MacDonald, James Ramsay

MacDonald, James Ramsay (1866–1937). Prime minister. Between 1900 and 1929 Ramsay MacDonald contributed more than any other individual to building the Labour Party into a credible, national party of government. Throughout his career he retained a clear vision of a democratic socialist movement which would unite middle‐class radicalism with working‐class votes. As prime minister and foreign secretary in the first Labour government of 1924 he went a long way to demonstrating Labour's fitness to govern. Yet under pressure, defects of temperament undermined his effectiveness as an executive leader. Basically a shy and insecure man, his loneliness made him vulnerable to friendships in aristocratic circles later in life. This was all the more natural when the failures of his second government led to his participation in the National Government in 1931. This decision immediately destroyed his standing on the left; and he has been regarded as a traitor ever since. Born into poverty in Lossiemouth on the north‐east coast of Scotland, MacDonald was the illegitimate child of a servant girl and a farm labourer. But by the 1890s he had become a leading figure in the new Independent Labour Party. By 1900 he was sufficiently well known and respected to be invited to serve as secretary to the new Labour Representation Committee which became the Labour Party in 1906. In 1903 he negotiated an electoral pact with Herbert Gladstone, the Liberal chief whip, which meant that the Liberals would refrain from running candidates in 29 of the 50 constituencies contested by Labour at the 1906 general election. In 24 of the 29 seats Labour candidates subsequently proved successful, including MacDonald himself, elected for Leicester.

As an MP his oratorical powers and capacity for mastering legislative detail made him the outstanding parliamentarian on the Labour bench and in 1911 he became chairman of the parliamentary party. Up to 1914, it appears that he intended to maintain the pact. The First World War interrupted both this strategy and MacDonald's steady rise. By opposing British entry into the war he put himself in a minority and gave up the party chairmanship. In the chauvinistic mood of the 1918 election MacDonald suffered a heavy defeat at Leicester.

He achieved his comeback in 1922 when he became the member for Aberavon. Now that opinion had turned against the pre‐war arms race and wartime casualties, he gained much credit for the principled stand he had taken in 1914. In the contest for the party leadership he narrowly defeated J. R. Clynes.

MacDonald deserves credit for the skill with which he played a difficult hand in the aftermath of the 1923 election. With only 191 MPs he was invited to form a government. He deliberately avoided any deal with the Liberals, so as to prevent a return to the client relationship Labour had enjoyed before 1914. He strengthened his administration with former Liberal and Conservative ministers and, as foreign secretary, played a constructive role in reducing German reparations. Although the government was defeated in Parliament after nine months, MacDonald had largely succeeded in his object of establishing Labour as a competent governing party.

During the next five years the inability of the Baldwin government to tackle unemployment helped Labour to a further advance. In 1929 they won 288 seats. But this time MacDonald's conventional economic policy proved inadequate. As unemployment mounted the prime minister seemed indecisive and self‐pitying—the ‘Boneless Wonder’ in Churchill's phrase. By August 1931 the balance of payments deficit obliged the cabinet to attempt to restore confidence by balancing its budget. But it split over proposed cuts in unemployment benefit. MacDonald astonished his colleagues by accepting the king's invitation to lead a National Government with the Liberals and Tories. Though originally seen as a temporary expedient, the National Government rapidly assumed a permanent form by holding a general election in October 1931. MacDonald thus retained the premiership until 1935 and continued in office until 1937.