Lloyd George’s campaign hurt the Conservatives as 33 out of 35 Liberal gains were at the expense of Conservative candidates. Lloyd George put unemployment front stage with radical new ideas such as reforms for agriculture, town-planning, housing, road building and railway modernization which were to be financed by state spending expecting to create at least half a million more jobs. The money received from the Lloyd George Funds funded 150 more candidates, paid for development of new policies, better publicity and greater efforts in by elections. This hurt the Conservatives as the Liberals were already splitting the anti-socialist vote and more candidates would mean that they would hurt the Conservatives in more regions than before. The increased numbers of Liberal candidates were also armed with a new radical, impressive sounding policy for unemployment that made them all the more threatening. It can be argued that unemployment was not the main issue as the Liberals only won 59 seats, although this could also be because of Conservative attacks on their programme and the fact that their support was widespread causing them to win 23% in popular vote but not 23% of seats. The Conservatives believed that there was a natural anti-socialist majority in Britain and Labour would also suffer due to internal dissension and poor leadership but because Liberals were splitting the anti-socialist vote, it would help Labour and therefore this belief that Liberals were their biggest threat led Baldwin to believe attacking Liberal policies was sufficient in winning the election. In 1929, the liberals splitting the anti-socialist vote due to their increased number of candidates and an impressive sounding solution to unemployment was decisive as Conservatives won a majority of votes but suffered a loss of 140 seats and were left with 260 MPs while Labour had 287 seats. The Liberal intervention turned a good number of seats to Labour. Lloyd George’s campaign and Liberal rejuvenation, thus hurt the Conservatives and was the reason Baldwin chose to follow the anti-Liberal campaign and was therefore a major factor as to why Conservatives lost the 1929 election. Unemployment provided the base for the Liberal rejuvenation as they did have radical solutions while the Conservatives provided none.
During Baldwins term unemployment was worsening as it never fell below the 1 million mark and by 1928 the situation was worsening. The government had no real answer as de-rating, introduced by Churchill, failed due to the employers pocketing the excess money instead of using it to create new jobs. This can also be seen as an election policy to impress on the people that the Conservatives still had ideas. However, the Conservatives did not have many adventurous ideas to solve unemployment and many including Baldwin believed that permanent reduction of unemployment was a gradual process and they hoped that when the economy would improve, due to the boom-bust cycle of a capitalist economy, the problem would eventually go away. It must be recognized that the problem of unemployment was a new one and the Conservatives did not know much they could do as well as that this Conservative government was elected in 1924 on the basis that it was not radical, hence they could not introduce radical reforms to help tackle the problem of unemployment. The unemployment problem was rooted in the problem of the decline of the staple industry. This was due to the fact that USA was now becoming the centre of trade, Britain could not compete with them due to poor mechanization and industry was not nationalized so the government could not solve these problems, they in turn could not nationalize industry as they were elected on the basis that they were anti-socialist. It can therefore be argued that the decline of the staple industries was out of the control of the government, however, the people looked at the economy as the responsibility of the government and their inability to solve these problems hurt the Conservatives electoral chances as is evident in the rise of Liberal votes. As the Conservatives could not introduce much radical reform to tackle the problems of the economy they trusted in the principles of sound finance and controlled budget hoping that the boom-bust cycle of the capitalist economy would solve these problems over time. The issue of unemployment did definitely hurt the Conservatives and benefit Lloyd George who came up with radical solutions, nevertheless in the 1929 election Conservatives got 38% and Labour got 37% of the popular vote and both of them were not offering radical solutions to the problem, this suggests that unemployment was not such a big issue in the eyes of the people. Hence, unemployment was not that big a reason as to why the Conservatives lost the 1929 election, rather it helped Lloyd George win more of the popular vote hurting Conservative more and in turn helping Labour. Unemployment naturally affected the working class the most and also caused them to look towards Labour, increasing Labour support.
The rejuvenation of the Liberals and weak campaign of the Conservatives helped the Labour party as the split in the anti-socialist vote meant that Labour was able to win more seats. Labour had less of the popular vote than the Conservatives but ended up winning 27 more seats. Labour were also in a better position than the previous 1924 election. They had, in their previous government of 1923, proved to the public that they were not a revolutionary party but rather that they were capable of moderation and responsible government. The efforts of MacDonald to keep a cabinet full of moderates and not passing any radical policies paid off in the 1929 election. MacDonalds condemning of the General Strike in 1926 also reinforced Labours image of moderation. The General Strike of 1926 also helped increase Labour support as the TUC had now abandoned the idea of a general strike, convinced it would never succeed, this caused the support of many in the working class, who previously looked towards the Trade Unions to solve their economic problems and gain reform, to move towards Labour. The Trades Disputes Act of 1927 reaffirmed the working classes belief that parliamentary action offered the best chance of achieving their aims as the act illegalized a general strike. This act combined with unemployment standing over a million helped to bring the trade unionists and the Labour party together again. This big surge of Labour support was partly responsible for the failure of the Conservatives to win the election as they were not only in a stronger electoral position than they had ever been before, the split of the anti-socialist vote helped them win the election and form a minority government.
To conclude, the Conservatives lost the 1929 elections due to the fact that their weak campaign was punished by the strength of their opposition. Unemployment was able to help increase the strength of the Liberals and Labour, who were in a much better position than the previous election of 1924. The Conservatives tried to follow the same election policy of “Trust Baldwin” but they overvalued Baldwins personal appeal and underestimated the importance of unemployment. The Labour and Liberals were able to take advantage of this weak election policy and their own electoral strength meant that the Conservatives lost the 1929 election.
