Scraping a Very Narrow Conservative Party Victory: A timeline from 1929

[EricArthurBlair]

Polling stations were open from 8 am to 8 pm on election day, 17 April 1931. Voting was reported to be fairly heavy. The first result declared was Salford North, where Ben Tillett was re-elected for Labour with an increased majority. The percentage votes for each party were (May 1929 general election):
Ben Tillett (Labour): 43.4 (44.8)
Conservative: 34.7 (38.9)
Liberal: 21.9 (16.3)
------------------------------------
Labour majority: 8.7 (5.9)
------------------------------------

As more results were declared overnight and the following day, Labour and Liberals gained scores of seats from the Conservatives, but it was not until the afternoon of 18 April, that Labour reached 308 seats and an overall majority in the House of Commons. When all the results had been declared, the number of seats for each party were as follows (May 1929 general election):
Labour: 318 (255)
Conservative: 161 (309)
Liberal: 129 (42)
Nationalist: 3 (3)
Empire Crusade: 1 (n/a)
Socialist Prohibition (SPP) : 1 (1)
Independents: 2 (4)
(Independent Labour: 1)
------------------------
Total: 615 (615)
----------------------
Labour had a majority of 21 over all others. But with the Speaker being a Conservative MP and with the SPP MP, their majority was 24.

I'm curious to see how MacDonald handles the Depression ITTL.

For starters, I hope to god that he appoints literally anybody but Philip Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer - IOTL austerity policies led directly to Labour's disastrous split, the formation of the National Govt. and Labour's subsequent wipeout at TTL's 1931 election.

Also, I'm curious what MacDonald's policy towards India will be ITTL. I personally hope that India will be granted dominion status in line with the recommendations of the Nehru Report, which would likely help keep India in Britain's sphere of influence post-independence.

Additionally, I look forward to see how Labour will handle Appeasement ITTL - while many in Labour are pacifists, they also include a substantial anti-fascist wing, which will likely push the leadership on the issue.

 

[TimTurner]

IOTL the Conservatives suffered in 1945 from them having been associated with the misery of the 1930s. Maybe things develop oppositely here.

 

[pipisme]

The percentage votes for each party in the general election were (May 1929 general election):
Labour: 39.6 (35.6)
Conservative: 29.5 (40.9)
Liberal: 25.8 (22,1)
Empire Free Trade Crusade: 3.6 (n/a)
Others: 1,5 (1,4)
-----------------
Total: 100.0
-----------------
Turnout 76.6% (78,4%).

The smallest number of Conservative MPs were elected since 1906. The Conservative percentage vote was the lowest since the general election of December 1832 to January 1833.

 

[pipisme]

The following Conservative government ministers were defeated in the general election:
Austen Chamberlain: Home Secretary - Birmingham West
Winston Churchill : Foreign Secretary - Epping
Alfred Duff Cooper: Air Secretary - Oldham
Walter Elliot: Scotland Secretary - Glasgow Kelvingrove
Bolton Eyres- Monsell: Government Chief Whip - Evesham
William Ormsby-Gore: Postmaster- General - Stafford
Arthur Steel-Maitland: Minister of Health - Birmingham Erdington
Sir Kingsley Wood: Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
Also defeated were the Duchess of Atholl in Kinross and West Perthshire, and Lady Nancy Astor in Plymouth Sutton.

 

[pipisme]

The Tories regained Bromley which they lost to the Liberals in a by-election in September 1930. They also gained Stretford because the Independent MP retired at the general election.

Ernest Taylor was re-elected in Paddington South for the British Empire Free Trade Crusade, but they won no more seats. Their only second places were in Kensington South, and Westminster St. George's. The Conervatives lost nine seats because the Empire Crusade intervened.

Labour had their highest number of MPs and their highest numerical and percentage votes. They gained seats which had not previously elected a Labour MP, among them Buckingham, Cambridgeshire, Colchester, Glasgow Central, Hackney North, Lewisham East, Northwich, Plymouth Sutton, Skipton, Winchester, and Woolwich West.

Among the new Labour MPs were Barbara Ayton-Gould, a member of the Labour National Executive Committee ( Northwich, James Chuter Ede (South Shields), Stafford Cripps (Woolwich West), Leah Manning (Islington East) John Wilmot (Lewisham East).

 

[Julius Vogel]

Interesting result for the Liberals - I get the feeling a lot of people with ambition were heading to Labour or the Conservatives from the mid 20s on, so the idea of the Liberals trebling their seats whilst the Cons halve theirs probably helps the Libs seem quite dynamic again

 

[pipisme]

The Liberals did significantly than they expected in the general election. They thought they might ene up with a hundred MP at the most. They had recovered most of the seats and votes they lost in the 1924 general election.

They were relieved that there would be a majority Labour government, rather than a minority government dependent on Liberal votes, like in 1924. Now the party will keep its indepenfence and not be blamed for the actions or failures of the incoming Labour government.

 

[Pangur]

The following Conservative government ministers were defeated in the general election:
Austen Chamberlain: Home Secretary - Birmingham West
Winston Churchill : Foreign Secretary - Epping
Alfred Duff Cooper: Air Secretary - Oldham
Walter Elliot: Scotland Secretary - Glasgow Kelvingrove
Bolton Eyres- Monsell: Government Chief Whip - Evesham
William Ormsby-Gore: Postmaster- General - Stafford
Arthur Steel-Maitland: Minister of Health - Birmingham Erdington
Sir Kingsley Wood: Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
Also defeated were the Duchess of Atholl in Kinross and West Perthshire, and Lady Nancy Astor in Plymouth Sutton.

Most immediate though is, "in this T/L is this the end of them politically?'

 

[lucon50]

Watched!

 

[pipisme]

Most immediate though is, "in this T/L is this the end of them politically?'

Duff Cooper, Elliot, and Wood were rising stars in the Conservative Party so would be likely to return to the House of Commons in a by-election or the next general election. Though Elliot would want to return in a Scottish seat. Ormsby-Gore was the son of 3rd Baron Harlech so he will go to the House of Lords when his father dies. Chamberlain would retire from British politics and chair the World Disarmament Conference. The others on the list might return to the House of Commons.

Among the new Liberal MPs were Lady Eleanor Acland, President of the Women's Liberal Federation, elected for Exeter, and her son, Richard, who won Barnstaple, Dingle Foot (Tiverton), Aline Mackinnon (Holderness), Frank Owen (Hereford), Alan Sainsbury, of the famous supermarket family (Sudbury), Edgar Wallace, the crime novelist and playwright (Blackpool).

Among the Liberal MPs returning to the Commons after an absence of several years were Sir Francis Dyke Acland, husband of Lady Eleanor, who won Hexham, Arthur Comyns Carr, who took Epping from Churchill, Elliott Dodds (Rochdale) Isaac Foot, father of Dingle (Bodmin), Harcourt Johnstone (Westbury), Walter Runciman (St. Ives) and Sir Herbert Samuel (Darwen).

 

[TimTurner]

Duff Cooper, Elliot, and Wood were rising stars in the Conservative Party so would be likely to return to the House of Commons in a by-election or the next general election. Though Elliot would want to return in a Scottish seat. Ormsby-Gore was the son of 3rd Baron Harlech so he will go to the House of Lords when his father dies. Chamberlain would retire from British politics and chair the World Disarmament Conference. The others on the list might return to the House of Commons.

Among the new Liberal MPs were Lady Eleanor Acland, President of the Women's Liberal Federation, elected for Exeter, and her son, Richard, who won Barnstaple, Dingle Foot (Tiverton), Aline Mackinnon (Holderness),
Frank Owen (Hereford), Alan Sainsbury, of the famous supermarket family (Sudbury), Edgar Wallace, the crime novelist and playwright (Blackpool).

Among the Liberal MPs returning to the Commons after an absence of several years were Sir Francis Dyke Acland, husband of Lady Eleanor, who won Hexham, Arthur Comyns Carr, who took Epping from Churchill, Elliott Dodds (Rochdale) Isaac Foot, father of Dingle (Bodmin), Harcourt Johnstone (Westbury), Walter Runciman (St. Ives) and Sir Herbert Samuel (Darwen).

Lady Eleanor Acland certainly hit the jackpot here...

 

[pipisme]

Stanley Baldwin resigned and Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister on 21 April 1931. MacDonald appointed his cabinet on 22 April, and other ministers on 23 to 25 April. The members of the cabinet were:
Prime Minister: James Ramsay MacDonald
Lord Chancellor: Lord Sankey
Lord President of the Council: Lord Parmoor
Lord Privy Seal: Philip Snowden
Chancellor of the Exchequer: William Graham
Foreign Secretary: Arthur Henderson
Home Secretary: John Clynes
First Lord of the Admiralty: Albert Victor Alexander
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Noel Buxton
Air Secretary: Lord Thomson
Colonial Secretary: Arthur Ponsonby
Dominions Secretary: James Thomas
President of Board of Education: Charles Trevelyan
Minister of Health: Arthur Greenwood
India Secretary: William Wedgwood Benn
Minister of Labour: Margaret Bondfield
Scotland Secretary: William Adamson
President of Board of Trade: Thomas Johnston
Minister of Transport: Hastings Lees-Smith
War Secretary: Thomas Shaw
First Commissioner of Works: George Lansbury.

 

[pipisme]

Ministers outside the cabinet were:
Attorney-General: Gilbert Mitchison KC
Solicitor-General: Stafford Cripps KC
Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster: Sir Oswald Mosley
Paymaster-General: Lord Arnold
Minister of Pensions: Frederick Roberts
Postmaster-General: Clement Attlee.
Mitchison and Cripps were given the customary knighthood awarded to government law officers.

Selected junior ministers:
Financial Secretary to the Treasury: Frederick Pethick-Lawrence
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Government Chief Whip): Thomas Kennedy
Under-Secretary Foreign Office: Hugh Dalton
Parliamentary Secretary Mines Department of Board of Trade: Emmanuel Shinwell.

The appointment of William Graham as Chancellor of the Exchequer instead of Philip Snowden was a surprise to political commentators. There was hostility between MacDonald and Snowden, who had a prostrate operation in March 1931 which kept him out of politics for seven weeks. (1) Though he stood as Labour candidate for Colne Valley in the general election and was re-elected.

Graham was 43 years old (born 29 July 1887), and Labour MP for Edinburgh Central since the 1918 general election. He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the 1924 Labour government, and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons from November 1924. He was an admirer of Snowden. (2)

(1) See his biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36181.

(2) See his biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/33508.

 

[pipisme]

After the heavy defeat of the Conservative Party in the general election, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail launched a vociferous Baldwin Must Go campaign. They regarded him as a crypto socialist and blamed him for the bad result for the Tories. In the days after parliament met on Tuesday 22 April 1931, after the general election, Baldwin consulted the Conservative shadow cabinet, backbench Conservative MPs, and Conservative Peers. On 29 April, he announced at a meeting of Conservative MPs his intention to resign as leader of the party when it had chosen a new leader.

The contenders for party leader were Leopold Amery, MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, Neville Chamberlain, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, and Sir Philip Cunlffe-Lister, MP for Hendon. In the 1929 to 1931 Conservative government they were Secretary of State for India, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and President of the Board of Trade respectively. Chamberlain was the eldest, born 18 March 1869, followed by Amery, born 22 November 1873, and Cunliffe-Lister, born 1 May 1884. In November 1924 he changed his name from Lloyd-Greame to Cunliffe-Liater to be able to inherit property from his wife's family.

Amery's supporters campaigned for him as the man who would re-invigorate the party, and restore its fortune. He was a passionate beliiever in Empire Free Trade and Imperial preference. Chamberlain, and to a lesser extent Cunliffe-Lister. were the candidates of the party establishment.

Amery had the support of 63 Conservative MP, Chamberlain of 52, and Cunliffe-Lister of 46. Amery's supporters were mostly backbench Conservative MPs, while Chamberlain was backed by most of the shadow cabinet and oarty whips. Chamberlain and Cunliffe-Lister withdrew in the interest of party unity, and Amery was acclaimed unanimously by Conservative MPs as party leader on 6 May 1931. (1) hSo he also became Leader of the Opposition. He appointed his two rivals to his shadow cabinet.

The next day Ernest Taylor, Empire Free Trade Crusade MP for Paddington South, joined the Conservative Party.

(1) Here is his entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Amery.

 

[lucon50]

Uh oh!

 

[sarahz]

After the heavy defeat of the Conservative Party in the general election, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail launched a vociferous Baldwin Must Go campaign. They regarded him as a crypto socialist and blamed him for the bad result for the Tories. In the days after parliament met on Tuesday 22 April 1931, after the general election, Baldwin consulted the Conservative shadow cabinet, backbench Conservative MPs, and Conservative Peers. On 29 April, he announced at a omeeting of Conservative MPs his intention to resign as leader of the party when it had chosen a new leader.

The contenders for party leader were Leopold Amery, MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, Neville Chamberlain, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, and Sir Philip Cunlffe-Lister, MP for Hendon. In the 1929 to 1931 Conservative government they were Secretary of State for India, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and President of the Board of Trade respectively. Chamberlain was the eldest, born 18 March 1869, followed by Amery, born 22 November 1873, and Cunliffe-Lister, born 1 May 1884. In November 1924 he changed his name from Lloyd-Greame to Cunliffe-Liater to be able to inherit property from his wife's family.

Amery's supporters campaigned for him as the man who would re-invigorate the party, and restore its fortune. He was a passionate beliiever in Empire Free Trade and Imperial preference. Chamberlain, and to a lesser extent Cunliffe-Lister. were the candidates of the party establishment.

Amery had the support of 63 Conservative MP, Chamberlain of 52, and Cunliffe-Lister of 46. Amery's supporters were mostly backbench Conservative MPs, while Chamberlain was backed by most of the shadow cabinet and oarty whips.
Chamberlain and Cunliffe-Lister withdrew in the interest of party unity, and Amery was acclaimed unanimously by Conservative MPs as party leader on 6 May 1931. (1) hSo he also became Leader of the Opposition. He appointed his two rivals to his shadow cabinet.

The next day Ernest Taylor, Empire Free Trade Crusade MP for Paddington South, joined the Conservative Party.

(1) Here is his entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Amery.

A right wing Conservative Leader and a Labour Chancellor who admires Snowden. If the Liberals cant profit from that then Harry Kane cant score a goal for Bayern Munich....

 

[lucon50]

Thankfully, it isn't Snowden though.

 

[raharris1973]

I'm curious to see how MacDonald handles the Depression ITTL.

For starters, I hope to god that he appoints literally anybody but Philip Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer - IOTL austerity policies led directly to Labour's disastrous split, the formation of the National Govt. and Labour's subsequent wipeout at TTL's 1931 election.

Also, I'm curious what MacDonald's policy towards India will be ITTL. I personally hope that India will be granted dominion status in line with the recommendations of the Nehru Report, which would likely help keep India in Britain's sphere of influence post-independence.

Additionally, I look forward to see how Labour will handle Appeasement ITTL - while many in Labour are pacifists, they also include a substantial anti-fascist wing, which will likely push the leadership on the issue.

Sir, you are not an old what-iffer who used to do what-ifs on usenet groups like soc.history.what-if or alt.history.what-if under the username "EmperorBlair" are you?

 

[EricArthurBlair]

Sir, you are not an old what-iffer who used to do what-ifs on usenet groups like soc.history.what-if or alt.history.what-if under the username "EmperorBlair" are you?

No, I am new to the site. I chose the name because I just happen to like George Orwell as an author.

 

[Garrison]

IOTL the Conservatives suffered in 1945 from them having been associated with the misery of the 1930s. Maybe things develop oppositely here.

Problem there is the kind of social change that people wanted was exactly the kind a very Socialist labour party was willing to deliver and the Conservatives weren't. They are going to be far more sympathetic to the plight of the working classes and might well embrace something akin to Roosevelt's New Deal public works programs.