The MacDonald ministry marked a turning point in British political history. For the first time, a socialist party formed the government, and besides MacDonald himself, ten other cabinet ministers came from working-class backgrounds. The ministry’s main priority was to reassure the country that, despite this, they would govern responsibly and were not about to overturn the apparatus of the state. In this they were fairly successful, but their rule would still be short-lived.
The main achievements of the MacDonald administration in domestic politics were the extension of benefits and state pensions, long-held Labour goals, and the Wheatley Housing Act, which extended state subsidies for council housing and enabled the construction of half a million new affordable homes. A high tempo of reform was carried on throughout 1924, but the Labour ministry would soon be overtaken by foreign affairs.
The Soviet Union, which had been founded in 1922, had still not been formally recognised by the UK when MacDonald entered office. Though far from a communist himself, the new Prime Minister wanted to settle any diplomatic conflicts with the new country, and to this end recognised them as one of his first acts in office (he was Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister). In February, negotiations were started on a treaty which would open up international trade between the two countries and settle debts owed to British bondholders who had invested in the pre-revolutionary Russian government. The Soviets, conscious of their difficulties trading abroad, wanted to include a loan in the treaty, which caused both the Unionists and Liberals to balk, and the non-Labour majority became increasingly united against the Government as negotiations carried on.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Campbell case, a trial brought against Communist newspaper publisher J. R. Campbell in August for an open letter to all British servicemen published in his Worker’s Weekly. In this, Campbell called on soldiers and sailors to defy any order to open fire on striking workers, and instead “turn their weapons on their oppressors”. This was considered incitement to mutiny, a felony under British law, but to Labour MPs it was a flagrantly political affair. Under pressure from his backbenchers, MacDonald’s Attorney General withdrew the charges against Campbell within a week of their announcement. The House of Commons passed a censure motion in response, and MacDonald, considering the matter a confidence question, resigned and requested the dissolution of Parliament. The election was set for 29 October.
The Unionists, having found a strong line of attack, continued to accuse MacDonald of being a closet Communist throughout the campaign. On the 25th of October, just before the election, the Unionist-supporting Daily Mail published the now-infamous Zinoviev letter. The letter, purportedly sent by Comintern chairman Grigori Zinoviev, called on British communists and Labour Party members to fight for the ratification of the Anglo-Soviet treaty as soon as possible, and said this would “make it possible for us to extend and develop the ideas of Leninism in England and the Colonies”. Today, it is mostly agreed that the letter was a complete forgery, but it became the culmination of the 1920s Red Scare in Britain and remains a byword for red-baiting.
The short-term effect of the Zinoviev letter on the campaign, however, was probably not significant. In any case, Labour increased its voteshare compared to the previous year and held on to three quarters of their seats. What caused the great Unionist landslide that the 1924 election produced was the collapse of the Liberal Party. It had been in dire financial straits since the end of the Great War, and Lloyd George’s questionable financial dealings had only slightly extended its lease on life. Three general elections in two years, however, had taken a toll, and in 1924 the Liberals were only able to raise deposits for 339 candidates, or just over half the seats on offer. Of these, they won forty, a loss of three-quarters compared with 1923, and party leader H. H. Asquith lost his seat in Paisley to Labour. The ongoing realignment to a Unionist-Labour duopoly carried on apace, and there would in fact never again be a Liberal Prime Minister.
The great winner, then, was Stanley Baldwin, who could return to Government with fully two thirds of the House of Commons behind him. Whereas the 1922 parliament proved short-lived, the 1924 parliament would serve out its full five-year term, and by then, the country was hardly recognisable.
