WHAT HAPPENED IN 1931: A RECORD

"Now that the year is over it may be worth while putting on record a recital of what will rank as the most remarkable happening in British political history. The fall of the Labour Government after two and a quarter years troubled existence; the instant formation overnight of a new National Government under the same Prime Minister purporting to contain within itself all three political Parties; and finally, at the earliest practicable date, a hurried General Election in which an unprecedented combination of 69 per cent. of the voters elected all but 9 per cent. of the entire House of Commons, thus replacing Parliamentary Government by what is in effect a Party Dictatorship—the whole unfolding within sixty-three days of a single drama, in all its development foreseen in advance, it is safe to say, only by the statesman who was at once its author, its producer, and its principal actor—finds no parallel in anything in the Parliamentary annals of this or any other country. Why did Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, after thirty years upbuilding of the British Labour Party, decide to do his best to smash it, going over with a couple of his principal colleagues, and a mere handful of his Party to a Coalition of Conservatives and Liberals ? How did he manage to create such a Coalition, and to place himself at its head ? What caused an electoral landslide of such unexampled magnitude? Lastly, what is the significance in British political history, and its consequences to the world, of this unique island drama?" - introductory paragraph, p.3.