Conservatives,the Constitution and the Quest for a ‘Representative’ House of Lords, 1911–35*

This article presents a new interpretation of Conservative attitudes towards house of lords' reform in the early 20th century. Coinciding, as it did, with the introduction of universal adult suffrage, the campaign to reform and strengthen the second chamber has traditionally been understood as a reaction against democracy. Conversely, this article, emphasizing the politics rather than policies of reform, argues that many Conservatives sought to establish a legitimate role for a second chamber within the new democratic settlement and that the campaign for reform is, consequently, better understood as a constitutional means of ‘making safe’, rather than resisting, mass democracy. The account sheds new light on how the impulse behind reform was frequently rooted in a commitment to democracy, how reform commanded the support of a wide cross section of the Conservative parliamentary party, and why the reform campaign had folded by the early 1930s. In doing so, it reframes an important episode that helped close the long‐19th‐century tradition of constitutional reform in British politics.     

Party system fragmentation,social cleavages,and social media: New Zealand’s 2017 election campaign on Facebook

ABSTRACT

Explorations of the predictive relationship between party system fragmentation and social cleavages beyond a single dimension remains an undeveloped area of research, one which rarely accounts for the changing technological landscape where parties now compete. This case study of New Zealand's 2017 election campaign on Facebook contributes to this area. It reveals an environment where parties compete within social cleavages for support, and users demonstrate a diverse preference for cleavage appeals. The findings also offer a compromise between the competing theories about New Zealand’ social cleavage structure. Finally, we revisit the predictive relationship between party system size and social cleavages in a postdictive fashion, demonstrating the continued explanatory power of cleavage structure, this time with data derived from social media.     

Radicals,Tories or Monomaniacs? The Birmingham Currency Reformers in the House of Commons, 1832–67*

Benjamin Disraeli described Thomas Attwood as a ‘provincial banker labouring under a financial monomania’. The leader of the Birmingham Political Union, Attwood's Warwickshire accent and support for a paper currency were widely derided at Westminster. However, the themes of Attwood's brief parliamentary career were shared by the other men who represented Birmingham in the early‐ and mid‐Victorian period. None of these MPs were good party men, and this article illuminates the nature of party labels in the period. Furthermore, it adds a new dimension to the historical understanding of debates on monetary policy and shows how local political identities and traditions interacted with broader party identities. With the exception of Richard Spooner, who was a strong tory on religious and political matters, the currency men are best described as popular radicals, who consistently championed radical political reform and were among the few parliamentary supporters of the ‘People's Charter’. They opposed the new poor law and endorsed factory regulation, a progressive income tax, and religious liberty. Although hostile to the corn laws they believed that free trade without currency reform would depress prices, wages and employment. George Frederick Muntz's death in 1857 and his replacement by John Bright marked a watershed and the end of the influence of the ‘Birmingham school’. Bright appropriated Birmingham's radical tradition as he used the town as a base for his campaign for parliamentary reform. He emphasized Birmingham's contribution to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act but ignored the currency reformers' views on other matters, which had often been at loggerheads with the ‘Manchester school’ and economic liberalism.     

Disciplined love: the Chinese Communist Party’s wartime restrictions on cadre love and marriage

ABSTRACT

During the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed restrictions on the marriage of its cadres, so as to maintain the Party’s effective control and combat cohesion. The Central Committee of the CCP did not issue uniform regulations on this topic; most decisions were made by the base areas, with the indirect support of the Central Committee. Marriage and love are personal matters, and the restrictions certainly caused emotional suffering for ordinary cadres affected. However, there were important reasons for the CCP’s implementation of these measures. Through punishment and guidance, these restrictions were carried out smoothly and did not cause great upheaval. As love and marriage became areas subject to the political power of the CCP, they unexpectedly became a focal point of the collision between individuality and Party spirit and between the individual and the group.     

“We're socialists not nationalists”: British labour and the national question(s)

The UK Labour Party, which in government delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales, has struggled to adapt to a multilevel and increasingly territorialised political space, where demands for significant territorial reform grow ever louder. These challenges intensified with the Scottish independence referendum and the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. During this prolonged constitutional moment, the Labour Party has had to articulate the case for a plurinational and multicultural British identity and for the Union, and to a large degree, has struggled to do so. Capturing the period from 2012 to 2020, this article examines the discursive strategies adopted by the Labour Party and individuals within it. It identifies a deep discomfort, more pronounced in London and Edinburgh than in Cardiff, with the national questions and a reliance on largely instrumental arguments, albeit ones rooted in traditional left-wing values of welfare and social solidarity between working people.     

‘The Costly Luxury of Protesting’: The Deselection of J.M. Maclean,MP

With the increase in the electorate as the result of the Second and Third Reform Acts in the latter half of the 19th century came a corresponding increase in the importance of political parties. With this increase in the importance of party came the fear that the Burkean definition of the MP as a representative, owing his electorate his judgment as well as his industry would be replaced by a narrower conception of the MP as a delegate, returned to vote according to the dictates of party or ‘caucus’, subject to rejection by his party prior to an election, rather than the electorate as a whole at an election. This article examines the case of J.M. Maclean, Conservative MP for Cardiff 1895–1900, deselected by his constituency executive for his opposition to the Boer War, using it to shed light on the reaction of constituency parties in instances where MPs were felt to have overstepped the proper bounds of party discipline. The article concentrates on the relations between Maclean and his constituency party, crucial in Maclean's deselection. The limits of political dissent in time of war are examined, and the limitations placed by party on the freedom of action of individual MPs. In addition, the article gives glimpses of the tensions present in the Conservative‐Liberal Unionist coalition which governed Britain between 1895 and 1906, particularly on perceptions of the controversial figure of Joseph Chamberlain among Conservative back benchers.     

Norman Gash and the Making of Mr Secretary Peel

In May 1961, the firm of Longmans published the first volume of Norman Gash's monumental life of Sir Robert Peel. Mr Secretary Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel before 1830 was hailed at the time as a landmark and has proved surprisingly durable as an interpretation of Peel's early life and formation. This essay is concerned with locating Gash's work within its political, biographical, and historiographical context. It begins by considering the reaction of Peel family members to Gash's biography, before tracing the antecedents of his historical preoccupations and intellectual development in the years leading up to the publication of Mr Secretary Peel. It presents a wide range of new evidence relating to Gash's life and emergence as a political and parliamentary historian, drawing upon sources which have come to light in the decade since his death in May 2009.     

The Liberal Party,Free Trade and the 1841 Election

It is a paradox that the Liberal Party's electoral defeat in 1841 attested to its underlying strength and vitality. This article focuses on the impact on party unity of the free trade measures advocated by the ministry in the months preceding its fall. The Liberal Party's bold electoral platform antagonised its protectionist MPs, a group previously overlooked in the historiography, but fell short of the demands of its radical wing for political reform. While all the ingredients for fragmentation existed, unity prevailed. Protestations of loyalty to the leadership could be heard from the mouths of Liberal MPs of all shades, from stalwart protectionists who coalesced around the ministry on traditional foreign policy grounds through to the most fervent radicals who celebrated its ‘new’ direction. Such findings of cohesion contradict accounts which have hitherto viewed the 1841 electoral defeat as evidence of the party's inchoateness. Indeed, this article shifts the historiographical narrative away from addressing why the Liberals lost to the more pertinent issue of why the losses suffered were not greater. In answering that question, both the sensitivity with which the financial agenda was presented by ministers and the flexibility of different sections of the Liberal Party in interpreting and presenting the free trade measures to the electorate are underlined. Above all, Lord John Russell is rehabilitated as a ‘popular’ leader and his importance in the development of the nascent Liberal Party is unearthed.     

By‐Elections and Political Change in a Local Context: The Case of the 1973 Dundee East By‐Election and the SNP

With their unpredictability and occurrence in between nationwide elections, by‐elections have attracted a degree of scholarly interest. However, this has focused almost exclusively on how the contests have affected, or failed to affect, the direction of national politics. This article seeks to, instead, explore their influence upon the locality in which they are fought. It will achieve this through an analysis of the 1973 Dundee East by‐election and its consequences for the development of the local Scottish National Party (SNP). Prior to the by‐election, the party had not been particularly strong in Dundee. Yet the contest provided a setting in which it was able to transform itself into one of the most effective Nationalist organisations in Scotland, capable of cementing an SNP MP in the constituency from 1974 until 1987, holding firm against the collapse in the party's support across the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The article will examine the extent to which this resistance to the national swing was facilitated by the legacies of the by‐election and the extent to which its wider footprint contributed towards the development of an enduring party tradition that has persisted for decades.