Both Britain’s electoral system and the arrangements for seating in the House of Commons seem to be based on the assumption of a two-party system. As first-past-the-post delivers disproportionate numbers of seats for dominant parties, so the opposing benches in the House dramatises the apparently binary nature of the result. So what happens when, as in 2024, the election delivers a much more confusing outcome?

One question which has now been sorted out is which party should claim the mantle of the ‘official’ Opposition. When the 1918 general election returned a landslide for the Conservative/Liberal coalition, led by David Lloyd George, it left an Opposition composed of just 57 Labour Members, 36 Liberals, and 7 from the Irish Parliamentary Party. The largest Opposition party with 73 seats, Sinn Féin, did not come to London: they met independently in Dublin as the Dáil Éireann instead. The Labour party, disappointed at a poorer than expected showing, nevertheless moved to claim their status as the official Opposition, arranging a meeting with the Speaker before Parliament met. They put out an announcement in the Labour press that they would be occupying the front bench. The Rump of the Liberal party led in theory by Herbert Asquith (who had failed to secure a seat and would only come back later at a by-election) cried foul. The Speaker eventually negotiated a compromise, while pointing out that the position of official Opposition was essentially a matter of convention, rather than rules on which he could adjudicate. On the one point on which he was able to pronounce, the role of asking the business question every week, the outcome was that the leaders of the two parties would fulfil the function of the leader of the Opposition in alternate weeks. Presumably something similar was decided as for seating, though it’s not quite clear who sat where in the 1919-22 Parliament. The point was settled in 1937, when the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act authorised a salary for the leader of the largest Opposition party. One by-product was to give the Speaker a statutory power to determine which was the largest Opposition party in the case of any dispute.

The problem about who should sit where is complicated further by the fact that there are not enough seats for everyone anyway – there are only 364 marked places on the floor of the House, though if additional seating in the galleries is taken into account, there are said to be 437 seats available in all. The Government side obviously sits on the government benches to the Speaker’s right; the Opposition (once one has worked out who they are) sit on the other side, with the main Opposition party’s leading members sitting on the front bench. But if (as now) there are too many on the Government side to fit on the right hand side of the House, they will naturally spill over to the Opposition benches; and if the opposition consists of a number of different and competing parties they may jostle for some of the best seats. Added to that there are coveted seats in the House, which individual Members or groups are keen to plant a flag on. The front bench on the government side below the gangway which bisects the House, for example, was as early as 1857 regarded (as Gladstone wrote) as ‘traditionally the place of men who, having been out of office, may be either practically connected with, or wholly dissociated from the existing government’.

On Thursday 29^th October 1931, The Daily Telegraph carried a cartoon showing George Lansbury, the Leader of the Labour Party, sitting alone on the Opposition front bench, with the caption ‘The Shadow Cabinet’. The drawing illustrated a piece reflecting on several aspects of the just finalised election results. Ramsay Macdonald’s national government, a coalition of the dominant Conservatives and a much smaller number of formerly Liberal and Labour MPs who had accepted Macdonald’s explosive decision to form a coalition, had won a total of 552 seats. The opposition won only 56. Four of them were Independent Liberals – including Lloyd George, his son and his daughter. The remainder was the Rump of the Labour Party, which, as The Telegraph pointed out, could scarcely field enough Members to make up a Shadow Cabinet. The problem was made worse by the fact that its 52 MPs included the five remaining Independent Labour Party Members, a Labour party affiliate which, under the leadership of James Maxton, had become a belligerent thorn in the side of the party leadership. Its position within the Party had been rendered largely untenable after the pre-election Labour Party conference at which it had been made obligatory on candidates to ‘accept and act in harmony with the Standing Orders’, rather than pursue, as they had been doing, a virtually autonomous policy. After the election they did not receive the party whip and were not invited to party meetings. The Speaker, at Maxton’s request, recognised them as a separate party. But where were they going to sit? At the beginning of the new Parliament, the papers singled out the issue.

This time the Labour Party (perhaps remembering the precedent of 1919) was said to have left room for what The Graphic called ‘the Lloyd George Family Party, Papa, son and Megan’, though few of them spent much time in the chamber. But the ILP were determined to ensure possession of the front Opposition bench below the gangway – where the Liberals had sat in the previous parliament, and which they had claimed on the day when the House assembled for the election of the Speaker, though they had to share it with Conservatives. Reports described how, a week later, on the day of the state opening, at 8am, when the Chamber was opened, 80 members were already waiting at the doors to claim their seats by putting place cards in the holders fixed to the benches. ‘It was the largest seats contest seen in the House for many years’, wrote one newspaper, which described the rush for the favoured bench. The ILP secured their seats, though again they were mixed up with Conservative Members. A few days later Maxton was complaining that the right-wing Sir Henry Page-Croft ‘and his cohorts’ had attempted to ‘rush him and other Labour members out of their proper places in the House – because the landladies of Bournemouth won’t wait’ (Bournemouth was Page-Croft’s constituency, but the reference is obscure).

Four years later, after the 1935 election, an article in The Sphere noted how the new political complexion of the House of Commons was reflected in the seating arrangements. This time the contest had been between Maxton and the ILP and the official Labour party, a contest which ‘Mr Maxton won. There is no member with sufficient personality to oust him from a position which enables him not only to hurl diagonal shafts across the floor at the Treasury Bench, but also to make sudden flank attacks upon the official Opposition.’

PS

Read more from Dr Paul Seaward via his blog Reformation to Restoration, or follow him on Twitter/X @PSeaward1.

The wartime split in the Liberal party and the increase in suffrage in 1918 and 1928 created an opportunity for the Labour party to emerge as the new opposition to Conservatism. After the war the party ended their electoral arrangements with the Liberals, and twice formed minority governments (in 1924 and 1929-31), both led by Ramsay MacDonald. Yet in a dramatic reversal in 1931 Labour’s first Prime Minister was expelled from the party, and after the October election fewer Labour MPs were returned to Westminster than in 1918.

MacDonald had risen from humble beginnings to become Labour leader: an illegitimate son from a Scottish fishing village who established himself in a middle-class lifestyle with a deep commitment to Labour politics. He ‘looked the part’ in Commons, with great charisma, but he was also ‘prone to alternate feeling[s] of superiority with a self-pitying sense of martyrdom to duty.’ [Wrigley, ‘Ramsay MacDonald’ in Jeffreys (ed.), Leading Labour]. A moderate with few ties to the Trade Unions, his chief aim as the head of minority Labour administrations was to prove that the country need not be afraid of a Labour government.

When Labour returned to power in 1929 the chief issue was unemployment, especially in Labour’s industrial heartlands. Structural problems including an aging industry and high employment costs had already made British manufacturing uncompetitive. The government’s decision to return sterling to the Gold Standard in 1925 tied the pound to the value of gold at what many believe was too high a rate, making British goods even more expensive abroad. Labour entered government hoping to reduce unemployment through public works schemes inspired by the economist J.M. Keynes, but these had little impact after the Wall Street Crash began a period of global depression.

The immediate problem for the government was the growing cost of unemployment insurance – a vital lifeline to many, but considered at the time hugely expensive. The Labour party grew increasingly divided on how to respond to the crisis: Chancellor Philip Snowden favoured economic ‘orthodoxy’ – free trade, remaining on the Gold Standard, and balanced books – whereas others could not countenance a cut in unemployment benefits. Facing criticism in the Commons the government established a commission to investigate the state of the government’s finances. Its report in July 1931 that the government was £120 million in deficit (although today’s accounting standards would consider this figure greatly exaggerated) came at the worst possible time, following a European banking crisis. Confidence in sterling plummeted, and the Bank of England began to use up its reserves to keep the pound on the Gold Standard. Something had to be done: either large cuts were needed to balance the books and restore confidence, or Britain would be forced to leave the Gold Standard and devalue the pound.

The cabinet was divided. Cutting expenditure would mean cutting unemployment benefits, but leaving the Gold Standard would be seen by many (although not all) as a dramatic failure. MacDonald worked hard for a compromise. Believing that the credibility of the Labour party was at stake, he attempted to find a package that would satisfy the bankers, the opposition parties, and his cabinet. On 23 August MacDonald won a cabinet majority for cuts of £76 million, including 10% of unemployment insurance payments, by eleven votes to nine. However, those opposed, including former leader Arthur Henderson, supported by the Unions, indicated that they would resign from cabinet rather than stay to implement the cuts. MacDonald went to the King and offered his resignation and that of the whole cabinet.

What happened next destroyed MacDonald’s reputation in the Labour movement and proved fatal for the party for the next decade. MacDonald was persuaded to stay on as the head of a ‘National Government’ to implement the government cuts and restore confidence. His biographer David Marquand has argued he only did so ‘very reluctantly’, yet it was taken to be little short of treachery by Labour MPs [Marquand, ‘MacDonald, Ramsay’, ODNB].  Now MacDonald’s ability to ‘look the part’ as Prime Minister now appeared to be little more than vain social climbing, and for years many believed he had plotted to bring about this outcome. Sidney Webb called him the ‘author, producer and principal actor’ of the crisis. More recently historians have dismissed the theory of a deliberate plot, arguing that MacDonald acted for what he perceived to be the country’s best interest.

The consequences were dramatic. MacDonald led a ‘National Government’ comprised of the Conservatives, some Liberals and very few Labour MPs; all members or associates of the National Government were expelled by the Labour party. Despite government cuts Britain was forced off the Gold Standard anyway before the end of September.

The real damage to Labour, however, was the decision to hold an election in 1931, and for MacDonald to fight it on behalf of the National Government (although with the personal support of only a few MPs he had little other choice). In many constituencies Labour faced a single National Government candidate as the parties arranged pacts against them, and their former Chancellor Snowden called the party’s 1931 manifesto ‘Bolshevism run mad’ on a BBC broadcast. Labour’s vote share fell from 37.1% to 30.6%, but the real cost was in the number of seats: only 52 Labour or Independent Labour MPs were returned. New leader Arthur Henderson lost his seat. MacDonald returned to lead a government with a huge majority, but 470 of the 554 National Government MPs were Conservatives.

Macdonald remained Prime Minister until 1935, but was increasingly isolated. In December 1932 he wrote in his diary: ‘Was I wise? Perhaps not, but it seemed as though anything else was impossible.’ [Marquand, ‘MacDonald, Ramsay’, ODNB] MacDonald’s reputation has since been revised, but never fully rehabilitated.

EP

Further reading:

• Chris Wrigley, ‘Ramsay MacDonald’ in Kevin Jeffreys (ed.), Leading Labour (1999)
  
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: David Marquand, ‘MacDonald, Ramsay‘
• ODNB: Chris Wrigley, ‘Henderson, Arthur‘

You can read the other blogs in our ‘party split’ series here.

Tomorrow former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral. Public funerals for Prime Ministers have been fairly rare in recent years, but Baroness Thatcher is by no means alone in receiving this honour from the state.

The first Prime Minister to have a public funeral was William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778). The Commons agreed unanimously that the funeral should take place in Westminster Abbey, despite some calls for him to be buried in St Paul’s, and the cost covered by the public. Pitt lay in state for two days at Westminster and thousands came to pay their respects. His son, William Pitt the Younger, was honoured in the same way; after his sudden death in 1806 he too lay in state before being buried with his family in Westminster Abbey. In addition to the cost of the funeral itself, the public purse also covered his debts, which came to £40,000.

Westminster Abbey was also the venue for George Canning’s funeral in 1827, again attended by huge crowds, and for that of Lord Palmerston, who died from pneumonia in 1865.  You can view an image of his hearse leaving Brockett Hall on the St Albans museums website and read a full account of his funeral from the Brisbane Courier. The four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone, who died from cancer on 19 May 1898, was also buried in Westminster Abbey after three days of lying in state; simultaneous services were held across the Empire and world to mark his death. (For a full account of his funeral, see this article from H.C.G. Matthew).

Some of the largest state funerals were reserved for Prime Ministers who were also war leaders, such as Winston Churchill (1965) and the Duke of Wellington (1852). Both lay in state for several days, Churchill in Westminster Hall and Wellington at Walmer Castle and Chelsea Hospital, and millions turned out to pay their respects to both men. Wellington’s funeral was considered ‘probably the most ornate and spectacular funeral ever seen in England’, and he was buried at St Paul’s (for a longer account of Wellington’s ceremony and several images, see this article on the Victorian Web). After his state funeral, Churchill was buried in a private family service in the village of Bladon.

Other twentieth-century Prime Ministers honoured with a public funeral include Henry Campbell Bannerman, who died in 10 Downing Street in 1908. He received generous tributes in the House (you can read these in Hansard) , an ‘impressive’ service at Westminster Abbey and, again, crowds of mourners paying their respects before he was buried in Meigle churchyard. Parliament honoured his memory with a memorial in Westminster Abbey. Andrew Bonar Law, who died in 1923 after a short period as Prime Minister, was given a service in Westminster Abbey against his wishes (he had wanted to be buried with his wife in Helensburgh). This was not an uncontroversial move, as his old enemy Herbert Asquith was said to remark ‘we have buried the Unknown Prime Minister by the side of the Unknown Soldier.’

Finally, the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was given a public funeral in Westminster Abbey after he died at sea in November 1937. Although his family were offered a place in the Abbey for his interment, his ashes were taken to Scotland and buried with the body of his wife. A memorial now stands in Westminster Abbey.

EP

All quotations thanks to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and thanks to Dr Paul Seaward and Dr Kathryn Rix for links and suggestions.