The Conservative Basis for the Formation of the National Government of 1931
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10067029 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John D Fair (Auburn University at Montgomery, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1980 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 142-164 |
| Publication date | 1980-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of British Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1086/385759 |
| OpenAlex | W2062192668 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 12 |
The creation of the National Government of 1931 has been a theme of unending comment and controversy. Politicians and writers of the left, with their party suddenly decapitated and bereft of office, not surprisingly were bitter. Their tendency was to castigate anyone who had played an obvious role in the crisis. Therefore, Ramsay MacDonald, who presided over the change, has been branded a traitor by his former colleagues and by later generations of Labour supporters. Even for historians he has remained at the center of the controversy. From a slightly wider perspective, it has been possible to suspect a “bankers' ramp,” and the king has been singled out for special abuse on the charge of misleading the prime minister. Although some of these elements have been dismissed as myths in Reginald Bassett's 1958 treatise, the controversy hardly has been brought closer to a solution. In his review of that polemical study, Richard Crossman contended that “no one has yet succeeded in writing about this crisis without violent partisanship” and that it remained “the kind of live political issue about which no one except a political eunuch can write dispassionately.” That the debate continues is evident from the recent biography of MacDonald by David Marquand, who, in an attempt to vindicate his subject, once more reverts to the king as the agent most responsible for the creation of a coalition. Amazingly, no writer has yet interpreted the formation of the National Government as a Conservative Party bid for power, despite the control manifested by that party in the ensuing general election and the eventual successions of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain to the premiership
Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Suspect · Theme (computing · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Scottish History and National Identity
The Life of Neville Chamberlain
Post-Victorian Britain 1902-1951
The Electoral System in Britain, 1918-1951
The Constitutional Crisis of 1931
The Monarch and the Selection of a Prime Minister
Nineteen Thirty-One
What Happened in 1931
Government and Parliament
The Economic Policy of the Second Labour Government 1929-1931
London and the 1931 Financial Crisis
Politicians, Historians, and the War
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,07 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 1988 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |