The Eclipse of Parliament Appearance and Reality in British Politics Since 1914

by Lenman, Bruce P.

• ISBN13: 9780340494929
• ISBN10: 0340494921
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-10-01
• Publisher: Hodder Education Publishers

Summary

This original and stimulating account offers the first major reassessment of twentieth-century British political history. It provides a lively and perceptive study of government and politics from Asquith to Major and a means of understanding key developments in party politics, parliament, cabinet government, the civil service, and the wider political arena.

Table of Contents

Introduction: in the bleak midwinter	p. 1
Whatever happened to checks and balances?	p. 11
The rich rewards of incompetence: Asquith and the saving of the sovereign premiership 1914-16	p. 21
A crowned but tethered goat - the resistible rise of Lloyd George 1916-19	p. 41
Too little, too late: the reaction against the excessive concentration of power 1919-23	p. 64
In safe hands: Baldwin and his fussy alter-ego 1923-25	p. 88
Baldwin's progress via the steps of the guillotine to political heaven 1924-31	p. 109
Overkill and aftermath: from Baldwin to elective dictatorship without elections 1931-40	p. 136
From supreme war-lord to headmaster 1940-51	p. 163
Churchill's Indian summer, Eden's winter and Supermac's false dawn	p. 190
1959-70: 'not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, but Harold Harold' (with an interlude for baronial usurpation)	p. 216
Humpty Dumpty and the Queen's men: Heath, Wilson and Callaghan 1970-79	p. 239
Thatcherite Epilogue: reductio an absurdum or plus ca change...	p. 260
Index	p. 280
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