In retrospect, the fall of MacDonald’s second Labour government, the creation of the national government, the 1931 general election and its aftermath mark, in many ways, the end of that period of remarkable political reconfiguration either side of the Great War and the coming of democracy. We can now see that the ‘thirties saw the restoration of two party politics: the two parties which would, after the Second World War, dominate British politics. However, I’m not sure it looked quite like that at time.
In 1931, it was possible to envisage the collapse of Labour. Remember, it had only been the second party of British politics for a decade. Its greatest figure, Ramsay MacDonald, now headed a national government (seen above with Baldwin, right, and the Liberal leader Sir Herbert Samuel).
Nor did the party help itself. More than once, in the aftermath of defeat, the Labour Party has had…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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