Great Britain by Keith Robbins

Author:Keith Robbins [Robbins, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Political Science
ISBN: 9781317901044
Google: _yvtCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-08T16:13:59+00:00

Sinister assault?

There were also some who forecast a deluge when Edward VII, the new king-emperor, ascended the throne in 1901 at the age of fifty-nine. The merry monarch stood in distinct contrast to his mother, Mr Gladstone's worst fears concerning the triumph of hedonism were to be realized. In his behaviour the monarch again seemed to personify a shift in the public mood, or at least one section of it, towards greater 'permissiveness'. In this respect there was real meaning to be attached to the change between the 'Victorian' age and the 'Edwardian' age. The king liked to meet the people, though he took a fierce dislike to being 'snap-shotted', whether at racecourses or elsewhere. It would be wrong, however, simply to perceive the Edwardian monarchy through a haze of cigar smoke. The king certainly did not understand himself to be merely a ceremonial figure, even though the ceremonial reached new heights. He was, for a time, variously described as 'Uncle of Europe' and 'Edward the Peacemaker'. His interest in military and naval matters could be serious. He held out, in the end unsuccessfully, against the introduction of khaki uniforms in the British army. In domestic politics, he did not relish the prospect that his Liberal Prime Minister would require him to create sufficient peers to allow the proposed Parliament Bill to pass through the House of Lords. He rather liked the powers the House of Lords still retained. In the event, he did not have to make a decision since he died in May 1910 in the middle of the crisis. His reign, at one level, suggested a mood of self-confidence and assertion. At another, however, there was more than a suspicion that the splendour of his short reign was superficial.

The extent to which, at the end of the century, the two major parties with recognizable roots in the past had nonetheless apparently succeeded in adjusting to very different electoral circumstances was thought to be remarkable. No other European country could point to such continuity. In part it was because, although occasionally advocated in some quarters, the British system avoided proportional representation. The franchise was extended, but MPs were still elected on a 'first past the post' basis. The two major parties remained broad churches and the obstacles to the emergence of third parties, or more, were substantial. Latterly, the dispute that had split the Liberal Party arose from disagreement over how to handle Ireland rather than from a more broadly based ideological cleavage. The blatant identification of political parties with specific class or confessional interests, characteristic of some other European countries, was missing. But perhaps for not much longer.

It had not escaped attention that socialist parties, wedded more or less to Marxist doctrine, seemed to be advancing fast – in Germany, for example.24 In theory at least, such parties were revolutionary in orientation and they rejected as bourgeois, or even worse, the system in which with reluctance they functioned. Such participation was supposedly only temporary, though some 'revisionists'

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.