How Successfully Did the Conservative Party Adapt to the Challenges of the late Victorian and Edwardian Period?

Since 1979 the conservative party has undergone significant changes from the traditional conservative party which focused on ideas about human nature, order and pragmatism, first with new right conservatism under Thatcher then with the current conservative party. The current conservative party however, can be seen to still be committed to its traditional conservative principles such as Euro-scepticism and that they remain largely traditionalist. However there are many ways in which the conservative party has changed such as taxation, education and the welfare state.

In 1951 Winston Churchill's Conservative party, won the general election, and this would be the start of 13 years of Conservative rule spanning three prime ministers. This rule was ended in 1964 by Harold Wilson’s reunited Labour party. In this essay, I will look at the factors which led to the Labour victory.

This essay will examine the impact of the Conservative party during their period in office between 1951 and 1964. The assessments by historians of these thirteen years vary widely as the Conservative rule left behind a mixed feeling about its achievements. We will therefore be discussing to what extent their period in office can be described as “thirteen years wasted”, based on their performances in the political, economic and social sectors.

Rawson’s book titled Labor in Vain? (1966) lists reasons for the decline in Labor’s first preferential votes, particularly up until the 1960s. By doing so, Rawson constructs the foundations for the beginning of the decline in chapter one, magnifying the core reasons to be the parties unneeded media drama, their lack of respect for leadership, inter-war policies, the 1945 party split, and the decline of trade union power through the alterations in Australian living standards. Rawson draws on interviews with Labor party members to construct his thesis as to why Labor is in Vain, enhancing it through the comparison of both Labor and Liberal policies. Rawson’s book is crucial for understanding why support began to decline during the early and mid-twentieth century, hence assisting with the question as it also provides answers as to what the Party itself can do about the issue, as it points out strengths of the Liberal party which assist in their success.

The conservative party has been in existence since the 1670s and was first called the ‘Tories’, a term used by the Scottish and Irish to describe a robber. This party is a right- wing party which believed in conserving the tradition and the king, as the name entails. David Cameron, the current party leader became the leader in 2005. He is also the present prime minister of Great Britain and he has made a lot of changes since he became the leader of the party. In this essay, I will talk about the history of the party, looking into detail at their gradual changes or transition in ideology and the various changes that David Cameron has made to the party’s image and beliefs.

The many reasons why New Labour under Tony Blair continued Thatcherite policies will be explored throughout this paper. Once analysis of New Labour has been explored, this paper will attempt to narrow the consequences of Thatcher’s policy continuation to confer whether those policies were beneficial or destructive to British political discourse and British society.

Most of the general British public were not able to vote meaning they had no control over MPs and the laws that effected their lives. The MPs in the running for elections were part of Britain’s richest families so they didn’t have much of an idea of what life was like for the average Britain;

Whether or not there truly was a ‘post war consensus’ in British politics from 1951 to 1964 is a highly debatable topic of which historians can often appear to be in two minds about; on one hand, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson infamously described the period as ‘Thirteen years wasted’, whereas historian Robert Blake (a supporter of the Conservatives’, regards it as a ‘Golden age of growth’. The likes of Kevin Jeffrey’s even argue that consensus had even started before the war. Overall, the central issue was the idea of a mixed economy.

This model is not only remarkable for its different approach but as well for the fact that it reduces the size of the working class to one third of the entire labour force (34 percent) compared to roughly 50 percent in the BMRS model. Evidently, a shrunken size of the social base for the class party, Labour, must have some bearing on its electoral performance. Even if the whole of the working class were voting for their ‘natural’ party, it would be highly unlikely to lead to a parliamentary majority based on these votes. (Labour’s reaction to this development will be looked at more closely later on in this essay.)

In the early 19th century, England had a small excess of women. There were around 400,000 more women then men. By 1911 that number grew to be around 1,200,000, meaning that a number of women were unmarried. While many married women had a chance to influence their husband’s votes, these unwed women

The Falklands conflict was, in the opinion of both Thatcher and many historians believed to be a key reason for Thatcher’s re-election. The fact that the Conservatives had a jump in support of 11 per cent between February and July 1982 showed that the conflict was beneficial to the party, despite initial resistance

Ault and Arnold (2010) point out that politics and history have both had an influence on the UK tax system over the years. The

real versus nominal value of wages from 1930-2009. The income value is measured using the relative average income that would be used to buy a commodity based on the GDP per capita. Labor Value is measured using the relative wage a worker would use to buy the commodity. This measure uses one of the wage indexes from MeasuringWorth.com. From the above table, it explains that one-time minimum wage spike in 1968 does not reflect wage declines in 2017. Rather, the real value of money today has more purchasing power than it did decades ago.

The Conservative Party Government Era during 1951-1964 is a period which has been politically criticized throughout the years specifically that of Britain Politics. During this time, the Conservative government was said to have pursued mainly Keynesian economic policies which was centrally focused on reducing inflation, to maintain growth and promote stability but despite the Conservatives attempts to revive the Britain economy through industrialism, increase standard of living and encouragement for consumerism there was the development of a stagnant economy which eventually produced an increase in unemployment, inflation and interest rates for consumer products and loans. The Labour government described the period of 1951-64 as “Thirteen Wasted Years” as they felt that during this period Britain experienced economic chaos and turmoil. This was quite the opposite view for that of the Conservatives, particularly Macmillan who expressed in his speech that the people had “… never had it so good” and encouraged his supporters and opponents to “… Go around the country, go to industrial towns, go to the farms and you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had before… ” This research paper will make reference to Andrew Boxer Thirteen Wasted Years and Dominic Sandbrook Never Had It So Good to

He only now is trying to modify his ideas on policies that many in his party have suggested for many months. The real question is if he's started a little late or will it be enough to make him more appealing to so many Republicans that are too unsure about him?