The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was UnderminedThe dramatic story of the peoples' fight for the right to vote in Britain The culmination of a lifetime's work by the great journalist and historian Paul Foot, The Vote tells the thrilling story of the hard, long-fought struggle for the right to vote in Britain, and the slow erosion that followed. In the tradition of "history from below," Paul Foot examines the great democratic debates that dominated the fight for electoral democracy. Taking readers from the smoke-filled church of the Putney debates, to the dramatic arguments between Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke in the aftermath of the French Revolution, to the rise of Chartism and the struggles for votes for women. Throughout, Foot shows how vested interested first delayed and then hobbled the progress of parliamentary democracy. Concentrating on the vital role played by direct action, he shows how rank-and-file resistance to ruling-class injustice was followed by retreat into parliamentary impotence. Into the twentieth-century, Foot exposes the gaps between the promises of a succession of Labour governments and their actions once in power, and its abandonment of any aspiration to economic democracy. A gripping work of narrative history, written in Paul Foot's inimitable energy and engaged style, this book is a classic work of history, and a must-read for anyone interested in how today's political scene was formed. |
Contents
Crows and Eagles at Putney | 3 |
Revolt of the Chartists | 89 |
The Leap in the Dark | 125 |
Women | 171 |
The Grey Decade | 283 |
195170 | 340 |
197079 | 366 |
The Tory Counterattack | 398 |
Their Democracy and Ours | 426 |
Bibliography | 453 |
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Common terms and phrases
agitation Aneurin Bevan argued argument army ballot Barbara Castle became Bevan Britain British Cabinet called campaign capitalism capitalist Chartist Christabel Pankhurst committed committee Communist conference Council councillors Cripps Cromwell debate defeat demand democracy democratic economic elected electoral Emmeline Emmeline Pankhurst employers enfranchisement force franchise George Lansbury Harold Wilson House of Commons huge industrial Ireland Ireton Jimmy Thomas John Labour Government Labour MPs Labour Party Lansbury League Lloyd George London Lord MacDonald majority Marx mass meeting ment militant miners Model Army movement National organized Pankhurst Parliament parliamentary petition political poor popular Prime Minister prison proposed protest R. H. Tawney Rainsborough Reform Bill representative Revolution revolutionary rich Secretary Sexby social socialist society speech strike suffragettes Tony Benn Tory trade unions trade-union leaders universal suffrage victory Whig Wilson women's suffrage workers working-class wrote WSPU