A Tory government in 1929-31

[prime-minister]

Something I've been curious about for a while is what might have happened if Stanley Baldwin had secured enough seats in 1929 to return to government. It seems somewhat feasible given that the Conservatives won a plurality of the vote ahead of Labour.

Fundamentally, I have two questions specifically: could a Baldwin government have survived longer than the OTL Labour minority, and how would the outcome have changed? Would we have had a National Government that was mostly Tory like in reality, or would Labour or the Liberals have been stronger for being out of government as the Depression emerged?

Any thoughts are welcome.

 

[Cymraeg]

Something I've been curious about for a while is what might have happened if Stanley Baldwin had secured enough seats in 1929 to return to government. It seems somewhat feasible given that the Conservatives won a plurality of the vote ahead of Labour.

Fundamentally, I have two questions specifically: could a Baldwin government have survived longer than the OTL Labour minority, and how would the outcome have changed? Would we have had a National Government that was mostly Tory like in reality, or would Labour or the Liberals have been stronger for being out of government as the Depression emerged?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Hmmmm. Good question. Baldwin called the election because it had been 5 years since the last election and he really needed a new mandate. Problem was that his cabinet was regarded (correctly) as being old and exhausted. He ended up with 27 fewer seats than Labour and was unable to work out any kind of supply and confidence deal with Lloyd George and his Liberals.
Now, 1929 is the high point in the career of Ramsey MacDonald, a man who I roundly loathe as being an idealistic idiot. He was a pacifist (London Naval Treaty) and an economic idiot.
To get Baldwin back in power in 1929 is... tricky. Have MacDonald die? Have the General Strike of 1926 collapse ever faster, or not take place?
Ironically the best person to have dealt with the Great Depression in the UK is David Lloyd George, who was advised by Keynes and who would dropped the Gold Standard like a shot in 1929. In a way, the election of 1929 was the last chance for the Liberals to claw back some of the ground they'd lost.

 

[prime-minister]

I've created a sort of basis for the idea with different seat totals from OTL, assuming a vote shift of less than one per cent. In this scenario, it's still a hung Parliament, but the Tories remain the largest party.

Given that 308 seats were needed for a majority and Labour with Liberal support makes 321, a Tory government would still be a bit far-fetched, but in this scenario Lloyd George has barely improved on the Liberals' 1924 wipeout and Labour are behind in both the popular vote and Parliamentary seats, so Baldwin might be able to claim the moral authority to govern. (Plus, 15 of the 48 Liberals became National Liberals in OTL and I would say might feasibly back Baldwin over MacDonald.)

I think the most likely scenario in the Parliament following this is Baldwin trying to initiate tariffs and stirring up Labour and the Liberals to the point that they (possibly with by-election losses factoring in?) defeat the government in a motion of no confidence or otherwise force Baldwin to form a National Government.
If that's what happens, though, it begs the question of how a Tory party blamed for the economic crisis would have fared. I doubt it would have been routed as bad as Labour in OTL, but would it have split like Labour did in reality and would the National Government have more evenly split between its component parties?

 

[Cymraeg]

What did you use to generate that map?

 

[Techdread]

Thought this might be relevant.

 

[prime-minister]

What did you use to generate that map?

I basically used this basemap, Thande's map (at least I think it was his) of the OTL 1929 election, and went through some of the more marginal seats to work out places the Tories could feasibly win.

Thought this might be relevant.

Funny coincidence much? Their conclusions seem fairly feasible too, but I suspect if the King wouldn't flat out let MacDonald resign, I doubt he'd be different with Baldwin.