Stanley Baldwin, Heresthetics and the Realignment of British Politics

Abstract

This article explores Stanley Baldwin's heresthetic in the 1920s. Faced by the rise of multidimensionality in the issue space of British politics, Baldwin sought initially to bring about a single-issue dimensionality through protection; this was defeated in the 1923 election which brought Labour to office, showing that the electoral system could deliver proportionality and perhaps sustain a three-party system. Baldwin's heresthetic was to recast the Conservative party as the only viable anti-socialist party, and attack the Liberal party as the obstacle to a single-issue dimension and polarized politics. New Conservatism was used to reposition the Conservative party on the class dimension and result was the Conservative landslide of 1924, which structured British politics for the next fifty years. Baldwin institutionalized a class-based two-party system and thereby secured Conservative hegemony.