Concerns about the extent of poverty in Britain played a major role in the Liberal Government introducing reform. After scientific reports conducted by Seebolm Rowntree and Charles Booth had identified the full extent of poverty within inner city Britain, the Liberals felt compelled to act.(1) However, there were other contributing factors which drove the Liberals towards reform.…
WW2 made a huge dent in Britain’s economic capability in terms of international trade and the fact that half of our factories had been converted to build military equipment. Not long before the General Election the economy had begun to pick up.…
The Liberal government of 1906-1914 under Bannerman and Asquith is one often recalled for its extensive reform of the welfare system in the United Kingdom. However, it was their political and constitutional reform which caused the most uproar, as they were arguably the most successful government of the 20th century in regards to changing the way Britain was governed. Their greatest achievement was the 1911 Parliament Act where they managed to get the Lords to sign a bill limiting their own power.…
The Boer war acted as a catalyst to reform in many ways. It had considerable impact politically and socially. Many changes were put in place, from improving the army to public health care. Initially what acted as a spur was the amount of deaths and the cost of the war, 22,000 were killed costing £200 million therefore this led to a wake up call for the Army. However one may argue that it was not just the Boer war that induced reforms to be made in Britain; individuals such as Richard Burton Haldane who was appointed war minister could have implemented changes without the Boer war being a significant factor.…
Want' aimed to provide cash benefits to the people who needed them; 'Disease' aimed to provide the National Health Service; Ignorance aimed to provide free compulsory education; Squalor aimed to help people who were homeless due to the war by providing more houses; Idleness aimed to provide full employment. These were all major issues during wartime Britain and the Labour Party's support in their cleansing was a huge factor in their victory at the 1945 general…
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.…
There was a growing awareness of poverty in Britain, especially in London in early 1900s. According to the research of Charles Booth in London, there were 25% of people that were living under abject poverty and over 35% of people were living under the poverty line of 0.90-1.05 pounds per week for a family with 3 children. The situation was severe and that was not only happening in London, but other cities as well. According to Seebhom Rowntree’s studies, there were 28% of people that lives in York could not afford to buy clothing and food. Social reform was definitely needed. At that time, some other new liberalism were arising, they aimed to give out minimum living standard for needy families. In contrast, the conservative was not doing anything good and the Education Act that did not please the society. As a result, a party that was providing more benefit to citizens and poverty became more successful and gained more voter’s…
The Liberals created many reforms which impacted the lives of British people differing between aid and attention for well being of all ages and insurance for the unemployed or sick. This essay will investigate whether they were of positive or negative on the British people.…
Some historians believed the government only took little action against poverty as socials commentators Booth and Rowntree showed it wasn’t the individuals fault. Winston Churchill summed up the aim of the liberals as he said This means that the liberal government provided very little help to the lower class so that they could help themselves escape poverty. Historians alleged that it could be estimated that as much as one third of the population would have been below the poverty line before the reforms and people feel no other government could have handled the issue of poverty any better at that time which shows the liberals were as successful as they could be towards the five social groups. However The Liberal Government largely focused on specific difficulties in society but failed to introduce solutions to deal with issues such as housing or National Health Service that affects everyone. This shows that the Liberal reforms 1906-1914 were only successful on a small scale as it was unable to improve the poverty levels of the whole…
My next reason for the Liberals introducing the reforms is the rise of Socialism. The Liberals wanted nothing more than to stamp out Socialism, as it was a growing theme in the late 19th century. Countries such as Russia had already adopted the system and the Liberals were determined not to go down the same route. In a 1908 speech, Winston Churchill said, ‘Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to rise up poverty’. This quote shows how the Liberals negatively talked about Socialism and positively talked about Liberalism to manipulative the public into voting the Liberals. They wanted the people to fight against socialism and not for it. They eventually realised that reforms would keep the British people happy therefore meaning less support for any revolutionary movements. I know that people turn to socialism when they are unhappy…
Perhaps, the most ‘revolutionary’ reform that Labour introduced was the NHS. Although there was liberal influence and consensus between the parties over welfare, the clear historical fact remains that Atlee’s Labour party introduced this. The public were in dire need of better healthcare – especially those who couldn’t afford it. Unfortunately, the majority of the population after the war were still living on a very small income and not many people in society could afford health services.…
The lack of military efficiency on the battlefield and the physical inadequacies of the male populace revealed the situation that an industrialised, non-interventionist state had created. Britain had nothing that could contend with Germany’s exemplary army, Bismarkian network of social insurance which consisted of compulsory sickness and accident insurance and old age pensions, or the well organised educational system. Germany’s newly found economic, military and industrial dominance, provided the British government with evidence that state intervention had great benefits in establishing an efficient nation and this changed the attitude of the state towards the poor rapidly. Between 1906 and 1914 the Liberal Government introduced a large number of reforms to try to reduce poverty: compensation for workers who suffered from injuries that took place in the workplace was introduced in 1906; medical tests for students at schools with free treatment provided if necessary was introduced in 1907; non-contributory pensions for the elderly in 1908 and in 1911, the government introduced the National Insurance Act that provided contributory insurance for workers in time of sickness and unemployment benefit in certain industries…
When the war ended in 1945, the Labour Government, led by Clement Atlee, were faced with tackling numerous problems that existed in Britain. Their aim was to meet the welfare needs of the British people who, during the war, got used to support provided by the government. In 1942, a Civil Servant and an experienced worker on social welfare named William Beveridge constructed a report which would go on to become the basis for the Labour reforms. By 1951, Labour had introduced many different reforms aiming to tackle the problems that faced Britain. The Beveridge Report identified what is known as the 5 giants; these include disease, want, squalor, idleness and ignorance. Arguably the most important and successful were the acts introduced to tackle disease and want, but some may disagree. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Labour government met most of the needs of the British people between 1945-1951.…
Indeed, a major reason for Labour’s victory was because Harold Wilson advocated a campaign for economic modernisation of Britain so the nation did not fall behind the excelling economies of European rivals such as West Germany. Economists raise the significant point that economic modernisation looks at the internal dynamics of a nation while referring to social and cultural structures and the adaptation of new technologies. The Conservatives failed in every social and economic aspect of this theory, as shown in 1963, as unemployment reached approximately 800,000 making a mockery of Macmillan’s, ‘never had it so good speech.’ The inability of the Conservative Party to economically modernise Britain led not only to their downfall in the 1964 election, but also to the collapse of Britain’s economy during this era. Economists point out that as a result of Conservative mismanagement of the economic sectors, Britain faced financial hardships, including a huge balance of payments deficit, which undeniably caused higher levels of inflation, causing the cost of living for ordinary British people to rise. Moreover, the economic boom of the late 1950s and the, ‘Age of Affluence,’ had reached its end, with great saturation in the markets for consumer goods. Inevitably, poor…
Many factors led to this victor, including both conservatives failure to address certain issues in the correct way, and consequently the liberals addressing these issues in the correct manner. Many British people where furious about the Boer war. The ways used to conquer the bowers caused controversy among Brits, as well as the fact is was costly in both lives and money. Not only this, it however showed the needs for social reforms in Britain, bringing out the cracks in the government tried to hide. The Liberals used this to their advantage, by claiming that the conservatives were neglecting the social reforms, and Joseph Chamberline used this as a method to push his campaign for the tariff reform campaign, which divided the Conservatives.…