L2 comments on your Classroom test

Some notes on a text commentary.

Several students did not know who was prime minister, who won the election and by how much. More reading is the solution to that one. Otherwise here are some of the things you could have said in your text commentary. If you said half of these things, that would probably have been enough. This is given in note form, not as a structured commentary.


Who produced this document ?

The Labour Party, after it had expelled Macdonald and a few other leading members, who had formed a new government in alliance with the Conservatives and Liberals. The party had become by this time the main opposition to the Conservatives, and had formed two governments, one in 1924 and one in 1929 which collapsed in August 1931.

When was it produced ?
For the election of November 1931, after Macdonald and the National government had been in office for almost three months.

The context of the document include :

- the economic crisis
- mass unemployment
- mass movements of protest : hunger marches of the unemployed ; other protests such as Invergordon (two months before the election). In general a situation of huge social and political crisis. Soon both the Communist party and fascist forces will be gaining influence in Britain.

What does the document say (short summary) ?
The manifesto attacks capitalism as the cause of mass misery. It says that the Labour government was replaced by the National government purely in the interest of « Bankers and Financiers ». This government is presented as an unstable failure. The Labour party suggests instead to nationalize industries and replace the power of the market with a planned economy.

What references need explaining ?

Line 1 . The 1929 Wall Street Crash showed the great difficulties of capitalism in the country where everyone though it had been the greatest success, the United States. The economy of Germany, the other powerful industrial country in Europe, is in a state of total collapse.

Lines 6-9 It was the decision, under the pressure of the bankers to cut the amount of money received by unemployed people which led to the collapse of the Labour government and Macdonald’s decision to build a new coalition, leading to his expulsion from the Labour Party.

Lines 14-16 The National government had decided to abandon the link between the British currency and the price of gold

Line 23 The Labour party says in its manifesto that it is confident. In fact, it will suffer an extremely heavy defeat, and will have only 52 Members of Parliament in the new parliament (288 in the old). This terrible defeat will have a huge influence on future debates inside the Labour party.

lines 26 - 32
It is worth noting that this manifesto is much more anticapitalist in tone than most Labour manifestoes. One could explain this both by the fact that the departure of that section of Labour ( around Macdonald) who were not anticapitalist and believed in the very gradual repalcement of capitalisme by means of education left a more radical Labour party. But also the terrible severity of the social crisis made it difficult to suggest moderate-sounding solutions.

The idea of the planned economy is both a socialist and a Keynesian idea. The nationalization of industries and the much greater involvement of government in the economy will be established after world war two, in particular by the next Labour government of 1945, who will establish most element sof the welfares state and nationalize a large number of industries.