"The British Government which resulted from the general election of 1931 was in appearance one of the strongest, and in fact one of the weakest, in British records. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, had severed himself, with the utmost bitterness on both sides, from the Socialist Party which it had been his life’s work to create. Henceforward he brooded supinely at the head of an administration which, though nominally National, was in fact overwhelmingly Conservative. Mr. Baldwin preferred the substance to the form of power, and reigned placidly in the background. The Foreign Office was filled by Sir John Simon, one of the leaders of the Liberal contingent. The main work of the Administration at home was done by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, who soon succeeded Mr. Snowden as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Labour Party, blamed for its failure in the financial crisis and sorely stricken at the polls, was led by the extreme pacifist, Mr. George Lansbury. During the period of almost five years of this Administration, from January, 1931, to November, 1935, the entire situation on the Continent of Europe was reversed."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomAcademics from the United KingdomLabour Party (UK) politiciansPresbyteriansPoliticians from Scotland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Winston Churchill, The Second World War Volume I: The Gathering Storm (1948), ISBN 0-7953-0602-4, p. 89
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ramsay_MacDonald
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Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald (12 October 1866 – 9 November 1937) was a British statesman who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a Labour Government in 1924, a Labour Government from 1929 to 1931, and a National Government from 1931 to 1935.
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