The live political topics changed in character between the General Elections of 1900 and those of 1910. The Conservatives' case had stressed the national interest and the unity of classes. The progressives increasingly brought other issues to the forefront. ‘They are great class and they are great economic and social issues’, said Churchill, their most notable propagandist in Lancashire. The Liberals asserted that it was because of these that the House of Lords rejected the 1909 Budget; and the Conservatives argued that a Government so tainted with socialism needed to be kept in check by a second Chamber. The results of the General Elections suggest that, following their marginal gains in 1900, the Liberals were supported indiscriminately in 1906; but that the most solid element in their support, both then and in 1910, was the working-class vote. Only in the Liverpool area did Tory Democracy survive. The signs, then, point to a long-term shift rather than the effect of snap issues or temporary bandwagons; and the fragmentary evidence of the by elections between 1911 and 1914 does nothing to discredit this conclusion.