Conservatives anihilated in slump election 1931

[Derek Jackson]

WI the Conservative Party were in office in Britain when the 1930s depression started to take hold.

The POD I have in mind is actually goes back to 1911 or 1912. The Parliament Act (which limited the House of Lords to delaying rather than having a full veto power) also reduced the maximum Parliamentary term to 5 years (it had previously been 7).

WI that change had not happened, or maybe had been reversed by the 1918 coaltion.

The Conservative Party would have faced an election in 1931, possibly having been driven off the Gold standard, Certainly with massive unemployment.

I suspect a rather cautious Labour government is the most likely outcome but I think it is just possible that Lloyd George's Keynsian We can conquer unemployment might just have triumphed.

How different would Britain be?

Would Foriegn policy have been that different?

[Arachnid]

Extremely unlikely

1. The depression was bad in Britain but no where near as bad as elsewhere (USA and Germany)

2. Of all the parties the Conservatives had the strongest grassroots organisation meaning it was extremely unlikely to get destroyed.

3. While the Liberals were the destroyed by Labour because Labour stole all their votes the Conservatives don't have the same problem, there was no other centre-right party around.

[Dan1988]

Alternatively (if you want to put a Commonwealth focus on this) the question could also be asked: what if Mackenzie King, the PM at that time (a Liberal), defeated Richard Bennett (a Tory) in the 1931 Canadian election? How would King handle the fallout from the Depression? Also: would Tommy Douglas's idea of universal healthcare be adopted sooner?