Stanley Baldwin's Successful Political Gamble: A TL from 1923

pipisme

When all the results had been declared on 8 December 1923 for the general election two days previously, the Conservative Party had 310 seats in the House of Commons and therefore a majority of five seats over all other parties and Independents. The number of seats won by each party and Independents were as follows [November 1922 general election]
Conservative: 310 [344]
Labour: 169 [142]
Liberal : 128 [Liberal 62, National Liberal 53]
Nationalist: 3 [3]
Independent Liberal 1: [-]
Others: 4 [11]
----------------
Total: 615 [615]
----------------

The POD is that the Tories did better and Labour and Liberals did worse in the general election than in OTL. The Tories are up by 52 seats, Labour are down by 22 seats and the Liberals down by 30 seats.

The percentage votes obtained by each party and others were as follows [November 1922 general election]
Conservative: 38.3 [38.5]
Labour: 30.5 [29.7]
Liberal: 29.6 [Liberal: 18.9, National Liberal: 9.4%]
Others: 1.6 [3.5]
--------------------
Total: 100.00 [100.00]
---------------------
The turnout was 73.6% [73.0%]
In OTL the turnout for the 1923 general election was 71.1%. In this TL Conservative voters who abstained in OTL voted Conservative in this TL. The increase in turnout was higher in marginal seats.

Walter Elliot [Lanark] and Harold Macmillan [Stockton-on-Tees] were two Conservative candidates who were elected in this TL, but not in OTL. Elliot was re-elected in Lanark and Macmillan gained Stockton from the Liberals.

I hope people read and like this TL, and comment on it.
 
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Derwit

I like the idea. I've always thought that Baldwin unfairly gets overlooked by alt history, especially as and butterflies that flutter from changes in British politics iduring the 1920's and early 1930's have such potentially interesting effects. Baldwin himself also deserves more attention as one of the giants of British politics at the time.
 

pipisme

Many Tories were surprised that they had won the general election, although with an overall majority of six. Not five as stated in my previous post because the Speaker was a Liberal MP. Baldwin's position was strengthened against those cabinet ministers who were opposed to his calling an election. Although their percentage vote fell from 38.5% to 38.3% their numerical vote increased because of the increase in turnout. Compared with the previous general the Conservative Party gained six seats from Labour, 29 seats from Liberal, three seats from Independent Conservatives, one seat from Communist and one seat from Independent Liberal, making a total of 40 gains. Although the Independent Conservatives took the Conservative Whip. The Conservative Party lost 26 seats to Labour and 48 seats to Liberal, making a total of 74 losses. Therefore their net loss was 34 seats.

The Labour Party was reasonably satisfied with the result. They had increased their seats and their numerical and percentage votes. They did not realistically expect to climb into first place and they consolidated their second place position over the Liberals. They gained 26 seats from the Tories, 18 seats from Liberal, one seat from a Constitutionalist and one seat from an Independent, making a total of 46 seats gained. They lost six seats to the Conservatives and 13 to the Liberals. making a total loss of 19 seats. Therefore their net gain was 27 seats.

The Liberal Party was disappointed with the result. True they had increased their seats and numerical and percentage votes. But they had gained only thirteen seats compared with the combined Liberal and National Liberal total in the previous general election, and were still in third place behind Labour.
 

pipisme

The Liberal Party gained 13 seats from Labour, 48 from Conservative and one from Independent Labour, making 62 seats gained. They lost 29 seats to Conservative, 18 to Labour, one seat to Christian Pacifist and one seat to Independent Liberal, making a total of 49 seats lost. Of the Liberal gains from Conservative, only 18 were in contests with a Labour candidate, and of the Liberal gains from Labour, there was a Conservative candidate in only two seats. In several seats the Liberals fell from first to third place. In Lichfield, for example, the Liberal vote fell from 53.2% to 10.5% and the seat was gained by Labour.
 

pipisme

The only cabinet minister defeated in the general election was the Minister of Labour, Clement Anderson Barlow. Baldwin promoted Sir Archibald Boyd-Carpenter, the Paymaster-General, to the cabinet to replace him. Lord Eustace Percy [who was an MP], the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, to Paymaster-General.

The newly elected Parliament met on 8 January 1924. The King's Speech was on 15 January. Among its proposals were the following:

Imposition of tariffs at the rate of 10 percent on imported manufactured and agricultural goods, but not on wheat, flour, oats, meat (including bacon and ham), cheese, butter or eggs, nor on imports from the British Empire.

Cotton growing within the Empire will be developed.

A bounty of £1 an acre on all holdings of arable land of more than one acre. The bounty would not be paid to any employer who pays less than £1 and 10 shillings a week to an able-bodied labourer.

The shipbuilding industry would be given special assistance by accelerating the construction of light cruisers. [1]

In the vote at the end of the debate on the King's Speech the government had a majority of 18 with several Liberal MPs abstaining.

The first by-election in a marginal Tory seat was Liverpool Toxteth on 22 May 1924 caused by the resignation of Sir Robert Houston, who was seventy years old. The candidates were Thomas White [Conservative] and Joseph Gibbins [Labour]. The Liberals had not contested the seat in 1918, 1922 and 1923. White fought his campaign on the issue of religion and in particular denounced any attempt to change the boundary of Northern Ireland. The Irish Boundary Commission had just started its work. Gibbins had contested the seat in 1922 and 1923, and fought a non-sectarian campaign. The Liberals asked their supporters to vote for him. [2] The result was as follows [1923 general election]

Joseph Gibbins [Labour]: 16,442 - 57.5% [12,080 - 47.7%]
Thomas White [Conservative: 12,152 - 42.5% [13,244 - 52.3%]
------------------------------------------------------------------
Labour majority: 4,290 - 15.0% [Conservative majority: 1,164 - 4.6%]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Labour gain from Conservative. The swing from Conservative to Labour was 9.8%. The turnout was 76.9% [67.6%]. [3]

William Hutchison, the Conservative MP for Glasgow Kelvingrove died on 1 May 1924. The Tory candidate for the by-election on 23 May was Robert Ford, who had lost Edinburgh North to the Liberals in the general election. Aiken Ferguson who had contested the general election as a Communist with official Labour endorsement, but with the support of the local Labour party, put his name forward for nomination as the Labour candidate. He was challenged by Patrick Dollan, who was the Chairman of the Independent Labour Party in Scotland, and had been active in rent strikes in Glasgow in 1915 and 1916. Before the Kelvingrove constituency Labour Party met to decide on their candidate, the National Executive Committee of the party told them that if they chose Ferguson, the national party would not endorse him or give him any support. So the picked Dollan as their candidate. The Liberal candidate was Sir John Pratt.

The result of the by-election was as follows [1923 general election]:
Patrick Dollan [Labour]: 13,568 - 45.6% [Communist: 10,018 - 37.7%]
Patrick Ford [Conservative]: 13,420 - 45.1% [12,091 - 45.5%]
Sir John Pratt [Liberal]: 2,767 - 9.3% [4,464 - 16.8%]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Labour majority: 148 - 0.5% [Conservative majority: 2,073 - 7.8%]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Labour gain from Conservative. If Ferguson is counted as Labour for the general election, the swing from Conservative to labour was 4.15%. The turnout was 74.8% [70.5%]. [5]

After these by-elections the government's overall majority in the House of Commons was reduced from six to two.

[1] I have taken these proposals the Conservative Party manifesto for the 1923 general election. see http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1923/1923-conservative-manifesto.shtml.

[2] This was as in OTL. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gibbins.

[3] In OTL the result was a Labour gain but with a smaller majority.

[4] For Dollan's entry on Wikipedia see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dollan.

[5] In OTL the Tories held Kelvingrove with an increased majority.
 

ShortsBelfast

I would have thought the assistance to the shipbuilding industry announced would have held them the Glasgow seat TTL also, Glasgow being one of the main shipbuilding cities
 

pipisme

ShortsBelfast said:
I would have thought the assistance to the shipbuilding industry announced would have held them the Glasgow seat TTL also, Glasgow being one of the main shipbuilding cities
Click to expand...

That was not enough for the Tories to keep the seat against other factors which favoured the Labour candidate in a closely fought contest. Patrick Dollan was well known in Glasgow and had been a member of Glasgow City Council. His wife, Agnes, who was also a Glasgow councillor was active in her husband's campaign. Patrick Ford, the Conservative candidate, was from Edinburgh and did not have any connection with Glasgow. Historians are of the opinion that he would have won the by-election if Ferguson was the Labour candidate. Compared to the general election both the Conservative and Labour votes increased because of the collapse in the Liberal vote and the increase in turnout, but the Labour vote went up more. In the 1923 general election the Liberal vote fell from 45.2% and second place in a straight fight with the Tories in 1922 to 16.8% and third place.
 

pipisme

At the beginning of the new parliamentary session Ramsay Macdonald and John Clynes were re-elected leader and deputy leader respectively of the Labour Party. The twelve other elected members of the Executive Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party [shadow cabinet] were as follows in order of votes received [Order in February 1923 election]:
1. Philip Snowden [1]
2. Thomas Johnston [3]
3. George Lansbury [2]
4. Edward Morel [5]
5. James Thomas [4]
6. John Wheatley [8]
7. Robert Smillie [-]
8. Emmanuel Shinwell [7]
9. Charles Trevelyan [-]
10. James Maxton [-]
11. Fred Jowett [6]
12. William Adamson [9].

On 14 May 1924 Frank Gray, the Liberal member for Oxford, was unseated because his agent had falsified the accounts for the 1923 election. The candidates for the by-election on 5 June were Robert Bourne [Conservative], Charles Burgess Fry [Liberal] and Kenneth Lindsay [Labour]. [1]The result of the election was as follows [1923 general election]:
Charles Burgess Fry [Liberal]: 9,195 - 42.2% [11,966 - 54.1%]
Robert Bourne [Conservative]: 8,869 - 40.7% [10,152 - 45.9%]
Kenneth Lindsay [Labour]: 3,725 - 17.1% [N/A]
-----------------------------------------
Liberal majority: 326 - 1.5% [1,814 - 8.2%]
----------------------------------------
The swing from Liberal to Conservative was 3.35%. The turnout was 81.6% [84.2%]. In OTL Bourne was elected and thus the result was a Conservative gain from Liberal.

Meanwhile Rhys Hopkin Morris [Independent Liberal, Cardiganshire] had taken the Liberal Party Whip; George Davies [Christian Pacifist, University of Wales] had taken the Labour Party Whip; and Oswald Mosley [Independent, Harrow] had joined the Labour Party. [2] Therefore the composition of the House of Commons after these changes and the by-elections was as follows:
Conservative: 308
Labour: 173
Liberal: 129
Nationalist: 3
Others: 2
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Total: 615
----------

[1] This was as in OTL. Here is the wikipedia article about the candidates and the campaign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_by-election,_1924.

[2] This was as in OTL.
 

pipisme

sonofpegasus said:
very interesting, this could change a lot later on. No general strike in 1929 perhaps?
Click to expand...

In OTL the General Strike was in 1926, but I don't know yet if will happen in this TL.

Work continued on the Singapore Naval Base in 1924. [1]

On 30 July 1924, the Attorney General, Sir Douglas Hogg, announced in the House of Commons that he had advised the prosecution of J.R. Campbell, the acting editor of Workers Weekly, a newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797, because of an article entitled "An Open Letter to the Fighting Forces" in that newspaper on 25 July 1924. [2] Labour MPs strongly objected to the prosecution and tabled a motion attacking Hogg for his decision. This was debated on 5 August, but was heavily defeated with the Liberals voting with the government. After a trial at the Old Bailey, Campbell was convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment.

[1] See http://www.hmsgangestoterror.org/singapore-naval-base.html.

[2] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Case.
 

pipisme

The Holland-with-Boston by-election caused by the death of William Stapleton Royce [Labour] on 23 June 1924, took place on 31 July. The result was as follows [1923 general election]:
Hugh Dalton [Labour]: 38.5% [52.1%]
Arthur Dean [Conservative]: 35.7% [47.9%]
Richard Winfrey [Liberal]: 25.8% [N/A]
----------------------------
Labour majority: 2.8% [4.2%]
----------------------------
The swing from Labour to Conservative was 0.7%. The turnout was 77.8% [70.2%]. (1) Royce was a local man and had a personal vote which did not go to Dalton.

The Carmarthen by-election was held on 14 August 1924. It was caused by the resignation in July of Sir Ellis Jones Ellis-Griffiths. The Liberal candidate was Sir Alfred Mond who was First Commissioner of Works from 1916-1921 and Minister of Health from 1921-1922. He was defeated in Swansea West by the Conservative candidate. Winston Churchill came down to Carmarthen to speak in support of his former cabinet colleague. The result of the by-election was as follows [1923 general election]:
Alfred Mond [Liberal]: 47.6% [43.8%]
Alfred Stephens [Conservative]: 26.3% [32.7%]
Reverend Edward Teilo Owen [Labour]: 25.1% [23.5%]
-------------------------------
Liberal majority: 21.3% [11.1%]
------------------------------
The swing from Conservative to Liberal was 5.1%. The turnout was 79.7% [78.9%]

(1) In OTL Dalton was the Labour candidate but he lost to Dean.
 

pipisme

The by-election for the parliamentary constituency of London University caused by the death of Sir Sydney Russell-Wells on 14 July 1924 was held on 2 October 1924. The percentage votes for each candidate were as follows [votes for each party in the 1923 general election]:
Walter Layton [Liberal]: 32.9 [30.2]
Sir Ernest Graham Little [Independent]: 28.2 [N/A]
Sir John Bradford [Conservative]: 25.1 [52.8]
Dr. Frank Bushnell [Labour]: 13.8 [17.0]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberal majority: 4.7% [Conservative major:ity: 22.6]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The swing from Conservative to Liberal was 15.2%. Layton was editor of The Economist.




 
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pipisme

Sir Harold Smith, the Conservative MP for Liverpool Wavertree died on 10 September 1924. His majority in the 1923 general election was only 334 [1.3%] over the Liberal candidate with Labour 2,393 [9.3%] votes behind the Liberal in third place. The by-election on 23 October was closely fought between Conservative and Liberal.

The Conservative candidate was John Abraham Tinne. He was born on 27 November 1877 and was a company director. The Liberal candidate was Hugh Reynolds Rathbone. He was born in Liverpool on 4 April 1862 and was a partner of Ross, Smyth and Company, Liverpool and London. He was a member of Mersey Docks and Harbour Board from 1905, Treasurer University of Liverpool 1903-18, Pro-Chancellor of the University from 1918, member of Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies 1916-20, member of Departmental Committee on Superannuation of Teachers 1922-23. He contested the Wavertree constituency in the December 1923 general election. The Labour candidate, William Albert Robinson, was born in Liverpool in 1877 and was General Secretary of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers. He unsuccessfully contested Liverpool West Toxteth in the 1918 general election. [1]

Prominent members of the three parties came to the constituency to speak in support of their candidate. For the Conservatives, Baldwin, Austen Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain and other cabinet ministers. Asquith, Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Sir John Simon and other Liberals spoke in support of Rathbone. Ramsay Macdonald, John Clynes and Arthur Henderson were among leading Labour politicians who came to support Robinson.

The result of the by-election was as follows:[general election December 1923]
Hugh Reynolds Rathbone [Liberal]: 13,069 - 43.9% [9,264 - 36.0
John Abraham Tinne [Conservative]: 9,139 - 30.7% [9,598 - 37.3%]
William Albert Robinson [Labour]: 7,562 - 25.4% [6,871 - 26.7%]
-------------------------------------------
Liberal majority: 3,930 - 13.2% [334 - 1.3%]
-------------------------------------------
Liberal gain from Conservative. The swing from Conservative to Liberal was 7.25%. The turnout was 80.6% [73.8%]

[1] Information about the candidates is taken from Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: A Biographical Dictionary of the House of Commons, Volume III 1919-1945 by Michael Stenton and Stephen Lees, Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1979.
 
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pipisme

After the Wavertree by-election the composition of the House of Commons was as follows:
Conservative: 306
Labour: 173
Liberal: 130
Nationalist: 3
Austin Hopkinson (Independent): 1
Edwin Scrymegeour (Socialist Prohibition Party): 1
The Speaker: 1
-----------
Total: 615
----------
Leaving aside the Speaker, the Tories were in a minority of two - 306 to 308. But that did not necessarily mean that they would lose a vote of no confidence. Hopkinson was elected as the Coalition Liberal member for Mossley in 1918, but left them in the spring of 1922, and in the 1922 and 1923 general elections was elected as an Independent with no Conservative opposition. There were six Liberal members who in OTL who stood as Constitutionalists in the 1924 general election. In 1923 they had been elected in straight fights with Labour. They and Hopkinson abstained in the vote in the King's Speech in January 1924. It was likely that they would vote with the Tories or abstain in a no confidence vote. The Labour and Liberal parties decided to wait until the Tories had lost more by-elections and they could be sure of winning a no confidence vote.
 

pipisme

Rupert Gwynne, The Conservative MP for Eastbourne, died on 12 October 1924. In the previous general election he had a majority of 11.6% over the Liberal candidate in a straight fight. The Liberals feared that the intervention of a Labour candidate in the by-election on 20 November would damage their chances of winning the seat. They were right as the result showed [1923 general election]:
Sir George Ambrose Lloyd [Conservative]: 43.5% [55.8%]
Harcourt Johnstone [Liberal]; 38.2% [44.2%]
D.J. Davis [Labour]: 18.3% [N/A]
------------------------------------
Conservative majority: 5.3% [11.6%]
-----------------------------------
The swing from Conservative to Liberal was 3.15%. The turnout was 71.8% [68.2%]

Lloyd had served as Governor of Bombay from 1918 to 1923. Johnstone was Liberal MP for Willesden East from March to December 1923.

The final by-election in 1924 was for Dundee on 22 December caused by the death of Edmund Dene Morel [Labour] on 12 November. The result was as follows. Comparison with the 1923 general election result is complicated by the fact that Dundee was a two-member seat and therefore I am leaving it out.
Robert Nichol [Labour]: 44.6%
Sir Andrew Duncan [Liberal]: 29.0%
Frederick William Wallace [Conservative]: 18.1%
Robert Stewart [Communist]: 8.3%
-----------------------
Labour majority: 15.6%
-----------------------
Nichol was Labour MP for Renfrewshire East from 1922 to 1923.
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Please can you do a rapid overview of how this changes the political decisions? for example how does the Irish situation develop, does UK return to the gold standard in 25? Thanks in advance
 
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