Challenge from Labour/ Party advantage Flashcards
Topic sentence
Other historians argue that challenge from Labour and party advantage was the most important reasons for the passing of Liberal Reforms.
Evidence 1
The Labour Party began to compete for the same votes as the liberals because their policies were more appealing to the working classes as they were committed to the establishment of a system of National Insurance, old age pensions and provision for poor people.
Analysis 1
The rise of the Labour Party was an important influence on the Liberal decision to introduce social welfare reforms because the Labour Party was promising to improve living conditions for the poor if they were elected.
Evidence 2
Indeed, in 1907 the Liberals were unseated by Labour politicians 3 times in by-elections.
Analysis 2
This was an important factor to the passing of Liberal reforms because the by-election results proved that if the Liberals did not promise in their manifesto to help address poverty, they could lose at the next election to the Labour Party.
Counter analysis
However, some historians argue that the threat from Labour wasn’t as significant as it seemed because the Liberals managed the problem of Labour by developing a secret electoral pact with the Labour as early as 1903, so social reform from 1906 was not necessarily a reaction to Labour.
Evaluation
To evaluate, whilst there is a perception that the threat of the Labour Party encouraged the passing of Liberal reforms , it is clear that it was not the most important factor as the Liberals were able to ‘manage’ the power that the Labour Party had. Adifionally, the Labour party were a fairly small party as they only had 29 seats by 1906 meaning that their threat to Liberals was limited. Indeed, changing attitudes to poverty was the most important reason for the passing of Liberal Reforms as the findings shifted politicians views on poverty.
