Labour in Crisis : The Second Labour Government, 1929-31

by Neil Riddell

• ISBN13: 9780719050848
• ISBN10: 0719050847
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-09-11
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

The second Labour Government has long been a source of both popular and historical controversy. Formed with high hopes in June 1929, it was unable to deal with the mounting unemployment and in August 1931 collapsed in dramatic circumstances when its Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, formed a National Government to carry through measures he believed necessary to save the country from financial disaster. Shunning the "high politics" approach of much of the existing historiography, Neil Riddell seeks to understand the second Labour Government not primarily in relation to the 1931 crisis, or to the economic debates of the period, but in the context of "the wider Labour movement": the trade unions, the local Labour parties, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the party's intellectuals. In so doing, he provides a new history of both the second Labour Government and of the Labour movement of the years 1929-31, and is able to provide fresh answers to pivotal questions.

Author Biography

Neil Riddell is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Plymouth and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(220)
The Labour movement in May 1929	9	(44)
The trade unions	9	(6)
Local Labour parties	15	(9)
The Parliamentary Labour Party	24	(4)
Socialist intellectuals	28	(25)
The trade unions	53	(47)
The honeymoon	53	(2)
Government appointments	55	(1)
Poor relations	56	(2)
Committees	58	(3)
Legislation	61	(16)
Industrial disputes	77	(2)
Unemployment	79	(4)
Economic policy	83	(4)
Disillusionment and distrust	87	(2)
Conclusion	89	(11)
Local Labour parties	100	(32)
Organisational matters	100	(2)
Relations with Members of Parliament	102	(2)
Legislation	104	(3)
Birth control	107	(1)
Religion and foreign policy	108	(2)
A religious education?	110	(4)
The Daily Herald	114	(1)
Unemployment	115	(1)
The ILP	116	(1)
Sir Oswald Mosley	117	(3)
Declining support and finances	120	(4)
Conclusion	124	(8)
The Parliamentary Labour Party	132	(47)
Reactions of new Members of Parliament	132	(1)
Relations with the government	133	(3)
Parliamentary opposition	136	(3)
The honeymoon period	139	(1)
Unemployment benefit	140	(3)
Coal	143	(2)
Pensions and housing	145	(1)
Disarmament	146	(2)
Lord Hunsdon	148	(2)
Unemployment policy and Mosley	150	(7)
Education	157	(3)
The ILP	160	(2)
Dwindling morale	162	(1)
Finance and economy	163	(4)
The Holman Gregory Commission and the Anomalies Act	167	(1)
Conclusion	168	(11)
Socialist intellectuals	179	(20)
The Webbs	179	(3)
R. H. Tawney	182	(2)
Harold Laski	184	(5)
G. D. H. Cole	189	(5)
Conclusion	194	(5)
The 1931 crisis and aftermath	199	(22)
The crisis	199	(4)
The aftermath	203	(18)
Conclusion	221	(32)
Appendix 1. The Labour Cabinet and Junior Ministers	233	(3)
Appendix 2. Trade union sponsored Members of Parliament, 1929	236	(2)
Appendix 3. Unemployment figures. 1930 and 1931	238	(1)
Appendix 4. Individual local Labour Party membership affiliated to the national party, 1929--1931	239	(14)
Bibliography	253	(14)
Index	267