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Opposition techniques in British politics (1867-1914)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2017

H. J. Hanham
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Extract

When Walter Bagehot first published his English Constitution in 1865, it was already possible to regard ‘Her Majesty’s Opposition’ as an established part of the constitution. Indeed, Bagehot regarded it as an essential concomitant of cabinet government, and remarked that a ‘critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government’. Already the folklore of politics was full of apposite quotations from statesmen of the old school about the virtues of an opposition, although perhaps only Disraeli and Derby were prepared to accept the doctrine, attributed to George Tierney (1761-1830) that ‘the duty of an Opposition was very simple – it was to oppose everything and propose nothing’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , October 1966 , pp. 35 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1967

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References

1 Todd, Alpheus, On Parliamentary Government in England, 2nd edn., 2 vols. 1887-9, II, 415-16Google Scholar.

2 For politics at the grass roots see Hanham, H. J., ‘Politics and Community Life,’ Folk Life, 1966 Google Scholar.

3 Monypenny, W.F. and Buckle, G.E., The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 6 vols. 1910-20, V, pp. 190-1Google Scholar.

4 On this see Lowell, A. L., The Government of England, 2 vols., N.Y. 1924, J. pp. 534-6.Google Scholar

5 Cf. Hughes, Edward, ‘The Changes in Parliamentary Procedure, 1880-1882,’ Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier, ed. by Pares, Richard and Taylor, A.J.P., 1956, pp. 289–319 Google Scholar.

6 Jennings, G.H., An Anecdotal History of the British Parliament, 1880, p. 439 Google Scholar.

7 Sir J. D. Astley, FiftyYears of My Life, n.d., Ch. XXIV.

8 For government control of the Commons see Fraser, Peter, ‘The Growth of Ministerial Control in the Nineteenth-Century House of Commons,’ English Historical Review, Vol. LXXV, pp. 444-63Google Scholar, and Lowell, Government of England, Ch. XVII.

9 D.N. Chester and Nona Bowring, Questions in Parliament, Oxford 1961.

10 Aretas Akers-Douglas to Lord Salisbury, 19 May 1893, quoted in Viscount Chilston, Chief Whip, 1961, p. 247.

11 For details see H. J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Disraeli and Gladstone, 1959.

12 Cited in Hanham, Elections and Party Management, p. 387.

13 County Council Magazine, Vol. I, p. 65.

14 Lowell, Government of England, Vol. II, pp. 104f.

15 Dunbabin, J.P.B., ‘Parliamentary Elections in Great Britain, 1868-1900 . . .’, English Historical Review, Vol. LXXXI, pp. 82–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hanham, Elections and Party Management, passim.