Women were another vulnerable group because they were always paid at a lower rate than men. There was no safety net for people who fell into poverty other than resorting to the ‘workhouse’ which had been established to deal with cases of extreme poverty in Trade unions had little power as the Taff Vale Incident of 1901 showed and Friendly Societies could only provide a limited amount of help. Attitudes to poverty in the early 20th century were quite unsympathetic many politicians from both the Liberal and Conservative party felt that poverty came from personal laziness. Both parties had an attitude of “laissez-faire” i.e. non interference from the government.
How successful was Edward VI in restoring royal authority in the period to 1470? Edward IV enjoyed successes and also failures in restoring royal authority in the period to 1470. Edward had some successes in dealing with over mighty subjects, for example, his marriage to Elisabeth Woodville shows that he was not controlled by an over powering Warwick. This was important as it showed both Warwick and the rest of the country that he was not controlled by Warwick and could make his own decisions. Another way that Edward IV proved that he was not a ‘puppet king’ as Henry VI was seen as was by removing Warwick’s brother, George Neville, as chancellor.
In 2010 backbenchers were threatening to rebel over tuition fees. This was enough to force concessions to be made so the rebellion wasn’t as large as expected. It could be said that they failed because the bill wasn’t defeated but in a way it was a success as changes were made. This shows that the image of being lobby fodder is being shaken off by the more outspoken MPs. It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament.
The death penalty was abolished in 1965 by the government who believed it would stop innocent people from being killed even though many people in Britain believed that it shouldn’t be abolished. After the abolition of the death penalty 70% of people in Britain still believed that murderers should be hung. This shows that the social attitudes did not change. A final issue which social attitudes did not change towards is Homosexuality. In the year 1967 The Sexual Offences Act was put in place meaning that people could no longer be arrested for being homosexual.
However, other factors should not be discounted as many factors led to Liberal Social Reforms introduction. The factors included are: Laissez-Faire Downfall, National Efficiency & National Security and Parliamentary Development .The Booth and Rowntrees reports highlighted to the Government that poverty was a larger national problem than once thought. Booths report established that in London just under a 3rd of people lived in poverty, while Rowntree‘s report supported the findings as York was in a similar state - Rowntree claimed many families could not afford necessities, therefore they were in poverty. The families in poverty would normally include either the young or the old, sometimes both. This informed liberals that the ‘welfare’ that the poor law provided, was not working.
The housing market also plummeted leading to negative equity, which the majority of the working class could not afford resulting in the repossession of their houses combined with the drastic increase in unemployment Britain was in a mess. However Major did have some success, he abolished poll tax, which was very popular among the public, he increased spending on the NHS and introduced transport subsides to keep travel fares low.
Places like Cornwall and Sussex lost the amount of MP’s as they were known as rotten boroughs (boroughs that sent too many MP’s to parliament compared to the size of their constituency and population) and industrial towns like Manchester gained more MP’s which is what they needed as they were growing in size due to new factories. However places such as pocket boroughs (where the landowner forced/bribed the workers into voting for them) still occurred as their was still public voting which allowed people to be intimidated into voting for a particular person. More problems that still
These laws proved to be highly unsuccessful and caused resentment towards Augustus, forcing him to revise them in AD 9 through the Lex Papia Poppaea. This amendment reduced penalties against unmarried and childless people, whilst increasing rewards for those married with children. Overall, Augustus’ social reforms were definitely not as successful as his political ones due to the unpopularity and resentment they created. Conclusively, it is evident that Augustus introduced many new political and social reforms and managed to create a whole new system of government through the Principate. Augustus was clearly more successful with his political reforms
Compassionate reasons where one of the underlying reasons many historians argue upon the realise of the report on poverty from booth and rowntree in their study of the English town York , a town not normally associated with extreme poverty they found 29% of the population were well below the poverty line. Another reason was the very real fear workers were discouraged by the poor conditions and governments and may later turn against the government and form mass strikes or in serious cases rebellion or join the communist groups within Britain. Political self interest was high on the liberal’s agenda many historians argue. The franchise was being extended to the average man slowly and the liberals realised the average man did not benefit much from the government’s approach to peoples life’s and with the rise of the labour party and other parties many historians argue that it was out of desire to be re-elected that the liberals slowly brought about this change in reform. They didn’t get a majority government in 1910 like they did in 1906 which led them to think that social reform was the way to gain votes.
This is a potential reason for the high turnover rate, as low-level employees are more likely to be transient. The results also showed that the majority of the sample was more dissatisfied, than satisfied with company operations. The qualitative data showed more negative responses (1 and 2) versus positive or middle ground responses. Employees feared losing their job and felt they were not being compensated fairly. Also, the majority of the employees surveyed did not enjoy their assigned shift nor did they feel they were given the proper tools to perform their jobs effectively.