The Tories won in the 1959 was a due to a culmination of factors that both forced Labour’s downfall in support and promulgated “just how good life was” for the British people under Tory rule.…
After two unsuccessful electoral campaigns in the late 19th century and early 20th century, numerous splits in the party after William Gladstone's retirement, and the growing awareness of the issue of poverty within the UK, key figures within the Liberal party realised a change in the direction of Liberalism was required. They pushed for 'New Liberalism', a more modern form of Liberalism that stressed numerous key fundamental values, one of which was that intervention by the state was key in establishing a minimum quality of life for people within the country. Thus from their electoral triumph in 1906, and especially from 1908 onwards, the Liberal government passed a series of social and welfare reforms in an attempt to raise the quality of living standards within the UK. The Liberals based these reforms on three main groups within society, the elderly, the young, and the unemployed. This essay will explore several of the reforms the Liberal government introduced including the National Insurance act, the old age pensions act, a selection of educational acts, as well as acts regarding employment issues; assessing the aims of the acts and arguing how successful they actually proved to be in reducing the issue of poverty in the UK.…
The purpose of this essay is to determine whether welfare reform since 1997 has been determined more by ideology or pragmatism. This essay offers a summary of public pronouncements made by some of New Labour’s leading thinkers in the years before they took office in order to then delve into the motivations behind them. While the focus on welfare reforms undertaken since 1997 rests with the Labour government’s policy toward the NHS, the essay establishes that there is a great deal of evidence to support the view that Labour have acted out of pragmatic considerations. Nevertheless, it is argued that policy toward reforming one of the key elements of welfare in Britain, the National health Service, in the main, has been driven by ideology.…
The enfranchisement of the working classes meant the newly formed Labour party together with socialist ideologies were beginning to put pressure on the Government to introduce reform. (2/3)…
By the early twentieth century the Liberal Government was worried that Britain’s military capability and general military power was not as strong and it once was. Therefore, the Government’s concern over national security definitely influenced the decision for the reforms. However, there are three main factors that also need to be taken into account when deciding if concern over national security was the real reason for the reforms: the Social reasons, concerns for Britain’s Empire and the Political motive. The Social reasons played a large part in persuading the Liberals to reform. The detailed reports of Booth and Rowntree, and the evidence which was brought to light, highlighted that nearly a 1/3 of Britain’s population lived in poverty. This needed to be addressed by the Government. In addition, criticisms of the Poor Law effectively put pressure on the Liberals. The Boer War shone light on the ineffective and malnourished British Army. Britain’s embarrassing performance and recruitment in the War raised concerns over Britain’s overall military capability and the general health of Britain’s populace. In addition to this, the Liberal Government was concerned that Britain was losing its status as a major industrial power. Political motives for reform include the changing attitudes within the party, New Liberalism, the fear of the ever increasing popularity of the Labour Party and the party advantage which the Liberals would have received from introducing reform.…
The Liberal reforms were very significant in people’s lives. There were many reasons for why the liberals decided to reform Britain and these issues are highlighted in Booth and Rowntrees reports about people living below the poverty line. These reports tell us that if someone lost their job before the reforms they had to rely on their savings, family and friends, and the pawn brokers or depend on the poor laws which were the only sort of social protection they had. The government hardly ever stepped in to help people, the conservative government and member of the House of Lords all believed that if a person was poor that meant they were lazy; these reports discovered that that wasn’t the case and that in fact the majority of the poorest in society were born there. Some shocking statistics had shown that 11% of primary school children were malnourished and in 1900 the height for enlisting was reduced to 5 feet and even 50% who enlisted were in too ill health.…
The Tory government from 1819 to 1829 introduced a lot of social and economic reforms, which had both positive and negative effects and varied in success. The cabinet shuffle in 1822 gave the Tories a ‘liberal’ reputation as many of the successful reforms came after this; however it can be questioned whether or not they were as liberal as they seemed as a lot of their reforms had already been in production beforehand and were not actually thought of by the ‘liberal’ Tory government.…
As a party the Conservatives can be seen to have achieved considerable success between the years 1918-28. Before the war the party had lost 3 consecutive elections, whereas during the period 1918-28 they were in power for all but 10 months of those 10 years (First Labour Government January- October 1924). It can then be seen through their domination of power that they were very successful. However during the first 4 of those years, whilst in power, they shared it with the Liberal Party, as their chances of winning as an individual party were near non-existent and so this limits the extent of their success. Their failings can also be seen through Stanley Baldwin, whose misjudged decision to hold a general election led the party to disaster in 1924 and lost them their position in government. I will argue that the Conservatives were very successful during those years, and that whilst such success was lessened by these two factors, the period 1918-28 was a largely prosperous time for the party.…
The first of the Acts set up for the welfare of the workers was the Trade Boards Act 1909 which instigated the inspection of conditions in certain trades, effecting 200,000 workers who initially were mostly women. But this only covered the ‘sweated’ trades and ignored other workers such as farmers and on the whole there were very few inspections. So again while the Liberals were making some effort, the limitations of the act cancelled out the effects it was supposed to create.…
After the Conservative Prime Minister (A. J. Balfour) resigned, the Liberals called a general election in 1906, and won by a ‘landslide’. Whether the Liberals won the election by such a large margin by their own success or the failure of the Conservatives is debatable. Many factors contributed to the outcome of this.…
I am not deep, but I am very wide-Throughout the period 1865 to 1992, the government was both a help and hindrance to the trade union movement. Roosevelt’s New Deal represented a brief turning point in the Federal government’s attitude towards labour rights, prior to which its laissez-faire approach to the economy had significantly favoured employers by granting them more power to abuse the rights of labourers. The New Deal of 1933 was set out with the intention of fostering better relations between the employers and the workforce, as well as helping establish new minimum wage and working hour agreements. Ultimately, Roosevelt proved to be ineffectual in helping improve the development of labour rights too, in that successive Democratic governments overwhelming reverted back to its anti-union policies, actively siding with employers in order to break up strike action. As a result of the actions of Presidents like Reagan and the Air Controllers strike, the momentum of the movement had all but disappeared, illustrating how Federal action was one of the greatest hindrances over the entire period to labour rights.…
During 1964 to 1970, The Labour government planned to create a ‘New Britain’ under the leadership of Harold Wilson. The most important successes of the Labour government include education, social freedoms and the freedoms of women. However, the most important failures of labour included its lack of the scientific minds in the party and its failure of large economic and technological advancement.…
In 1951, the economy was in turmoil. There was a balance of payments crisis which leads to a £700 million deficit. Also, countries started to buy imports from other countries outside of the UK, so Britain’s export market was damaged. However, by 1952, the government had recovered, and by 1954, Great Britain was flourishing; rationing was abolished, unemployment was reduced and it was the end of austerity and the start of the era of affluence. This is an example of good fortune because coincidently, Britain’s economy had fully recovered not long before the election. Also, due to the condition of the opposition, the Conservatives seemed like a stable government. There was a right-left split in Labour, between Gaitskell and Bevan. This showed that the Labour party was unorganised and could never lead the country properly as they wouldn’t be able to agree on important decisions. This is another example of how the Conservatives won through good fortune, as British citizens wanted consistency and efficiency, which was best displayed by the Tories. One month before the election, Churchill resigned. He was replaced by Mr. Eden, a popular replacement. He was the Foreign Secretary and a statesman; this had earned him a good reputation. This is an example of good fortune because the public liked Eden, and for him to become Prime Minister a month before the election due to Churchill’s resignation was good for Conservative popularity.…
The Liberal government introduced a series of reforms aimed at moving away from the Laissez-faire ideology and toward a more self help scheme aiming to move people away from poverty and to make Britain a better country both in health and prosperity; Churchill said “If we see a drowning man we do not drag him to the shore, instead we provide help to allow him to swim ashore”. To do this the Liberals aimed at giving aid to the young, the old, the sick, the unemployed and the workers; these groups will be discussed throughout the essay. These reforms were later regarded as the foundations for the welfare state.…
When looking at Tony Blair’s time in office, although economically he seemed to be doing sound as he kept inflation and tax levels low, in many other factors he failed to deliver. Promising too much, Tony Blair did not fulfil his never ending list of policies such as achieving full equality and completely ending child poverty. However, perhaps these broken promises wouldn’t have been so negatively portrayed if it wasn’t for the Iraq war which effectively ended Blair’s time in office. Dumping Britain into war created more problems for Blair. His concentration and effort towards the Iraq war meant the great economic base that had been left behind by his predecessor could not be capitalized.…