page_title: Interwar Britain
section_title: Conservative control
hierarchical_section_title: Interwar Britain / Politics of 1920s / Conservative control
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Stanley Baldwin&#32;(1867&#8211;1947)
context_page_description: Interwar Britain was a period of peace and relative economic stagnation. In politics the Liberal Party collapsed and the Labour Party became the main challenger to the dominant Conservative Party throughout the period. The Great Depression affected Britain less severely economically and politically than other major nations, although there were severe pockets of long-term unemployment and hardship, especially in mining districts and in Scotland and North West England.
  Historian Arthur Marwick sees a radical transformation of British society resulting from the Great War, a deluge that swept away many old attitudes and brought in a more egalitarian society. He sees the famous literary pessimism of the 1920s as misplaced, arguing there were major positive long-term consequences of the war to British society. He points to an energised self-consciousness among workers that quickly built up the Labour Party, the coming of partial women's suffrage, and an acceleration of social reform and state control of the economy.
context_section_description: The Lloyd George ministry fell apart in 1922, and Bonar Law became prime minister of a Conservative government. In May 1923 Bonar Law resigned because of ill health and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin, as leader of the Conservative Party (1923–37) and as Prime Minister (in 1923–24, 1924–29 and 1935–37), dominated British politics. His mixture of strong social reforms and steady government proved a powerful election combination, with the result that the Conservatives governed Britain either by themselves or as the leading component of the National Government. In the general election of 1935 Baldwin's was the last government to win over 50% of the vote. Baldwin's political strategy was to polarise the electorate so that voters would choose between the Conservatives on the right and the Labour Party on the left, squeezing out the Liberals in the middle. The polarisation did take place and while the Liberals remained active under Lloyd George, they won few seats. Baldwin's reputation soared in the 1920s and 1930s, but crashed after 1940 as he was blamed for the appeasement policies toward Germany, and as Churchill was made the Conservative icon by his admirers. Since the 1970s Baldwin's reputation has recovered somewhat.
  Having won an election just the year before, Baldwin's Conservative party had a comfortable majority in the Commons and could have waited another four years, but the government was concerned. Baldwin felt the need to receive a new mandate from the people. Oxford historian (and Conservative MP) J.A.R. Marriott depicts the gloomy national mood: 
  The times were still out of joint. Mr. Baldwin had indeed succeeded in negotiating (January 1923) a settlement of the British debt to the United States, but on terms which involved an annual payment of £34 million, at the existing rate of exchange. The French remained in the Ruhr. Peace had not yet been made with Turkey; unemployment was a standing menace to national recovery; there was continued unrest among the wage-earners, and a significant strike among farm labourers in Norfolk. Confronted by these difficulties, convinced that economic conditions in England called for a drastic change in fiscal policy, and urged thereto by the Imperial Conference of 1928, Mr. Baldwin decided to ask the country for a mandate for Preference and Protection.
  The result however backfired on Baldwin, who lost a host of seats to Labour and the Liberals. For the first time in history, Labour formed a government. However, in 1924 Baldwin and the Conservatives returned with a large majority. Ross McKibbin finds that the political culture of the interwar period was built around an anti-socialist middle class, supported by the Conservative leaders, especially Baldwin.
caption: Stanley Baldwin was Conservative Prime Minister between 1923–1924, 1924–1929 and 1935–1937.
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