The 1906-22 Liberal-led governments gave the UK progressive taxation, unemployment benefits, the state pension, the first tax-funded healthcare, the end of the primacy of the House of Lords. This was one of the most transformational progressive governments in our country’s history and this is partly why they were winning by-elections in working-class seats right up to the start of the First World War.
I think you’re overestimating the existence of underlying ‘political’ causes of the rise of Labour and underestimating the pure ‘electoral’ factors around the Asquith/Lloyd George split.
The 1906-22 Liberal-led governments gave the UK progressive taxation, unemployment benefits, the state pension, the first tax-funded healthcare, the end of the primacy of the House of Lords. This was one of the most transformational progressive governments in our country’s history and this is partly why they were winning by-elections in working-class seats right up to the start of the First World War.
I think you’re overestimating the existence of underlying ‘political’ causes of the rise of Labour and underestimating the pure ‘electoral’ factors around the Asquith/Lloyd George split.