No End of a Lesson After 1906 Liberalism Increasingly Reflected

REVIEws a telling indication of the extent After 1906 In a companion essay, attempt to examine the strictly to which Edwardian Labour was E. H. H.Green considers Keynes political implications of the revi- out of touch with the bulk of Liberalism and the Conservative Party – a sionist work on the Edwardian the working class; trade union- increasingly more fraught relationship partly era with which Peter Clarke ism was simply absent from because of the dominance of was so involved. This is a pity the ‘sweated’ trades – which is reflected Treasury orthodoxy in the party because the impact of Liberal- why the only way of helping and partly because Keynes never ism and Liberal personnel on the employees was through the the ideas of hid his contempt for the Tory the other parties after the Lib- Liberal legislation that doubled intellect! He shows how three eral Party’s post-1918 decline their wages a new gen- Conservatives, Arthur Steel- is a major formative force, and, Moving on chronologi- eration; and Maitland, Harold Macmillan in particular, its impact on cally, Duncan Tanner revisits and J. W. Hills, were chiefly Conservative politics in the the vexed question of the col- electorally responsible for familiarising the Baldwin-Macmillan era is of lapse of the 1929–31 Labour party with Keynesian thinking crucial importance to the long- government, but puts the focus it demon- in the 1930s and that the turning term success of Conservatism. on leaders as opposed to sim- point came with acceptance of Yet it is largely taken for granted ply MacDonald himself or the strated its the 1944 White Paper commit- and has never been the subject party generally. The result capacity to ting the government to main- of systematic study. ‘National is a graphic picture of a dys- taining a high and stable level of Liberals’ were still standing as functional government due to mobilise the employment. late as the 1964 general elec- Snowden’s aversion to com- Other chapters in the col- tion and they were of consider- municating with colleagues working- lection are John A.Thompson able importance in sustaining and MacDonald’s inability to on American Liberals and Conservatism in Scotland, at consult with or accept criticism class vote entry into the First World least until 1955 when the party from the unions, the Indepen- while War, Eugenio Biagini on the won 36 of the 71 constituencies. dent Labour Party, the MPs or influence of Keynesianism on The Strange Survival of Liberal the intellectuals. In his excellent retaining post-1945 Italian politics, Stefan England remains to be fully contribution, Richard Toye Collini on cultural criticism explored. considers the role of Keynesian- middle-class of decline and modernity in ism in Labour Party politics. inter-war Britain, and Barry Martin Pugh was Professor of Mod- It was from the start a love- support. Supple on the long-term perfor- ern British History at Newcastle hate relationship. In the 1920s mance of the British economy, University and is now a freelance Labour appreciated Keynes’s structural change, and attitudes writer. His most recent books are criticism of the return to the towards the distribution of the Hurrah for the Blackshirts!: Gold Standard, but MacDonald fruits of economic growth. Fascists and Fascism in Britain et al. shrank from talk about Despite the title of the vol- Between the Wars (Cape, 2005), not balancing the budget as ume, only a few of these essays and We Danced All Night: giving an unwanted impres- are likely to be of interest to A Social History of Britain sion of radicalism. Actually, readers of the Journal of Liberal between the Wars (The Bodley by the 1930s Keynes’s influ- History. There is very little Head, 2008). ence was hampered by the fact that Labour had a battalion of its own academic econo- mists, several of whom, such as Hugh Gaitskell, were quite conservative and orthodox, No end of a lesson and suspected Keynesianism of causing inflation. Despite this, David Marquand, Britain Since 1918 (Weidenfeld & Toye explains how, after 1936, Nicholson, 2008) the party increasingly adopted Keynes, effectively claim- Reviewed by Tom McNally ing that his ideas were really common-sense Labour ones. All that is missing from this account rofessor David Mar- suited to being the chronicler is the important role of Ernest quand is a curious hybrid: and interpreter of twentieth- Bevin and the unions in pres- Ppart philosopher, part century Britain. It is a story surising Labour into adopting academic historian, part politi- which he himself describes as what they saw as a more realistic cal adviser and part sharp-end ‘a story of courage, persever- approach to unemployment and politician. Such a mixed pedi- ance, wisdom, selfishness, folly thus embracing Keynes. gree makes him particularly and self-deception.’ In his book 42 Journal of Liberal History 63 Summer 2009 REVIEws Britain Since 1918, he chooses to when government, and Gordon tell his story not through the Brown in particular, claimed it usual prisms of conflict between had ended boom and bust, and left and right, or reformers and Marquand does not strive too conservatives, but by tracing hard to do so. Indeed his book phases in twentieth-century ends with state intervention- British history, and the major ism seemingly consigned to the players during those phases, in dustbin of history. terms of deeper, longer estab- Even more ironically, it ends lished political roots. These he with hope held high that Gor- describes as the four traditions don Brown was about to take up that structure political debate in again the cause of radical con- Britain, and lists them as whig stitutional reform: ‘Within days imperialism, democratic col- of his arrival at Number Ten, lectivism, tory nationalism and Brown made a statement to the democratic republicanism. Commons holding out the pros- Marquand is unfortunate pect of a “new constitutional in one aspect of his work. He settlement” that would curb brings his narrative to an end the government’s prerogative in 2007. So, although he is not powers, enhance parliamen- sparing in his criticism of the tary scrutiny of the executive, Blair years (‘In a frenzy of self- and explicitly incorporate “the destructive messianism, Blair values founded on liberty that dwarfed the achievements of defined British citizenship”.’ his first term with the ill-fated All such ambitions are now put folly of the Iraq War and all that on the back burner as Brown flowed from it …’), he writes, tries to survive the economic and reaches his conclusions, tsunami now engulfing us. before the collapse of Anglo- From the Prime Minister there credit in his narrative to Cook/ Saxon free-market capitalism, is no recognition that it was Maclennan or to the massive the consequences of which we the stalling of the programme input Liberal Democrat policy are now grappling with. It is as of constitutional reform after development in the area made if a history was written in 1913 the initial first-term burst, to its success. at the end of the long, golden inspired by the Cook/Maclen- The sad fact is that, once and extended Edwardian age nan Report, which still leaves Labour ministers settled more with no knowledge of the cata- Britain’s system of governance comfortably into their minis- clysm to come. so ill-equipped to challenge an terial cars and the Whitehall To be fair, he does quote over-mighty executive or con- cocoon enveloped them, the a prophetic piece from Will nect effectively with the people impetus for reform was lost. Hutton calling for the world’s it claims to serve. Prior to 1997 I fear I do not share Professor anarchic financial markets to be both Tony Blair and Paddy Marquand’s 2007 optimism brought to heel by ‘the recogni- Ashdown agreed that constitu- that Gordon Brown is about to tion that the market economy tional reform was essential if the breathe fresh life into constitu- has to be managed and regu- modernisation of Britain and its tional reform. Even something lated, both at home and abroad’. institutions was to be success- as straightforward as Lords A favourable reference is also ful. They entrusted mapping reform is punted safely into the given to the Liberal Demo- out of a blueprint for reform long grass of the next parlia- crat Commission on Wealth to a joint commission of the ment (though the parliamentary Creation and Social Cohesion, two parties chaired by Robin expenses scandal may possibly chaired by Ralf Dahrendorf, Cook and Bob Maclennan. bring it forward). which argued that wealth was The implementation of Cook/ I have concentrated on the not merely the measure of GDP, Maclennan, of which I had the conclusions in his later chap- but ‘the sum of what people honour of being a member, ters because they show some value in their social lives’. It fol- resulted in what Marquand of the dangers for historians of lowed that conventionally mea- calls ‘a reconstruction of the writing instant history. The sured economic growth was not British State more radical than unknown and unexpected can an end in itself: development has any since 1707, and in so doing turn round and bite you. That to be socially as well as envi- gave a new dimension to Brit- does not make the writing of ronmentally sustainable. Such ish democracy.’ Rather unfairly, such histories valueless. It will arguments were hard to sustain in my opinion, he gives no be of immense value to future Journal of Liberal History 63 Summer 2009 43 REVIEws historians to read Professor can enjoy agreeing or disagree- the tide of appeasement in the Marquand’s assessments of Blair ing with what one reviewer cabinet.

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