Andrew Bonar Law, who had just ridden a backbench revolt all the way to 10 Downing Street and led his Unionist Party to an overall majority in the House of Commons, would end up a footnote in history. After just over six months in office, the 64-year-old Prime Minister was diagnosed with throat cancer in May 1923 and resigned from office. He would die that autumn.
Law’s resignation caused a leadership struggle between Foreign Secretary the Earl Curzon of Kedleston and Chancellor Stanley Baldwin. The choice would formally be up to the King, who appointed a Prime Minister on advice from a “Magic Circle” of Unionist grandees who then confirmed his choice as leader of the party. Curzon, a nobleman and old-school Tory, believed himself to be Law’s natural successor, but the choice of the Magic Circle fell on the more middle-class Baldwin, who came from a prosperous background but had made his own fortune and political career. In an age where working-class resentment was clearly rising, the upwardly-mobile MP for Bewdley (his actual hometown, no less) simply looked better as the face of the Unionist Party than the brash, divisive and aristocratic Lord Curzon.
Baldwin proved a good choice, and despite only being a few years younger than Law and Curzon, had an image as a “new man” who understood the tools available to modern politicians. In his fourteen-year stint at the head of the Conservative and Unionist Party, Baldwin would massively expand the party organisation, transforming it into every bit as much of a mass party as the Liberals and Labour, incorporate films and radio broadcasts into campaign strategy, and raise millions of pounds for the party war chest.
For now, however, Baldwin focused on his legislative agenda, and one item topped the list: tariff reform. Baldwin was a convinced protectionist, believing higher tariffs would help curb unemployment by encouraging British industry, but in 1922 Law had promised the electorate that no new tariffs would be raised without fresh elections. So it was that Parliament was dissolved and fresh elections called for the 6th of December, 1923.
As it turned out, neither the Unionist Party nor the people were decisively behind Baldwin’s protectionist agenda, and the Unionists lost eighty-six seats and their majority in the House of Commons. They remained the largest party in the House by some margin, and the House of Lords retained a safe Unionist majority, but Baldwin was nevertheless voted out of office when the new Parliament opened. Labour, still the second party in the House despite the Liberals reuniting, formed a shaky minority Government with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister. It was a new age indeed…
