Trust me, I’m a politician
This blog post is co-written by Professor Richard Toye (Associate Fellow of Homerton) and Professor David Thackeray,
both of the Department of History at the University of Exeter.
One doesn’t often find a document which revolutionises history. Can one single diary entry or letter completely upend all existing interpretations of some complex phenomenon? Sometimes, perhaps, but it is rare. More often one finds a piece of paper, or an artefact, which encapsulates something important – a piece of evidence which crystallises certain ideas, and which historians can use to illustrate much broader patterns. So it was with the 1929 National Union of Conservative Associations (NUCA) ‘Baldwin calendar’, an example of which we located in the library of Trinity College Cambridge. It symbolised ideas which we have brought together in our new book Age of Promises (Oxford University Press).
The Baldwin calendar was a ‘striking innovation’ on the part of Conservative Party headquarters. According to the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 20 November 1928 it was expected to prove as popular as the ‘Baldwin Christmas card’ which was ‘being ordered in huge quantities from all parts of the country.’ The rare surviving example that we found was tailored for the Saffron Walden constituency. It includes photographs of the incumbent MP, W. Foot Mitchell, and the new prospective candidate, the young R.A. Butler. The trinity is completed by a picture of ‘The Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin’, the Prime Minister of the day. At the top is a banner that reads: ‘Judge a Man by his Character and his Party by its Record’. At the bottom sits a quotation from Baldwin himself – ‘Peace on Earth Comes to Men of Goodwill’ – bearing the significant date May 1926. These words served to establish Baldwin’s character (as the author of pious platitudes, a cynic might say) and also his record (as the man who had successfully resolved the General Strike).
The calendar as a whole indicated, obliquely, a sceptical attitude towards electoral promises – which it is why it important for our analysis of electoral pledges in Twentieth Century Britain. Conservatives were by no means wholly averse to making concrete pledges – Butler’s first election address, for example, was very policy-heavy – and indeed they presented themselves as ‘the party that keeps its promises’. Yet the themes of temperament, past performance, and not making inflated promises, were crucial to the Conservatives’ strategy at this critical juncture.
The period as a whole saw a broad shift away from politics viewed as a discursive process whereby, at elections, it was enough to set out broad principles, with detailed policymaking to follow once in office. Over the first part of the century, parties increasingly felt required to compile lists of specific policies to offer to voters, which they were then considered to have an obligation to carry out come what may. From 1945 onwards, moreover, there was even more focus on detailed, costed, pledges. We still live with this way of doing things today. The Baldwin calendar – with its emphasis on character and record rather than promises for the future – reminds us that things have not always been this way. Still, the fact that the Tories lost the 1929 general election to a seemingly more forward-looking Labour Party may help explain why the older model of campaigning fell into decline.
