The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain: Politics and Power Before the First World War

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The core of the book emphasises the Liberal government’s remarkable record of social reforms between 1906 and 10, and the reform of taxation set in train to pay for them. Winston Churchill is credited as strongly as David Lloyd George for pushing these reforms. The constitutional crisis with the Lords is depicted as a clear victory for popular democracy, after which national insurance was successfully introduced and changes in land taxation were planned. The challenges which Dangerfield had identified as defeating this Liberal surge – the remaining powers of the Lords and the land-owning classes, the rise of Labour as representing the working classes, suffragette militancy, and the problem of Ireland – could all, he argues, have been politically resolved if war had not broken out in 1914.

Brexit, declared Labour pro-European, Roy Jenkins, during the first European referendum campaign in 1975, would put Britain into “an old people’s home for fading nations”. He added, “I do not think it would be a very comfortable old people’s home. I do not like the look of some of the prospective wardens”. Of the three wardens since 2016, Theresa May fell because her Brexit deal was unacceptable to Conservatives, and replaced by Boris Johnson to “get Brexit done”. Then Trussonomics sought to prove the viability of Global Britain outside the EU. Tony Travers is Associate Dean of LSE School of Public Policy and Director of LSE London. His key research interests include local and regional government, elections and public service reform. Tony is chair of the British Government@LSE research group. As generations of students know, Vernon Bogdanor is an unrivalled expert on history and politics, and this book brilliantly brings together his thoughts – crisp, authoritative and lucid – on a vital, transformational period of Britain’s past.” Nicholas Owen, associate professor of politics, University of Oxford

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P. Kerr, Foreign Affairs: Anglo-German Rivalry, The Round Table, November 1910, p. 7 – 40, quoted in John Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union, p. 108 Joseph Chamberlain – to ask what he would do today to modernise Britain. Winston Churchill – because, like Chamberlain, he had such energy and originality. I would ask him too how he would modernise Britain.

The Conservatives, in the Lords, in the City and in the country, were far from beaten. In 1911, he notes, the Unionists defensively unveiled proposals for Lords reform, for a House of 350 members, partly appointed and partly elected on a regional basis by the single transferrable vote system. Yet 110 years-later, the Lords still contains three active dukes and more than 90 other hereditary peers. He praises the Liberal commitment to education for all, and their encouragement for working men entering Parliament. Yet two of our most recent male prime ministers were educated at Eton, and the third was head boy at Winchester. One might almost say that it is the astonishing survival of Conservative Britain which is the most remarkable legacy of the 20th century. The years 1895 to 1914 were formative. They heralded a new agenda which still dominates our politics. The issues of the period - economic modernisation, social welfare and social equality, secondary and technical education, a new role for Britain in the world - were complex and difficult. It is a law of economic gravity that we trade more with nearby countries than with those more distant. As David Cameron pointed out during the referendum campaign, we trade more with Ireland than with Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. As thorough a political history of Edwardian England as you could desire.” Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph If you think you know the British political scene from 1895 to 1914, think again. Vernon Bogdanor has the habit of unearthing gems that have been missed by others. He does it again in this magisterial work on post-Gladstonian Britain by challenging some of the long-established myths about this period that deserve to be cast aside.” Professor Malcolm Murfett, King’s College LondonHeather Jones joined University College London as Professor in Modern and Contemporary European History in 2018, having previously worked at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she was Associate Professor in International History. Heather works on war cultures 1880-1945. Her main research expertise is on the First World War. She is a particular specialist in prisoner of war studies, and on the British monarchy and the First World War. If you could have lunch with two of the people mentioned in The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain, who would it be and why? The period has often been seen as one of decadence, of the strange death of liberal Britain. In contrast, Vernon Bogdanor believes that the robustness of Britain’s parliamentary and political institutions and her liberal political culture, with the commitment to rational debate and argument, were powerful enough to carry her through one of the most trying periods of her history and so make possible the remarkable survival of liberal Britain. The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.

M. Plaut, Promise and Despair: The first struggle for a non-racial South Africa, Jacana Media, 2016.Between 1895 to 1914, Britain’s political landscape was changed for ever. It was a period of transition from aristocratic rule to mass politics and heralded a new agenda which still dominates today. The issues of the period – economic modernisation, social welfare and equality, secondary and technical education, a new role for Britain in the world – were complex and difficult. Indeed, they proved so thorny that despite the efforts of the Edwardians they remain among the most pressing problems we face in the twenty-first century.

I would have advised the Conservatives not to reject the 1909 Budget! Rejection damaged the party’s interests by leading to a restriction of the powers of the Lords, and the introduction of an Irish Home Rule bill. Had the Conservatives not raised the constitutional issue, they might well have regained power at the next election. The LSE School of Public Policy( @LSEPublicPolicy) equips you with the skills and ideas to transform people and societies. It is an international community where ideas and practice meet. Their approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance. In this wide-ranging and sometimes controversial survey, one of our pre-eminent political historians dispels the popular myths that have grown up about this critical period in Britain’s story and argues that it set the scene for much that is laudable about our nation today. H. Herwig, ‘Luxury’ Fleet: The Imperial German Navy, 1888 – 1918, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1980, p.50 I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.That people do not appreciate the energy and initiative of the Edwardians in seeking to resolve these new problems. A more competitive Britain, they argued, meant encouraging enterprise by lowering personal and corporation tax and shrinking the state. The hard Brexiteers sought, in the words of Liz Truss’s resignation speech “a low tax economy” that “would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit”. As the conference proceeded, the size of Germany’s huge army was discussed. Although, as the Secretary of War, Richard Haldane, put it, ‘Nobody contemplates marching to Berlin nowadays, simply because it is out of the question’, other theatres of war were considered. These might be Australia, Canada, South Africa or India. How might the dominions participate? Merriman dug his heels in. Rather testily, he explained that he had had the greatest difficulty in getting defence votes through the Cape Parliament for over 40 years and he was not about to pledge his troops to an unknown future war. ‘Supposing you had a war in the Balkans, I feel absolutely certain the colonists would be very reluctant indeed to send a force to engage in that. Supposing that by any misfortune or mischance your alliance with Japan was to bring you into collision or conflict with the United States, if any such calamity was possible, do you suppose that any colonist would for a single moment send an expeditionary force to help an Eastern Power? Never!' (16)