2M - The 1929 election: the franchise extension and 'flapper vote'
Learn how equal voting rights changed the electorate, why Labour formed another minority government in 1929, and how MacDonald and Snowden's aims related to Britain's unresolved economic and social problems.
Equal franchise and the 'flapper vote'
The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act of 1928 gave women the vote on the same age terms as men, at 21. The 1918 settlement had enfranchised women only from age 30 and with qualifying conditions. The reform therefore completed a major step towards political equality, rather than simply creating votes for women for the first time.
The 1929 general election was the first held under the new arrangement. Millions of additional women could vote, including the younger women whom newspapers described as the flapper vote. This label drew on a fashionable image of modern young women and could trivialise their political choices. Newly enfranchised voters included workers, married women and women with varied incomes and beliefs; they did not constitute one fashionable or politically uniform group.
Parties had to address a larger electorate. Housing, employment, welfare and family budgets could matter to female voters, just as they mattered to men. Campaigners sometimes assumed women would prioritise domestic issues or follow a husband's politics, but those assumptions are not reliable evidence of individual voting behaviour.
The franchise reform changed who could vote. It does not, by itself, show how those voters voted or prove that one party's victory was caused by women acting as a single bloc.
An explanation of the election must therefore distinguish the new electorate from other influences: persistent unemployment, dissatisfaction with the government, party organisation and the competing economic programmes. The secret ballot and the absence of modern detailed polling make confident claims about one uniform female preference especially difficult.
Campaign, result and minority government
Baldwin's Conservatives campaigned on their record and the prospect of continuing stability. Their weakness was the persistence of unemployment in the staple industries. The General Strike and subsequent union restrictions had left bitterness, while social reforms had not removed regional economic insecurity. Labour presented itself as an alternative able to pursue welfare and employment within parliamentary government.
Lloyd George sought a Liberal revival through an ambitious public-works programme, promoted in the campaign promise “We can conquer unemployment.” Roads and other investment were intended to create jobs directly and stimulate demand. This distinguished his programme from reliance on financial restraint and gradual private recovery. Liberal ideas attracted attention, but converting support into seats remained difficult in a three-party election.
The result was another hung Parliament. Labour won 287 seats, the Conservatives and their Unionist allies 260, and the Liberals 59. Labour had the largest number of seats but no overall majority. The Conservatives obtained a slightly larger national share of votes than Labour, illustrating how the geographical distribution of votes under first-past-the-post could produce a different ranking in seats.
Baldwin resigned, and MacDonald formed Labour's second government in June 1929. It depended on Liberal toleration and could not assume support for every measure. Labour's arrival in office demonstrated how far it had established itself since 1924, but it did not give ministers unrestricted power to enact their programme. Their parliamentary position became especially important when economic conditions worsened.
Continue this lesson.
You’re previewing NovaLearn without an account. Create a free account to read the rest.
Create free account