the Liberal party replaced by the Labour party so shortly afterwards? These are the kinds of problems which Dr Clarke examines in his study of the Liberal revival in Lancashire. The vote in north-west England was largely responsible for bringing the Liberal Government into power and for maintaining its position, but it also produced almost half the new Labour MP's in 1906. Thus any satisfactory interpretation of electoral history in the early twentieth century must account for what happened in Lancashire. This book calls into question many of the conventional assumptions about British politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Abbreviations
Part I. Introduction: 1. The politics of change
Part II. Formative Influences: 2. Manchester School to Tory Democracy
3. The Conservative Party at prayer
4. Cotton
Part III. The Terms of the Contest: 5. The pale of the Constitution
6. The politics of the street
Part IV. The Reconstitution of Liberal Lancashire: 7. C. P. Scott and Progressivism
8. The sinews of war
9. Men of light and leading
Part V. Fields of Recruitment: 10. Communal politics
11. The rise and fall of the Free Traders
12. Labour
Part VI. Going to the Country: 13. The core of the arguement
14. Vox populi
Part VII. Conclusion: 15 Edwardian Progressivism
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]