The Liberal party and the Constitution

The preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act refers to the creation of ‘a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis’ –an aim still not achieved almost a century later. Yet perhaps the received wisdom – that an elected House of was Mr Punch, 28 Asquith’s unfinished December 1910: The chance of a business – is mistaken. lifetime

Vernon Bogdanor Our Mr Asquith: ‘Five hundred argues that the coronets, dirt- cheap! This line Liberals regarded the of goods ought to make business a arrangements of 1911 bit brisker, what?’ as a final settlement of Our Mr Lloyd the second-chamber George: ‘Not half; bound to go like question. hot cakes’

46 Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 The Liberal party and the Constitution

n the great days of liberal councils or parliaments elected a popular instead of a hereditary hegemony before 1914, on the basis of popular suffrage basis’. Indeed, one commentator Liberal governments were – And this is the root of the It has has referred to recent attempts strongly associated with incomparable strength of the to secure House of Lords reform the idea of constitutional English Body Politic.1 become a as ‘Mr Asquith’s Unfinished Ireform. Whigs and Liberals Business’.2 were prominent in the cam- Above all, it was a Liberal gov- common- It is, however, by no means paign for expansion of the ernment which in 1911 passed clear that the Parliament Act franchise, while Gladstone the Parliament Act limiting the place that was in fact unfinished busi- devoted his third and fourth power of the House of Lords, the 1906 ness, that the Liberals genuinely administrations to the struggle and radically reshaping the intended to proceed to what for Irish Home Rule. Liber- constitution. Liberal would now be termed a phase als campaigned hard for local It has become a common- two of further reform of the government reform to provide place that the 1906 Liberal gov- govern- Lords. There are strong grounds for local self-government, a ernment was more successful in for believing that most Liberals campaign which culminated its social and economic reforms ment was regarded the Parliament Act as in the Parish Councils Act of – old age pensions, redistributive more a final settlement of the second 1894 providing for the establish- taxation and national insurance chamber question. ment of elective parish councils. – than in constitutional reform. success- Of that Act, a great Continen- The Asquith government failed ~ tal constitutional lawyer, Josef to secure an agreed settlement ful in its Redlich, declared: in Ireland and failed to secure The idea of the suspensory veto, Home Rule All Round. They social and the basis of the Parliament Act, The grand principle of repre- did not succeed in meeting the economic derives from the utilitarian, sentative democracy has now demands of the suffragettes for James Mill, father of John Stu- been fully applied to local gov- votes for women – an essentially reforms art Mill, who was the first to ernment – has created liberal cause, one might have propose it in 1836. John Bright for herself ‘self government’ in thought. They did not reform than in was the first politician to give it the true sense of the word. She the electoral system when they public support in 1883 at a meet- has secured self government had the chance, and they did not consti- ing of the Federation of Liberal – that is to say, the right of her secure what the Parliament Act tutional Associations at Leeds. Bright was people to legislate, to deliber- in its preamble referred to as ‘a supported by Joseph Chamber- ate, and to administer through Second Chamber constituted on reform lain, although of course, in 1911,

Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 47 the liberal party and the constitution Chamberlain, by then a Union- The sus- or to introduce it by stages. It committed to policies far ist, was to take a very different is noticeable that the 1906 Lib- removed from the spirit of the view, proving to be a last-ditch pensory eral government, which com- Gladstonian period, which, defender of the absolute veto of manded a large overall majority by destroying the old aristo- the House of Lords. veto would in the House of Commons, cratic settlement, had sought to The suspensory veto would made no attempt to introduce a remove obstacles to individual not, however, have become not, how- Home Rule bill. advancement. The Liberals were Liberal policy without the ever, have In 1908, Asquith, a leading becoming committed to policies personal intervention of advocate of the Ripon com- of social welfare and state assist- Henry Campbell-Banner- become mittee’s proposal for a joint ance, policies which Gladstone man, Liberal Prime Minister conference rather than the sus- would have dubbed ‘construc- from 1905 to 1908. For, in 1907, Liberal pensory veto, succeeded the tionist’ and to which he would a Cabinet committee chaired dying Campbell-Bannerman have been strongly opposed. by Ripon recommended policy as Prime Minister. It is a para- These policies – old age pen- that disputes between the two without dox that it was he who was to sions, redistributive taxation and chambers be settled not by a introduce the suspensory veto national insurance – demanded suspensory veto, but by a joint the per- in 1911. The issue was decided, legislative efficiency, the speedy conference between the Com- as so often happens in politics, translation of ministers’ wishes mons and the Lords. The mov- sonal less by the wishes of politicians into law. The action of the Lords ing spirit behind this report than by electoral vicissitudes. in rejecting the ‘People’s Budget’ was the Chancellor of the interven- For, in the January 1910 general of 1909 showed the dangers Exchequer, H. H. Asquith. But tion of election, the Liberals lost their which a powerful second cham- Sir Henry rejected the recom- overall majority and became ber could pose against measures mendation of his own Cabinet Sir Henry dependent upon the Irish Par- involving redistributive taxation. committee, insisting upon the liamentary Party and Labour. Thus, the Asquith government, suspensory veto. The Liberal Campbell- The Ripon plan would have like Attlee’s after 1945, sought Cabinet was by no means happy been rejected both by the Irish, to ensure that Parliament acted with this solution, and the For- Banner- who insisted upon the suspen- more speedily in getting legisla- eign Secretary, Sir Edward man. sory veto in order to secure tion on to the statute book. Grey, declared that it was ‘open Home Rule, and by Labour. This was, of course, a con- to the charge of being in effect a The only other party which siderable departure from the Single Chamber plan and from might have supported the attitudes of nineteenth-century a Single Chamber, I believe Ripon plan would have been Liberals, or, for that matter, of the country would recoil’.3 the Conservatives. Had the Liberal Democrats today, who This remark was prescient only Constitutional Conference of are concerned with securing in part. It is true that the 1911 1910, or the Lloyd George coali- effective checks and balances in Parliament Act established, for tion proposals of the same year, a constitution whose condition most practical purposes, single- succeeded, possibly the Ripon approaches what Lord Hailsham chamber government, but it plan would have been resur- famously called an ‘elective does not seem as if the country rected. But, after the Constitu- dictatorship’. In 1911, how- has in fact recoiled from it. tional Conference broke down ever, Liberals could not afford The division of opinion on the issue of whether Home to allow delays to redistribu- between those Liberals who Rule should be treated as a tive measures from an unrepre- favoured the suspensory veto ‘constitutional’ or an ‘ordinary’ sentative upper house. Nor did and those who preferred the issue, Asquith had no choice but rank-and-file Liberals wish to Ripon proposal of a joint con- to adopt the suspensory veto if reform the Lords so that it could ference coincided broadly, he wished to retain the support become a more effective check though by no means com- of the Irish Parliamentary Party. on the people’s will. From this pletely, with the division in the It may be argued, therefore, point of view, there must be party between the left-wing, that the current powers of the serious doubt as to whether the radical ‘Little Englanders’, and House of Lords owe more to notorious preamble in the 1911 the Liberal Imperialists. The the Irish Party, most of whose Parliament Act, committing radicals wanted the suspen- members sought nothing more the Liberals to establishing a sory veto partly because they than a quick departure from the ‘popular’ rather than a ‘heredi- wanted to secure Irish Home House of Commons, than to tary’ chamber, was seriously Rule. The Liberal Imperialists, any reasoned assessment of the intended. Indeed, the pream- by contrast, tended to the view proper functions of a second ble seems to have been inserted that the commitment to Home chamber. mainly ‘to appease Sir Edward Rule was holding the party Admittedly there was, by Grey’, who remained deeply back, and sought, if not to jet- 1910, a further factor. The Lib- concerned about ‘single-cham- tison it, at least to postpone it eral government was becoming ber government’.4 But, having

48 Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 the liberal party and the constitution

largely destroyed the power of a was, ironically, a Liberal govern- declared, obiter, that an act of hereditary chamber to obstruct ment which helped to pave the parliament purporting to abol- progressive legislation, the way for the elective dictatorship ish the House of Lords by using Liberals were hardly likely to which Liberal Democrats today the Parliament Acts would not construct a second chamber seek to check. necessarily be constitutional. – more legitimate because more From 1911, Britain enjoyed, The growth of judicial power ­democratically based – which for most practical purposes, as is of course a development on would be in a much stronger Sir Edward Grey had predicted, the whole welcomed by Liberal position to wreck legislation. It single-chamber government. Democrats. They welcomed it is arguable, therefore, whether Indeed, we have managed the much less at the beginning of reform of the composition of unusual feat of achieving sin- the twentieth century, when the the House of Lords designed gle-chamber government with a judges were seen as reactionary to make it more legitimate can bicameral parliament. Since 1911, enemies of a government of the fairly be characterised, as ‘Mr the House of Commons, which left; in 1911, Winston Church- Asquith’s Unfinished Business’. means in practice the governing ill told the House of Commons Both in 1911 and, indeed, later party, can now change unilater- that ‘where class issues are in 1949, when the Attlee gov- ally any part of the constitution, involved – a very large number ernment passed a second Parlia- except that it cannot extend the of our population have been led ment Act, reducing the period five-year maximum interval to the opinion that they [the of delay from three sessions to between general elections with- judges] are, unconsciously no one, governments of the left out the consent of the Lords. On doubt, biased’.7 concentrated upon reducing the that issue alone, the Lords retain powers of the Lords rather than an absolute veto. Under the pre- ~ reforming its composition. For 1911 constitution, by contrast, the both Asquith and Attlee appre- constituent assembly comprised As well as setting up the elec- ciated, as perhaps Blair has still both houses, and the govern- tive dictatorship, the Liberal to appreciate, that a more legiti- ment could not unilaterally alter government which won so tri- mate House of Lords would be a the constitution; it needed the As well as umphant an election victory in greater threat to a government consent of the upper house. 1906 strove to maintain the first- of the left than a Lords com- Under the post-1911 con- setting up past-the-post electoral system. posed on the basis of heredity. stitution, the governing party the elec- In this they were following in In the 1960s, Richard Crossman which controlled the House of the Liberal tradition. Gladstone, described Labour’s position on Commons has become the sole tive dic- Bright and Chamberlain had all the House of Lords as being that and supreme judge of the extent been strongly opposed to pro- ‘an indefensible anachronism is of its power. It was for this rea- tatorship, portional representation. preferable to a second Chamber son that the great constitution- During the debates on the with any real authority’.5 The alist, A. V. Dicey, declared in the Liberal Third Reform Bill, Gladstone Liberal position in 1911 was very 1915 that the Parliament Act of govern- had ridiculed proportional similar. They wanted a weaker 1911 marked ‘the last and great- representation in the House House of Lords not a stronger est triumph of party govern- ment which of Commons on 4 December one. The Blair government, it ment’, since it showed that party 1884, as a pons asinorum, an insur- may be argued, is inconsistent was the essence of the British won so mountable obstacle to reform, in seeking reform of the compo- constitution and not a mere while Chamberlain had told sition of the Lords, thus making accident of the system.6 Dicey triumphant the electoral reformer, Sir John it more legitimate, while at the believed that the Act left a gap an elec- Lubbock, that he would prefer same time seeking to reduce its in the constitution, a gap which the most reactionary Conserva- powers. he believed should be filled by tion victory tive government to proportional The constitutional crisis of the referendum. The referen- representation. At the first con- 1909–11 had revealed a profound dum, to which Liberals have in 1906 ference of the National Liberal divergence of view as to whether been strongly opposed, was, he Federation in 1877, Chamberlain the main problem of democ- believed, the only democratic strove spoke of: racy was that it was inefficient way of limiting government by to main- – that it could not pass legisla- party. Liberals ignorant of what are tion which the people needed Today, perhaps, the gap is tain the the first elements of Liberal- because of obstruction from the being filled by the judges who ism, and whose lingering dis- hereditary chamber – or that are counterposing to the idea of first-past- trust of the good sense and the it lacked sufficient checks and the sovereignty of Parliament patriotism of the people has balances – that it worked too the idea of the rule of law. In the-post found expression in machinery quickly rather than too slowly. the recent case brought by sup- electoral – cumulative vote, minority The Liberals were strongly com- porters of hunting, Jackson v representation, and I know not mitted to the former view; and it Attorney-General, 2005, judges system. what of the same kind, which

Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 49 the liberal party and the constitution

a strong government and an the minority to turn itself into a Imperial government.9 majority by reason and in course of time’.11 John Morley, Chamberlain’s fel- It is hardly surprising that the low-radical, told the House of 1906 Liberal government was so Commons in 1884 that schemes hostile to proportional repre- of proportional representation sentation. It had won a healthy and the like ‘were but new dis- majority of 397 seats out of 670 in guises for the old Tory distrust the House of Commons on just of the people’.10 Asquith and 49 per cent of the vote. Under Lloyd George, in their opposi- proportional representation, the tion to proportional representa- Liberals would probably have tion, were doing no more than had to depend on the Irish for following in the Liberal tradi- their majority. The last Glad- tion. They remained hostile stone government, from 1892 to to proportional representation 1895, had been in that position, until the 1920s. and most Liberals had no desire The Asquith government to repeat the experience of that was, however, beginning to be unfortunate administration. The worried by the threat of the new Liberals could not of course be young Labour Party splitting the expected to foresee the electoral progressive vote. Introduction earthquake which would over- of the alternative vote system take them after 1918 when they would prevent the two par- would be rapidly reduced to the ties of the left splitting the vote, status of a minor party. Moreo- and the Asquith government ver, as we have seen, New Lib- tends to divide the party of H. H. Asquith flirted mildly with this reform, erals such as Asquith and Lloyd action in face of the ever united (1852–1928), although, of course, the alterna- George believed less in restraint party of obstruction.8 Prime Minister 1908–16 tive vote could have led to even by the state than in strong gov- more disproportional results ernment to pursue policies of In 1886, Chamberlain was to than first past the post. social reform. In consequence, argue that universal suffrage In 1908, Asquith established the party did not come out in made the old liberal fear of a Royal Commission to inquire favour of proportional repre- strong government irrelevant. into the electoral system, the sentation until 1922, when the Using words which the New only such Royal Commis- Asquithian Liberals for the first Liberals and particularly Lloyd sion that there has ever been in time committed themselves to it George could have echoed, he Britain. Giving evidence to the in their election manifesto. said: Commission, J. Renwick Seager, In 1917, the first Speaker’s Secretary of the Registration Conference unanimously rec- I think a democratic govern- Department of the Liberal Cen- ommended proportional repre- ment should be the strongest tral Association, told it that: sentation in the urban seats. But government from a military this was the only unanimous and imperial point of view in Proportional representation is recommendation of the con- the world, for it has the peo- a matter scarcely ever talked ference which Lloyd George ple behind it. Our misfortune about – The Liberal agents as refused to accept, telling C. P. is that we live under a system a whole, so far as I know, are Scott, editor of the Manches- of government originally none of them in favour of it; ter Guardian, that proportional contrived to check the action and as to the organisations, I do representation was ‘a device for of and Ministers, and not know of one Liberal organ- defeating democracy, the princi- which meddles far too much isation that has ever passed a ple of which was that the major- with the Executive of the resolution in favour of it. ity should rule, and for bringing country. The problem is to faddists of all kinds into Parlia- give the democracy the whole Seager was himself strongly ment, and establishing groups power, but to induce them to opposed to proportional repre- and disintegrating parties’. do no more in the way of using sentation since ‘the effect to my Asquith refused to give a lead to it than to decide on the general mind would be that the number his followers on this issue, say- principles which they wish to of bores and cranks in the House ing that ‘The matter is not one see carried out, and the men would be largely increased, apart which excites my passions, and I by whom they are to be car- from the personal interests of am not sure that it even arouses ried out. My Radicalism at all trade and religion’. Instead, it any very ardent enthusiasm’. In events desires to see established was, he suggested, ‘the duty of 1925, however, Lloyd George

50 Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 the liberal party and the constitution

told Scott that he had made a by Irish university legislation in before the Second World War. great mistake. ‘Some one ought 1908 and land legislation in 1909, Lloyd George declared that after to have come to me in 1918 and and separate Scottish land laws the war Wales would have Home gone into the whole matter. I in 1911 and temperance legisla- Rule. Lord Morgan replied that was not converted then. I could tion in 1913. Lloyd George was most strongly have carried it then when I was It is perhaps hardly surprising in favour of Home Rule at the prime minister. I am afraid it is that Lloyd George, as a Welsh- beginning and the end of his too late now.’ One may perhaps man, seemed at times to be a political career, when he was take Lloyd George’s statement supporter of Home Rule All furthest from power. that he would have introduced Round. Indeed, from the time proportional representation in he was returned to the House ~ 1918 if someone had explained it of Commons in a by-election to him with a pitch of salt. By in 1890 until 1923, he described There are two reasons why the 1925, however, it was certainly himself in Dod’s Parliamentary 1906 Liberal government failed too late.12 Companion not as a Liberal but as to pursue a radical programme a ‘Radical and Welsh National- of constitutional reform of the ~ ist’. Yet Lloyd George had suf- kind that today’s Liberal Dem- fered a major political defeat ocrats now seek. The first is At the end of the nineteenth in 1896, when his attempt to that the Liberals of 1906 were a century, many Liberals hoped secure a unified Welsh Lib- party of government, and were, that Home Rule for Ireland eral Federation was defeated therefore, likely to take the could be the prelude to Home by Liberals from industrialising same view as the Attlee govern- Rule All Round, a policy of South Wales. A Cardiff Liberal, ment did in 1945, namely that devolution for England, Scot- Alderman Bird, declared that ‘a the machinery of government land and Wales as well as Ireland. cosmopolitan population from worked too slowly. A party in In his Midlothian campaign of Swansea to Newport’ would opposition, by contrast, and in 1879, Gladstone had declared that ‘never bow to the domination of particular a third party with ‘If we can make arrangements Welsh ideas’.14 The nearer Lloyd little likelihood of being able under which Ireland, , George came to political power, to form a government, is much Wales, portions of England, can the more lukewarm he became more likely to champion checks deal with questions of local and about Home Rule for Wales. and balances. Thus the Liberals special interest to themselves The New Liberals preferred, of 1911 sought to remove checks more efficiently than Parliament after 1906, to ensure equal sta- on the power of government. now can, that, I say, will be the tus for Wales through national Liberal Democrats today seek attainment of a great national educational institutions and the to restore them. good’. The Asquith govern- disestablishment of the Welsh But there is a second, and ment too sympathised in princi- Church, a minority church in in some ways more interest- ple with the idea of Home Rule Wales, rather than to establish ing reason. It is that the social All Round. Indeed, the second Home Rule. Admittedly, in 1911, reforms of the New Liber- draft of the 1912 Home Rule bill Lloyd George agreed to set up The social alism, like those of the 1945 included a scheme proposed by separate national commissions to Labour government, presup- Lloyd George for Grand Com- administer the National Insur- reforms of posed centralisation. For they mittees in England, Scotland ance Act, rather than a single rested on the proposition that and Wales, with wide legislative commission to cover the whole the New the benefits which individuals powers of the same scope as those of the . He had, Liberal- should receive ought to depend being offered to Ireland. The however, hoped for a central- not upon geography but upon title of the bill was to be Gov- ised scheme, but, at almost the ism, like need. Old age pensions were ernment of Ireland and House last moment before the bill was to depend upon income lev- of Commons (Devolution of published, he came to appreciate those of els; health and unemployment Business) bill. This scheme was that this was politically impos- insurance were to depend upon dropped from the final draft of sible, and that ‘you have got to the 1945 need and the level of contribu- the bill, but, in introducing defer to sentiment’.15 Labour tions. Whether a claimant lived Home Rule, Asquith declared At the Corporation of Lon- in Ireland, Scotland, Wales or that it was to be ‘the first step / Liberal Democrat His- govern- England was irrelevant. The and only the first step in a tory Group meeting in February proposition that benefits should larger and more comprehensive 2006 at which Lord Morgan (the ment, pre- depend not upon geography but policy’.13 The Asquith govern- historian, Kenneth O. Morgan) upon need is a key element of ment remained sympathetic to celebrated the 1906 election vic- supposed , and it was separate legislative treatment for tory, a member of the audience centralisa- accepted as much by the New the non-English nations of the recalled hearing Lloyd George Liberals as by Labour. The United Kingdom – as witnessed speak at Denbigh in 1939, shortly tion. principle was carried to fruition

Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007 51 the liberal party and the constitution

by the Attlee government after The term ‘the New Liberal- circumstances to detect any 1945 and reached its culmination ism’ is in part fudge, masking the continuing Liberal tradition of in the National Health Service fact that there was a fundamen- constitutional reform. established in 1946. Bevan, like tal conflict between liberalism Lloyd George, resisted creat- as a creed and social democracy. Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of ing separate health services for Many of the things that the 1906 Government, Oxford University. the different components of the Liberal government did – such His books include The United Kingdom; but, unlike as, for example, the National and the Constitution (1995) and Lloyd George, he felt no need Insurance Act, which demanded Devolution in the United - to ‘defer to sentiment’. Perhaps compulsory contributions, and dom (1999), and he has edited The sentiment had become weaker the Trade Union Act of 1913, British Constitution in the 20th by 1946 than it had been in 1911. which required trade union- Century (2003). He is currently Indeed, it may well be that the ists specifically to contract out completing a book entitled Our forces of sentiment are now, at if they did not wish to support New Constitution. a time when voters become the Labour Party – were hardly anxious about the so-called liberal from the point of view of 1 Cited in Bryan Keith-Lucas, Par- ‘postcode lottery’, on the side expanding individual freedom ish Councils: The Way Ahead, The Fourth Mary Brockenhurst Lec- of the centralisers rather than of choice. Moreover, the moti- ture, Devon Association of Parish the devolutionists. It is, after vation for these reforms derived Councils, 1985, p. 1. all, self-contradictory to favour largely from movements, such 2 Iain McLean, ‘Mr Asquith’s Unfin- both decentralisation and ter- as the Fabians and the ‘National ished Business’, Political Quarterly, ritorial equality. What is clear Efficiency’ school, which were 1999. 3 G. M. Trevelyan, Grey of Fallo- is that Home Rule All Round, almost explicitly anti-liberal. don (Longmans Green, 1937), pp. or devolution, like the creation From a modern vantage point, it 194–95. of a strong second chamber and can be seen that liberalism and 4 G. H. L. le May, The Victorian Con- proportional representation, all social democracy were diverg- stitution (Duckworth, 1979), p. 214. fell foul of what has been called ing after 1906, and that social 5 Cited in Miles Taylor, ‘Labour and the Constitution’, in Duncan Tan- the New Liberalism. democracy was coming to sup- ner, Pat Thane and Nick Tiratsoo The New Liberalism was plant liberalism. Lloyd George (eds.), Labour’s First Century (Cam- an attempt to reconcile liber- and his allies were becoming bridge University Press, 2000), p. alism and social democracy. It social democrats and leaving 169. favoured strong government, liberalism behind. Today it has 6 A. V. Dicey, An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution and was coming to appreciate become clear that social democ- (8th edition, Macmillan, 1915), p. ci. that devolution would dissipate racy and liberalism are different 7 House of Commons Debates, 5th the power of government. From and possibly incompatible phi- series, vol. 26, col. 1022. the economic and social point losophies, the one legitimating 8 Quoted in Moisei Ostrogorski, of view, the problems of the strong and centralised govern- Democracy and the Organisation of Political Parties (Macmillan, 1902), Scottish crofter or the Welsh ment, the other favouring con- vol. I, pp. 174–75. peasant did not differ from stitutional reform which would 9 , Chapters of Autobi- those of the English agricul- have the effect of limiting the ography (Cassell, 1930), pp. 220–21. tural labourer. The solution to power of the state and dispersing 10 See, on this paragraph, Vernon the problem lay not in creating Study of it territorially. Bogdanor, The People and the Party System: The Referendum and Electoral Home Rule parliaments which Study of the 1906 Liberal the 1906 Reform in British Politics (Cambridge would divide the forces work- government shows that there is University Press, 1981), pp. 112–15. ing for change, but a strong rad- Liberal no specifically Liberal approach 11 Cited in Bogdanor, The People and ical government at Westminster to the constitution. The Liberal the Party System, pp. 120–21. which could implement reform. approach has differed accord- 12 Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political govern- Diaries of C. P. Scott: 1911–1928 (Col- That was Lloyd George’s view ing to whether the Liberals have lins, 1970), pp. 274, 484. Entries for just as it had been Joseph Cham- ment been a party of government or 3 April 1917 and 13–14 November berlain’s, and it was to be the a party of opposition without 1925. Bogdanor, The People and the standpoint from which Aneu- shows that a realistic prospect of power. Party System, p. 132. rin Bevan and Clement Attlee The 1906 Liberal government 13 Quoted in Vernon Bogdanor, Devo- there is no lution in the United Kingdom (Oxford were to approach social reform. favoured single-chamber gov- University Press, 1999), p. 45. For them, the problems of the specifically ernment, centralised govern- 14 Cited in Bogdanor, Devolution, p. Scottish or Welsh working class ment and the first-past-the-post 148. did not differ in any essential Liberal electoral system. Today’s Liberal 15 Sir Henry Bunbury, ‘Introduction’ respect from the problems of Democrats prefer an elected to W. J. Braithwaite, Lloyd George’s approach Ambulance Wagon (Methuen 1957), p. the English working class. The second chamber, a federal and 222. solution was a strong Labour to the con- decentralised system of govern- government at Westminster, ment and proportional represen- not devolution. stitution. tation. It is difficult under these

52 Journal of Liberal History 54 Spring 2007