WI the Conservative Party wins the 1929 UK Election?

The 1929 United Kingdom General election was a close affair, with Labour winning a plurality of only 27 seats while actually losing the popular vote. A scan of the Constituency election results shows Labour beating the Conservatives by small margins (less than 2%) in fourteen seats and the Liberals beating them in a small margin in five seats. Flip these seats and you have a Conservative Plurality 281-273-54.

The first few months should function just as a continuation of the previous Baldwin government, but then comes the Great Depression. I'm guessing that with a narrow plurality, an attempt to form a coalition National Government will occur.
 
The 1929 United Kingdom General election was a close affair, with Labour winning a plurality of only 27 seats while actually losing the popular vote. A scan of the Constituency election results shows Labour beating the Conservatives by small margins (less than 2%) in fourteen seats and the Liberals beating them in a small margin in five seats. Flip these seats and you have a Conservative Plurality 281-273-54.

The first few months should function just as a continuation of the previous Baldwin government, but then comes the Great Depression. I'm guessing that with a narrow plurality, an attempt to form a coalition National Government will occur.

I'd like to understand your reasoning behind that last statement.

It is certainly a possibility though
 
It might depend really. MacDonald didn't first attempt to form a National Government in '31 - he went to the Palace to inform the King of his plan to resign following the inability of his cabinet to agree on the best course of action, only to have George V refuse to accept the resignation, believing that only MacDonald could see Britain through this difficult & trying time, and suggesting forming an all-party National Government.

Whether such a situation would occur under Baldwin is uncertain - without a majority, Baldwin would probably be in as much a tenuous position although it's unlikely there would be the inner-party schism on whether to support austerity measure as there existed within the Labour cabinet of Ramsay MacDonald in '31. Without that, Baldwin wouldn't need to go to the King to resign, etc.

A vote of no confidence might happen though, which could precipitate another general election with the possibility of a Labour majority government.
 
This would probably mean that the 1930 London Naval Treaty isn't as ridiculous as it was OTL and consequently, the RN is much more powerful come wartime. Ol' Ramsay was obsessed with morality and disarmament and believed that crippling the navy was the moral thing to do.
 
I'd like to understand your reasoning behind that last statement.
I was thinking such a narrow minority government would seem really unstable, and in the face of a crisis Baldwin would try and bring at least one of the other two parties on board to keep it from falling.
 
It might depend really. MacDonald didn't first attempt to form a National Government in '31 - he went to the Palace to inform the King of his plan to resign following the inability of his cabinet to agree on the best course of action, only to have George V refuse to accept the resignation, believing that only MacDonald could see Britain through this difficult & trying time, and suggesting forming an all-party National Government.

Whether such a situation would occur under Baldwin is uncertain - without a majority, Baldwin would probably be in as much a tenuous position although it's unlikely there would be the inner-party schism on whether to support austerity measure as there existed within the Labour cabinet of Ramsay MacDonald in '31.
Did the UK and the U.S. generally follow the same model of first austerity and then priming the pump?

I'm reminded that FDR first slightly cut federal salaries and perhaps a couple of other cost-saving measures, and then moved forward with his New Deal programs.
 
Did the UK and the U.S. generally follow the same model of first austerity and then priming the pump?

I'm reminded that FDR first slightly cut federal salaries and perhaps a couple of other cost-saving measures, and then moved forward with his New Deal programs.

No, in Britain, the situation was very different.

The National Government, with Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer, cut very deeply and continued to do so until the middle of the 1930s when a budget surplus had been reached. Still, because he was no Keynesian and there were no other Keynesians in government, there was no attempt at increasing spending to any great extent and no great restructuring of the economy. Tariffs went up against foreign goods instead, whilst imperial goods had their tariffs lowered or eliminated.

What can be said, however, is Chamberlain was definitely interested in the welfare of the unemployed and set up the Unemployment Assistance Board to expand the number of relief claimants and oversee the system of means-tested benefits. So, he was hardly some Dickensian penny-pincher with no interest in solving the problems of poverty and unemployment.
 
I was thinking such a narrow minority government would seem really unstable, and in the face of a crisis Baldwin would try and bring at least one of the other two parties on board to keep it from falling.

The difficulty would be how best to form a National Government, now led by a Conservative Party had been in office at the start of the Depression. The Liberals would take issue with Baldwin & Chamberlain's preference for protectionist tariffs, whilst Labour would be caught in a bind over whether or not to support austerity measures as they were IOTL.

Neither would be likely to move forward in joining a National Government, unless some kind of agreement could be made - the Liberals, the more likely to join in my opinion, would probably still split though between the National Liberals, who had no problem with protectionism, and the Samuelite Liberals, who still held on to free trade policy and left the OTL National Government.

Strangely, this is probably one of the best ways to prevent the chaos that Labour suffered during the '30s by never going through the party splits it did IOTL. I would imagine there would still be internal problems over the best course of action to take place though, but nothing akin to the devastation that happened IOTL.
 
I think Baldwin won't get very far in talks with Labour, given that MacDonald might not even be leader of the Labour Party and he only felt compelled to enact austerity due to "the greater good" and being in office at the time - being in opposition will colour his perception the other way.

The Liberals, led by David Lloyd George, are not likely to enter into coalition with Stanley Baldwin, to put it mildly. The party would run on its Keynesian manifesto and there'd only be the dissent of a small number of 'National' Liberals. Even then, that small faction didn't exist until 1931 and the crisis of MacDonald's economic direction, as even John Simon (the man who led the National Liberals IOTL and was their most influential figure) was on Lloyd George's pro-free trade side in 1930. So, here, we have more issues for Baldwin's coalition dreams.

And, finally, the Conservative Party itself was plagued with divisions. The issue of free trade vs protectionism had split the party for three decades prior to the Great Depression and there were many for whom it was an issue worth fighting a civil war over. Just look at the OTL attempts by protectionists to coup Baldwin during the '29 to '31 period and you'll see how fragile the Tories were on this issue. Baldwin was one to tread lightly and carefully around the issue, but this wouldn't cut it whilst in government and whilst facing the Chamberlain brothers and the press barons on the vehemently pro-tariff side of the argument. If he isn't out by 1931 and replaced by a tariff reformer, then he would be walking into a general election by 1931 or 1932 with a divided party and a non-committal approach to protectionism. This could only lead to disaster.

All in all, it's best to conclude that Labour wins a majority and whoever is leader at the time becomes PM on their own terms without a "National Government".
 
I once heard, that Churchill hoped to replace Baldwin in 1929 as leader of Con/Lib-coalition government. Anybody knows something about that?
 
I think Baldwin won't get very far in talks with Labour, given that MacDonald might not even be leader of the Labour Party and he only felt compelled to enact austerity due to "the greater good" and being in office at the time - being in opposition will colour his perception the other way.
Would MacDonald be challenged for the leadership though? In the scenario in the OP he's still just presided over the Labour Party winning a huge number of seats and reaching their highest seat count yet.

All in all, it's best to conclude that Labour wins a majority and whoever is leader at the time becomes PM on their own terms without a "National Government".
How do you think the Liberals would do in this election? Would they split like OTL and get defeated, or could they stay united and possibly even become the official opposition?
 
Would MacDonald be challenged for the leadership though? In the scenario in the OP he's still just presided over the Labour Party winning a huge number of seats and reaching their highest seat count yet.

MacDonald has been through three general elections at that point and has been unable to win a majority each time, which is something that his colleagues would likely not forget. Maybe he would stay on, but he'd need to justify it with either a tack to the left (those who saw him as the best they could get without Lansbury throwing his hat into the ring for the leadership) or a promise to go after the political centre that would endear more middle class people to trust him.

MacDonald would survive in the OP's scenario, but he'd have some tough decisions to make about Labour's response to the Great Depression.

How do you think the Liberals would do in this election? Would they split like OTL and get defeated, or could they stay united and possibly even become the official opposition?

The Liberal Party would stay united but wouldn't overtake the Tories, as their main platform of Keynesian economics will likely be Labour's if MacDonald has any sense. Regardless, not enough Tory voters will switch to the Liberals to make it possible. They would certainly be closer to 100 seats than 50, I think.
 
No, in Britain, the situation was very different.

The National Government, with Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer, cut very deeply and continued to do so until the middle of the 1930s when a budget surplus had been reached. Still, because he was no Keynesian and there were no other Keynesians in government, there was no attempt at increasing spending to any great extent and no great restructuring of the economy. Tariffs went up against foreign goods instead, whilst imperial goods had their tariffs lowered or eliminated.

What can be said, however, is Chamberlain was definitely interested in the welfare of the unemployed and set up the Unemployment Assistance Board to expand the number of relief claimants and oversee the system of means-tested benefits. So, he was hardly some Dickensian penny-pincher with no interest in solving the problems of poverty and unemployment.
On the plus side, direct unemployment comp might be cheaper than a bunch of public works programs to crank the economy.

But then I'm thinking, Good God, trying to climb out of a depression without Keynesian economics! It's like trying to be a surgeon without using blood transfusions due to "moral" reasons. You are letting a major tool sit idle which you could be skillfully using.
 
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