Explain why the Liberals were electorally so successful so often, 1868-85?

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Explain why the Liberals were electorally so successful so often, 1868-85?

The intermittent successes of the Liberals in the second half of the nineteenth century played a very great part in the fashioning of the politics of Britain not only in contemporary Victorian times but also right up to the present day. In this way, understanding the brevity of their existence is of vital importance for any scholar studying the period as it signifies that although their party status was reasonably solid, their existence was a result of the evolving mass culture of Great Britain. This was a period when the aged structured traditions and elites began to crumble and erode, and a new age of mass consciousness, popular press and open politics began to emerge. It is imperative to understand that the Liberal Party answered this call - a call that the Conservatives could not answer satisfactorily, and a call that the Whigs were not even able to attempt.

The Liberal Party is generally considered to have been formed in June 1859 and had all but disappeared within half a century. During this time the Liberals were in power just five times before they were engulfed