T HE IMPACT OF LABOUR / 1920-1924 THE BEGINNING OF MODERN BRITISH POLITICS MAURICE COWLING c.-- Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge University Lecturer in History Austen Chamberlain and Baldwin posing, at Baldwin's instigation, after Chamberlain had been told that he would not be in the go,·ernment Ill May 1923. CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS· 1971 I Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London N.W.1 CONTENTS American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y.10022 © Cambridge University Press 1971 Introduction: The character of high politics page r Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 73-127236 PART I The threat from Labour x 15 ) ISBN: 0 521 07969 l Printed in Great Britain I I The importance of Horatio Bottomley 45 at the University Press, Aberdeen I I I The conspiracies of Lord Robert Cecil 60 IV Lord Salisbury's connections 70 7f, / v The Liberal collapse 91_,) v I The Coalition dilemma 108 PART II VII The election kite of January 1922 131 VI I I The preservation of the Coalition 138 IX Withdrawal to Criccieth, March 1922 150 / x Unemployment and the Labour party 174 XI The disappointment of Austen Chamberlain ~ 181 XII The shunning of Lloyd George " 213 XIII The inadequacy of Bonar Law 237 ,,,. XIV The arrival of Mr Baldwin PART III xv Baldwin's need for a platform ;<. 275 XVI Salisbury's revolt 308 1x v II The defeat of Birkenhead 331 j XVIII The Liberal miscalculation 341 XIX The politics of the first Labour government x 359 xx Baldwin's triumph x 382 CONTENTS page ""'Conclusion: The significance of the political struggle ~P3 PREFACE 431 Appendix The core of this book is based on the letters and diaries written by 446 Bibliography politicians and preserved in the collections listed in the bibliography. No other material can bring us within comprehending distance 453 Notes of the working of the political system in the period under dis 555 cussion. Without the care taken by owners and others to preserve Index it and make it available, historians would be unable to move beyond the desiccated contentions of political science or the formal pieties of official history. The author therefore owes a central debt to the owners, custodians and archivists of these collections, and especially to Mr John MacCallum Scott for the loan of his father's diary, to Lords Ponsonby and Simon for lending their fathers' papers, to Lord Bridgeman for a copy of his father's diary, to Lady Davidson for access to her husband's papers, to Lord Salisbury, Mr Julian Amery, M.P. and Mr John Grigg for access to their fathers' papers and to Mrs Stephen Lloyd for kindness and hospitality in allowing access to the papers of her father, Neville Chamberlain, while they were in her possession. He is grateful also to owners of copy-right material who have given permission for it to be used and he apologises to any whom he has failed to approach. For their exertions in seeking, or facilitating, access to collections, he is indebted to Professor Douglas Johnson, Mr Michael Bates, Dr Anil Seal, Mr William Rees-Mogg, Mr Robert Rhodes James, Mr Robert Blake, Mr G.D. M. Block, Mr David Marquand, M.P., Mr Russell Lewis, Dr R. M. Hartwell, Sir Michael Fraser, Dom David Knowles, Mr Michael Wolff and Mr George Hutchinson. He is grateful to Mr A. J. P. Taylor for allowing him to see a draft typescript of his Beaverbrook and to Lord Rothermere for conversation which he hope will not seem ill-requited. He is grateful to Mr Andrew Winckler of Christ's College for checking references and reading proofs, and to Mr F. Lipsius of Peterhouse, Cambridge for checking references. He is grateful to Professor Vincent of Peterhouse and Bristol for commenting on parts of the typescript, to Mr Alistair Cooke for supplying a quotation from the Carson papers and to Mr C. P. Cook, Mr E. vu Vl PREFACE David and Professor J. Gallagher for advice about particular points. He owes a particular debt to Professor ~· R. Jones. of 'If you are good enough to afford me the opportunity I shall in the Norwich for reading the typescript and makmg searching future in a final article attempt to state in a series of generalities the points which may serve as a rallying-ground for the national party of the future ... criticisms at two stages. . The formation of such a party may easily be postponed. It may be post He owes a large debt to the staff of the Beaverbrook Libra.ry, poned too long. It may be called a National Party, a Constitutional Party and in particular to Miss Rosemary Brooks, not l~ast for domg or a People's Party. But even if it be postponed: by whatever name it the major part of the reading of the proofs. He is grateful to be called, all those who have criticized me, except those who belong to Mr A. E. B. Owen and Miss J. B. Shiel, an~ to the staffs of. ~he the Socialist party, will within five years - in office or in opposition - find Royal Archives, Cambridge University Library, the Bnt~sh themselves, as I shall, among the roll of its members.' M seum the Public Record Office, The Spectator, the Scottish Birkenhead writing in Weeldy Dispatch, January 25 1920 Pu~lic Record Office, the House of Lo:ds Record .Office, the National Library of Scotland, the India Office Li~rary: the 'The other man - "FE" - is disreputable and has been hitherto un National Register of Archives, the. B.odleian and the L1?ranes of friendly to your government. I do not imagine he has got many political principles and most of what he has got are wrong ... What ... we have Churchill College, Cambridge, Tnmty College, Cam?nd~e: The to consider is what effect the quasi-public reception of him may have Times, the London School of Economics and the Umvers1ties of amongst the leaders of thought in the democracy. They are panting after Newcastle and Sheffield. . ideals which they are afraid may be slipping from them. They have no He is indebted to Mrs E. D. Beebe, Mrs 0. G. Page, Miss sympathy whatever with the hard-shelled defence of the Haves against ·ss E D Box and others for typing various parts of the the Have-Nots. I think FE - without ideals and with his crude attach An n P arr, M k' h 1 · · ment to the interests of wealth - would lose us more than Austen [Cham drafts of the book, and to Mr E. E. Reynolds for ma mg t e berlain] would gain us.' index. d F 11 f Salisbury to Baldwin, January 26 1924, in protest against He owes a continuing debt to the Master. an . e ows o Birkenhead and Austen Chamberlain being asked to join the Peterhouse for providing conditions in which historical work can Conservative Shadow Cabinet be done. '"By the way", Mr Wickham Steed interjected, "how do you account for Maurice Cowling November I970 the curious circumstance that the word 'Socialism' has now become a scarecrow in British politics. Thirty years ago people in England talked of 'Socialism' without half the horror shown or affected now." "There are several reasons but the main, the real reason", said the Premier, "is because the older parties and some of the sections of the community which support them fear the moral fervour of the Labour party. They cannot match it, and they feel in their bones that when a party has an ideal and is devoted to it, it gathers a momentum that makes it dangerous to older and less vital organizations.'' ' MacDonald in interview with Wickham Steed, Manchester Guardian, October 7 1924 Vlll IX INTRODUCTION: THE CHARACTER OF HIGH POLITICS Between 1920 and 1924 the Conservative party made three long- 1 term decisions. The first was to remove Lloyd George from office. The second was to take up the role of 'defender of the social order'. The third was to make Labour the chief party of opposition. These decisions were attempts to contain the upheaval caused by the Labour party's arrival as a major force and to gain whatever advantage could be gained from it. They were deliberately made and strongly contested and were the cause of continuous dispute between the leaders. Their outcome, and the consequence of the general election of 1924, was that for the next phase of political activity Baldwin wore the mantle Lloyd George had worn in his last two years of office as leader of resistance to 'Socialism'. I 'Resistance to Socialism' first became a possible programme when Labour won the Spen Valley by-election in January 1920. In this story Spen Valley was crucial. From S en Valley o~ds, the L!_bour arty wauhe major_ lem. W ether by outbidding it, by detaching some Labour leaders from it or by rallying all forces against it, the attemptJo_deal with_it_~a.s. ..t he__c_entI:aLfact in' political calculation in the years that followed. This was true of the Conservatives who admired Lloyd George. It was true of those who disliked him. It was true of the Conservatives who destroyed his Coalition. It was true of the Asquithean Liberals whom his Coalition had destroyed. Salisbury wanted to make the Conserva- ' tive party the centre of resistance by detaching it from Lloyd George. Birkenhead, Austen Chamberlain and at times Churchill wanted to submerge it in a Centre party of resistance under his leadership. Lord Robert Cecil wanted a Centre party to ignore the Conservative Right, embrace the Asquitheans and the 'respec table' Labour leaders and avoid Lloyd George. Mond, Fisher and Hilton Young wanted resistance to be led by a progressive Liberal party with Lloyd George at its head. Gladstone, Cowdray and Maclean wanted much the same under Viscount Grey. At some points Rothermere wanted a Liberal-based Centre party under Lloyd George, Grey, Maclean or McKenna. At others he wanted it to be led by Derby, Birkenhead or Austen Chamberlain. THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION Just as these Liberals and Conservatives sought roles as 'Socialism'. Baldwin was opposed to 'Socialism'. So was Salisbury. So were all the Conservative enemies of Lloyd George, all his defenders against Socialism, so in the Liberal and Labour parties others sought scope for futures as leaders of progress against Conservative supporters and all the advocates of a Centre party. Conservative reaction. Despite instincts which were conservative About the damage it would do and the danger it would bring, if not in the post-war context, this is what Asquith wanted to do with resisted, there was agreement. But differences about method were the Liberal party. In Thomas's, Clynes's and Snowden's calcula inseparable from disputes about persons which centred around tions, Lloyd George figured as a possible bridge between con Birkenhead and Lloyd George on the one hand and first Salisbury ventional Radicalism and a Centre party alliance to which Liberals and then Baldwin on the other. In this respect Baldwin was the and radical Conservatives could adhere. Haldane hoped for some beneficiary of the position established by Salisbury between 1920 thing of the kind with prominence for himself. So in some moods and 1922 when Lloyd George's willingness to resist Labour did did Grey provided Lloyd George was not involved. In this they not stop criticisms of the justification he offered for resistance. were distinguished from MacDonald whose object, from his Before the fall of the Coalition these involved rejection of Birken election as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1922, head's idea that 'resistance to Labour' was its raison d'etre. When was to make Labour the only party of progress. MacDonald's it fell, one thing that was thought to have fallen with it was the willingness to take office in 1924 once the Liberal party had decided idea that 'Labour' was 'the common foe'. Between 1922 and 1924 that he should do so did not reduce his desire to supersede it. the chief concern of the Conservative leaders was to find something The election of 1924 demolished the Liberal party and destroyed to say which was not as bare. Until the election of 1924 it was not all hope of a Centre party. It established that there would be one certain that 'resistance' would be successful electorally, that ' party of change and one of resistance and that the Conservative success was possible under Conservative leadership or that the party would for the moment be the party of resistance. Baldwin, accommodating style of resistance established on the fall of the Bridgeman, Salisbury, Amery, Wood, Hoare, Joynson-Hicks Coalition could survive. The central theme of this book will be and Neville Chamberlain succeeded where nearly all other leading the process by which it was established that it could. politicians failed. These failures should not conceal the fact that from the Spen Valley by-election to the day on which the election In following this process we shall concentrate on the high politics of the politicians who mattered. Back-benchers and party opinion results were declared in October 1924, there was something will appear off-stage as malignant or beneficent forces with un resembling equality of opportunity for all the groups concerned. One mythology, invented by Lloyd George and Birkenhead, known natures and unpredictable wills. Civil servants will hardly imp1ied that the overthrow of the Coalition in October 1922 and appear at all except Thomas Jones as speech-writer, Hankey and Warren Fisher as wheel-oilers and others as possible Labour resistance to its revival involved replacing the modern government of an industrial nation by a recalcitrant group of reactionary Die ministers in 1924. Issues of substance, except about the party Hards.-Another, invented by Baldwin and his followers, was that system, will be considered so far as solutions, or failure to provide their task was to prevent the escalation of class conflict promised solutions, affected the standing of the governments or politicians by the personal immorality, opportunist cynicism and aggressive concerned. Europe, Russia, Ireland, India and the Empire will be determination to do down the poor which were alleged to be the treated in the way politicians treated them - as incidents in the salient features of Coalition politics. Both were half-truths. The history of what was taken to be the central domestic problem. This procedure will be followed because the first context in struggle which occurred in the Conservative party between 1920 and 1924 was a struggle about method rather than about policy. which high politics was played was the context in which politicians It was a struggle to decide what to say, and what tone to say it in, reacted to one another. The political system consisted of fifty or in attempting to construct a broad-based body of resistance to sixty politicians in conscious tension with one another whose 2 3 - -- -- ~ ~----- THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION accepted authority constituted political leadership. In this context predominating preoccupation of politicians at the top was the significance arose from mutual recognition; not from office, but moral and mental vacuum they believed had been established by from a distinction between politicians, inside parliament and the destruction of the pre-war landmarks, by the arrival of the -l outside, whose actions were thought reciprocally important and Labour party. ~nd by th~ newness and ignorance of the new I those whose actions were not. It was from these politicians that electorate. Political rhetoric was an attempt to provide new land almost all initiative came. The language they used, the images they marks for the electorate. Political manoeuvre was designed to formed, the myths they left had a profound effect on the objectives ensure that the right people provided them. The essence of the other politicians assumed could be achieved through the political politics of these years was a struggle to decide which rhetoric to use and which group was to use it in establishing the Labour party system. This procedure has been adopted, secondly, because it is on the one hand or a body of resistance to it on the other. There necessary to understand what the ruling groups were doing before were as many nostrums as there were political groups. It was the more general questions can be answered. A study of the impact of resolution of the conflicts between them which accounts for the politicians on British public opinion would be an important time that elapsed between the first unfolding of the Labour extension of this book, but it is not what it is about. However problem in 1920 and the establishment of the Labour/Con desirable it may be to understand the Labour and Conservative servative polarisation in 1924. movements as aspects of total social history, an essential pre The fourth reason for adopting this procedure is that the liminary is to understand the ignorance and eccentricity from 'vacuum' of which politicians were conscious gave them a freedom which they were led. It was not because they were typical of the they had not felt before. In this sense their actions were construc English people that the leaders were in a position to lead, though tive: they were trying not merely to say what electors wanted to most of them, once in power, thought or pretended that they were. hear but to make electors want them to say what they wanted to They were there because they had made their way to the top and say in the first place. Rhetoric was a form of exemplary utterance, used the opportunities this gave to say whatever they thought it an attempt at constructive teaching, an effort to persuade the new suitable to say. They talked, both publicly and one to another, electorate to enter the thought-world inhabited by existing about public opinion as a factor by which they should be guided: politicians. It was an attempt to secure acquiescence through words, in some respects their words and actions were affected by what a claim on the part of politicians who demanded it to speak for the they took it to be. But in these years there was more difficulty than people and persuade them that they had the keys of whatever usual in knowing what it was and almost insuperable difficulty in kingdom they thought it desirable to enter. Which kingdom they knowing what the electoral effects would be when a predominantly claimed to be entering varied with the tactical occasion. Which new electorate was faced with a choice between two Liberal intention they announced depended on calculation of the con parties, Labour in a strength which was in itself new and a sequences. Out of all the moods the electorate could be persuaded Conservative party which constantly promised to be as divided to feel, the choice made by each politician on each occasion was as the Liberal party. In these circumstances, since they were affected by the choice made by his rivals as all fought for footholds playing in the dark, politicians either made up their tunes as they in the patriotic, war-weary, peace-loving, moral, decent, idealistic, went along or replayed the tunes they had learnt before the lights class-conscious, resentful public of their imaginations. This method of proceeding has been adopted, finally, because went out in 1914. We shall proceed in this way, thirdly, because it is the only way it is necessary to understand the details of political manoeuvre in to understand the exact nature of the responsibility of which order to highlight the relationship between situational necessity politicians were conscious when they exercised power. High and the intentions of politicians. In this respect one has to convey politics was primarily a matter of rhetoric and manoeuvre. The the involvement in the compulsions and uncertainties of the system 5 4 THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION which was characteristic of the whole of a politician's public life. encouraging the electorate to enter into the high places of power. / For this purpose biography is almost always misleading. Its What they wanted the electorate to want was not participation but refraction is partial in relation to the system. It abstracts a man vicarious satisfaction at the leadership of the politicians who whose public action should not be abstracted. It implies linear operated the system or claimed the right to operate it in the future. connections between one situation and the next. In fact connections This meant that, as the franchise was extended, there was not were not linear. The system was a circular relationship: a shift in only increasing need to catch hold of working-class opinion where one element changed the position of all others in relation to the that differed, or could be made to differ, from the opinions of rest. The reactions of politicians were developed in full awareness other classes, but also an increasing chance to do the same with all of the relationship and in conscious knowledge of the need to other sorts of opinion, including agrarian, industrial, bourgeois, , move whenever it moved. Without understanding the perpetual anglican, nonconformist, celtic and anti-working-class opinion nature of these motions, one can convey neither the powerlessness where these promised to be helpful. From 1832, and increasingly nor the impact of individual politicians nor understand the extent after 1867 and 1884, all these factors operated, often in the mind to which they were moved by antipathy towards their rivals. of the same politicians. In one respect, however, the polarisation Antipathy, self-interest and mutual contempt were the strongest of rhetoric did not produce a polarisation of action: social in levers of action, the most powerful motives in conflict, and they equality was preserved by collusive collaboration to make rhetoric were so because no one knew what the outcome of conflict would not action the centre of dispute. This was why 'conflict' was be. It was the fact that they knew that they were fighting for an 'synthetic'. This was why parliamentary politics were 'ambiguous'. unknown future which explains the heat of the politics we are The most important political leaders did not occupy small discussing and justifies the weight given to factors which politicians patches of rhetorical ground: they 'recognised the force' of all in retrospect prefer to forget. This would be true of any historical effective opinions and batted on all sides of whatever wicket they period. I twas particularly true when the future was as open, hope and chose to make their own. This was so in general. It was so where fear as strong and the situation as new as the one we are discussing. relations between the classes were concerned. Even where the / The question we have to ask is whether the procedures we have language was democratic, as with Bright, Joseph Chamberlain , adopted are helpful in understanding the history of the Labour and Lloyd George, there was no expectation that the masses party which claimed to be more democratic than the parties it was could dominate the classes and no real commitment to make them ~ attempting to replace. To this our answer is that they are, that in do so. Parliament was an arena for conflict between politicians from these years the Labour leaders committed themselves to the politics different classes. But politicians were leaders, not followers: they they found established and that in all important respects the politics found in parliament a terminal beyond which conflict would not of 1920/24 were continuous with the politics of the previous ninety ride. In practice conflict divided parliamentary politicians far less years. than consciousness of the power of parliament united them. The The salient feature of the political system since 1832 was not social ambiguity of parliamentary Radicalism, agreement about the attempt of popular feeling to make itself felt in parliament but the desirability of parliamentary government and the openness of the attempts of parliamentary politicians to find ways of securing the party situation in a parliament of patchwork groups and support from extra-parliamentary opinion. In this respect the opinions put controlled, large-scale, predictable social change out Reform Bill of 1832 introduced only a new factor into calculation. of the question. The need to manipulate the electorate instead of influencing it , From this point of view party must be seen as protecting the 1 was increased by subsequent extensions of the franchise. But the classes by persuading the masses to support the parliamentary parliamentary politicians who managed the system after 1832, conflict through which inequality was sustained. As social institu- 1867, 1884 or 1918 had as little intention as their predecessors of . tions or cultural landmarks, parties embodied the will to preserve 6 7 THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION the virtues and inequalities of the landed and industrial hierarchies as crusaders or philosophers. In a curious conjunction of myth to which they were attached. In this respect they changed slowly. and fantasy it seemed almost to be suggested that they were the In parliament, and among the political leaders, the reality was not unacknowledged poets of the time. only continuity but also the possibility of disrupting it. In parlia This was true not just of democratic, liberal or progressive mentary terms party was subject to continuous review and the politicians but of all. It was true of attempts to attract sympathy continuous possibility of disruption. In 1846, 1886, 1918, 1922 not just from working-class interests but from all interests. It and 1931 major reviews were carried through in conditions of applied to any use any politician made of whatever was available heat and anger. At almost all other times the possibility of dis in the political spectrum, which was a rag-bag of opinions and ruption on the scale which occurred on these occasions was a major feelings existing in the hearts of back-benchers or the minds of stimulator of events and a major creator of expectations among electors and explored according to necessity or instinctive prefer those who expected new roles for themselves in the process of ence. disruption. The idea of a Centre party, of Tory Democracy, of Instinctive preference is a way of describing belief, but in asking Liberal Unionism, of Liberal Imperialism, of a radicalism of the whether politicians believed the opinions they explored, one is Left or a Die Hard party of the Right, of Lowe, Goschen, Harcourt, reaching for the limits of explanation. Opinions were believed Northcote, Granville, Spencer, Carson, Birkenhead, both Chur without being thought suitable for expression: situations brought chills, two Devonshires, two Derbys, two Greys, two Chamberlains, forth opinions which politicians did not previously know they two Halifaxes and innumerable others as Prime Minister suggested had believed. Accumulation of material will not tell us whether repetitions of what Disraeli had done in 1846 or the Peelites conservative leaders believed there was a threat to the social order thereafter, even when they came to nothing. It was the tension in 1867, 1885, 1910 or 1921. It will not tell us in what sense Bright, between existing and possible party alignments which gave Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain or Lloyd George believed in the alternative leaders the chance to identify their futures with un attacks Conservatives may have believed they were making. explored possibilities, gave every major politician the ?pportuni~y Belief in these, and in all other cases, must be imputed not to an to exercise power without office and enabled figures like Baldwm affirmation of the heart, but to public conduct, the tip of an iceberg and Campbell-Bannerman - both possible Speakers - to reach we assume emerged from real humanity by courses too random positions neither could expect until the hierarchy of d~minant and obscure to yield to the historical conventions. merit had been broken. It is this that makes context, tension and The study of politics at the top is, therefore, not a simple total situation central if major decisions are to be understood. matter. One is dealing with a problematical, high-level activity The centre of tension was continuous theorising about the next where the meaning of the material is not self-evident. At the core thing politicians claimed to wish to do with party, government or of each politician there was temperament which impregnated the constitution. Party politics issued in this sense in political everything he did. That, however, was the chief continuity: the theory, a rhetorical persuasion to adopt the language and expecta manifestations of temperament cannot be deduced from it. Speech tions of the politician who used it, a succession of affirmations was often designed to conceal: there was little correlation be designed to sound resonantly in the ears of whatever audience was tween what politicians said and the objective world about which being addressed. These resonances, whether imitations of great they said it. At every point a politician can be found 'not wanting' social purposes or instruments of politicians on the make, bore office when it was clear to everyone else that he did. Almost every little relation to politics as politicians experienced them or to life year produced a 'political crisis', a 'new situation' or a 'conflict of as electors led it. Politics was conceived as touching the hem of the principle fundamental to the future of the country'. But not garment of Truth. It was an area of Right and illuminated by every 'new situation' was new nor every 'crisis' critical. Nor were Faith. Politicians, where not merely entertainers, were presented many 'conflicts of principle' fundamental to the future of the 8 9 THE IMPACT OF LABOUR INTRODUCTION country. The claim that they were shows not that nonsense was this is how the Labour leaders saw themselves. Since they had being talked but that there was a well-understood public language no social distance to protect them, they had, more perhaps than in which 'crisis', 'principle' and 'novelty' were conventional other political leaders, to reflect the wishes of their followers. instruments for establishing positions in the monastic, or rotarian, Since, like Joseph Chamberlain, their power rested on the elector world we are discussing. ate far more than on parliamentary performance, they had to The world of high politics was not, of course, entirely monastic represent its discontents. But even when they said the opposite, or rotarian. But there were two reasons why it was untypical. In they assumed that the political and social system could not be the first place, it was self-perpetuating. Secondly, changes in the overturned and that it was impossible to establish a hegemony of social structure were not readily reflected in the character of the the poor over the rich. Not only Fabianism but the whole thought political power. Until 1916 the original 'workshop of the world' world of the Labour party, including the Labour Left, testified, \ was governed by country gentlemen, dukes' relatives, rentiers, however wrongly, to the solidity of the structure and the pervasive literary Radicals, educated intellectuals and professional politicians ness of the conceptions that were the objects of attack. The ! with occasional, and on the whole unwelcome, irruptions from Labour party might, as a consequence, have remained a party of Rochdale or Birmingham armed with monocle, orchid or stuffed propaganda or become a party of revolution. The leaders chose shirt to preserve the necessary distance. The poor had no place in instead to aim at parliamentary success when it became possible government. With rare exceptions whelk-stalls figured little in the after 1919, to convince themselves that the Labour party consisted experience of leading politicians whose function in relation to the of 'sober and moderate'1 people, and to use the tactical situation public is best understood as something between corporate of I924 to show that they understood more than the distress of monarch, witch-doctor and bard. Incantations varied according coal, steel and cotton and the unappeasable resentments which to fashion and taste: they were made cynically or seriously the poor could be made to feel against the rich. according to temperament and education. They were made in the shadow of the fact that the involvement they encouraged electors This book, then, has been written in self-imposed limitation. It to feel was negligible and that the reality they protected was a assumes that the crude picture politicians had of the electorate method of proceeding with the nation's business. was a significant factor in determining their reaction to the prob This is to say not that government by businessmen, trades lems it presented. It displays the connection between the guesses unionists or anyone else would have been better than government they made about its nature and the approaches they made to it. by professional politicians, but that businessmen, trades unionists But it discusses neither the validity of the views they took of it and anyone else who exercised power adopted the conventions of nor the impact it felt as they faced up to the problems presented the system, that these conventions are intelligible only from by its overwhelmingly working-class composition. Back-bench within and that the contradiction between words and deeds, with opinion, party feeling, the decisions of civil servants, the prefer which much innocent amusement can be had, will only be resolved ences of electors, the opinions of newspapers and the objective by realising that the central political achievement was not represent movements of social power all contribute to understanding. But ation but rhetoric - the continuous process by which politicians the key lies in the minds of the politicians who exercised ostensible created personalities for themselves in order to claim the right to power and in the relationship they envisaged with the society they play a part in reducing political problems to a form suitable for wished to rule. In this book we posit the existence of a network of governmental decision. plebiscitary demagogues whose chief way of understanding their Now the point in interpreting the political system in this way impact was by understanding the reaction of other members of it is to show how parliamentary politicians conceived their function, and whose chief purpose was to jostle each other as they picked and the reason for putting the Labour party in this context is that their way through the limitations imposed by all these forces to a IO II