Stanley Baldwin Conservative Leadership and National Values

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) is one of the most significant modern British politicians, but also one of the most controversial and puzzling. As Conservative leader and three times prime minister, Baldwin presided over the beginning of his party's long twentieth-century dominance. He did so in new and difficult conditions: the onset of modern democratic politics, the rise of Labour, chronic economic depression, the General Strike, persistent newspaper attacks, imperial discontent, the Abdication, and the threats from Mussolini and Hitler. This book provides an understanding of Baldwin's career, including a serious analysis of the moral and intellectual influences of his early life. Its main concerns are the investigation of a Conservative mind, and its communication with the various audiences that constituted the political nation. This is not a conventional biography, but rather an examination of the nature of political leadership, Conservative politics and 'national values'.

Introduction: the historical problem; 1. Public career; 2. Political leadership; 3. Influences: business and ethics; 4. Influences: community and service; 5. Purposes and methods; 6. Capitalism and industrial relations; 7. Democracy and public values; 8. Country and empire; 9. Soul and providence; 10. Armaments and anti-totalitarianism; Conclusion.

This study of a commanding Conservative politician is a major contribution to understanding Conservative ideology, 'Englishness' and the nature of British political leadership. It reinterprets the career of Stanley Baldwin, three times prime minister during the difficult 1920s and 1930s, and shows how his extraordinary dominance was based upon manipulation of widely held 'national values'.