Although some things were carried out well under the Conservatives, there were many missed opportunities and mistakes under the 4 prime ministers. I think that some of the prime ministers contributed more to the ‘wasted years’ than others, notably Eden, who made mistakes with both the Suez Crisis and the EDC. I also think that Britain missing out on the EEC and Europe is one of the main reasons why these years were wasted. Once it became clear that Britain’s role in the world was declining, and her Empire was changing to a Commonwealth, I think that the Conservatives should have seen that as the reason to lean more towards Europe. Although our relations with America did improve, and have later proved to be very important, missing out on Europe was a major mistake.
The work of Booth and Rowntree had for the first time highlighted that fact that people were not in poverty just because they were lazy. The majority of the cases were caused by unemployment, sickness, old age, large families and low wages. The Liberals knew now if they were going to have a strong country and keep control of the country they needed to address this. They used data collected during 1905-1909 to come up with the Liberal reforms. During 1906-1914 the Liberals made a huge progress in beginning to deal with poverty but the reforms did not make a big a difference as first thought during this time so they were not completely successful in dealing with the issue of poverty.
This informed liberals that the ‘welfare’ that the poor law provided, was not working. It could be said that this led to the introduction of reform acts in order to tackle the poverty felt by the young and the old. The Old Age Pensions Act was introduced in 1908 and provided the over 70’s with income to tackle their poverty. It was far more dignified than the provisions provided to the elderly prior to this as, unlike the poor law, it provided no shame to the people. One of the Acts passed to aid children was the Administrative Provision Act which appealed to the idea of National efficiency.
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.
Without this hallmark, ordinary people do not have a say in the way the country is run. In 1832 came the passing of the 1832 Reform Act (The Great Reform Act), which was the first reform of the system of Parliamentary representation since the 16th century. The 1832 Reform Act meant that only 1 in 7 men could vote, and this was restricted to the very wealthy, landowning class, meaning that only their views and opinions were expressed and represented in parliament. Because of this, the rich landowning classes stayed in power. However, because of the changes in
This is where the term austerity Britain came from, this meant that the country had a strong self-discipline and moral strictness with simple living due to the rationings and a lack of luxuries. Considering these circumstances you would think that British people would lose all hope and morale for their country but these sources may suggest otherwise. We call this morale “wartime collectivist spirit” or could also be known as the “Blitz Spirit” which will be highlighted within the sources. Source 1 looks like it agrees hugely in comparison to Source 2 and 3. Source 2 shows mixed emotions about their being a wartime spirit, which couldn’t be said about source 3 which seems very doom and gloom and doesn’t share any light that is obvious to the eye about wartime collectivist spirit.
How Liberal were the policies of the Tory party from 1822-1830? Some historians have argued that Liverpool’s government was very reactionary and made very few reforms. But they don’t consider, in particular, Liverpool’s alterations to the prison system and the Combination Acts, having said that the absence of a Liberal party makes it difficult to really characterise the policies introduced by the government in the context of the era. Our judgement is made more difficult by the conflicting motivations of some of the reforms, for example the passing of Catholic penal laws may’ve been liberal in effect but the motivation behind it was very much conservative. So I would have to say that the policies were mostly Tory throughout this period although as I’ve said, there are a number of mitigating factors which could hinder this judgement.
The movement was based around the six-point charter, which though was classed by many liberals as fair and democratic it can be argued that it was too radical for the time period 1836-58 thus being the reason as why Chartism failed. However in Source 6 Robert Ellis argues that though Chartism failed to achieve its primary aims, it united the working-class and produced the ability to of the working-class to “be organised on an unprecedented scale in support of a political programme. Source 6 further expresses how Chartism succeeded with producing “improvements in literacy and communication” strengthening the position of the working class people. Political dissatisfaction had built up amongst the working and middle class in Britain during the industrial revolution in the 19th Century. As a result of lack of political equality and social justice, in June 1840 the National Chartist Association was formed and the first stage of Chartism commenced.
However it can be seen that the governments power and authority could be the main reason as to why Chartism failed in short term to achieve it’s many aims. Chartism was the first national movement in Britain which the state feared would become a successful revolution. the chartists had a vast number of followers and supporters but their strength was nothing compared to that of the state. many of the chartist were from working class background and were illiterate and living in poverty. While the government has their constables and professional police which often consisted of the middle class.
Although I believe there was a genuine threat of revolution I do not believe that this on its own can be regarded as a major risk to the stability of the country and thus forced reform to be passed. Pre 1832 the political system was unequal for representation to population as large cities such as Manchester and Birmingham were less represented than small wealthy boroughs. The electoral system was also very corrupt with bribery. The government in pre 1832 consisted of very few men who were pro reform as this would have effected there places of power, the lack of mps who were pro reform made it very difficult for the lower classes to gain the vote which they believed they deserved. This is shown in document 3 of the wjec pack.