The Second Labour Government: A Reappraisal

This new edited collection of essays focuses on the history of Labour's second period in office during the 1929-1931 global financial crisis. Contributions by leading historians and younger academics bring fresh perspectives to Labour's domestic problems, electoral and party matters, relations with the Soviet Union and ideological questions. An important range of new historical research provides a much-needed reappraisal of Ramsay MacDonald's second Labour government, which impressed few with its conventional policies for tackling mass unemployment. Oswald Mosley, John Maynard Keynes and Ernest Bevin's alternative economic strategies are critically studied in key essays. A more positive side of the government's policies is also adeptly revealed on consumerism and agriculture. Significant new light is adroitly shed on the 1929 general election, the first fought on a universal franchise. The intricate politics of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the disaffiliation of the Independent Labour Party are convincingly explored. The influence of the Soviet Union on Labour's thoughts and actions is analysed in valuable accounts of Labour's foreign policy and Labour's turn to socialism after 1931. An important fresh account of opposition politics breaks new ground on the reaction of Tory politicians, including Harold Macmillan, to MacDonald's government. The volume concludes with an absorbing analysis of the myths surrounding '1931' in Labour history.This timely volume makes accessible a major reassessment of existing knowledge and new scholarship that will appeal to students and teachers of British political and social history. It is essential reading for sixth form and university courses on twentieth-century history. -- .

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction - John Shepherd and Jonathan Davis 2. The 1929 election reconsidered - Andrew Thorpe 3. Labour dealing with Labour: aspects of economic policy - Chris Wrigley 4. Why was there no Keynesian revolution under the Second Labour government? Reassessing Sir Oswald Mosley’s alternative economic agenda - Daniel Ritschel 5. The ‘Loyal Lump’: The Parliamentary Labour Party during the second Labour government - Robert Taylor 6. The Independent Labour Party and the second Labour government 1929-1931: the move towards revolutionary change - Keith Laybourn 7. The second Labour government and the consumer - Nicole Robertson 8. The end of free trade: agricultural crisis and the politics of the national interest - Clare Griffiths 9. Labour and the Kremlin - Jonathan Davis 10. ‘Bolshevism Run Mad’: Labour and socialism in 1931 - John Callaghan 11. The right looks left. The ‘Young Tory’ response to the 1929-31 Labour government - Richard Carr 12. Remembering 1931: an invention of tradition - David Howell 13. Conclusion - Chris Wrigley

About the Author :
John Shepherd is Visiting Professor in Modern British History at the University of Huddersfield. Jonathan Davis is Principal Lecturer in Russian and Modern European History at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Chris Wrigley is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Nottingham.

Review :
"As well as containing an excellent and extensive literature review of labour's history around the period 1929-31, the book offers a stimulating and energetic re-examination of a period in Labour's history that has been well-documented and no doubt will continue to be so." (William Stallard, Political Studies Review, May 2014)