ABSTRACT
British government and administration was never the same again after the First World War. The advent of the National Government ushered in a period that was to last down to the Second World War, which some contemporaries called one of planning and which was certainly one of widespread State intervention in the economy. The continuities of British government were often as remarkable as the changes even in the period between the outbreak of the First World War and the beginning of the Second. Stanley Baldwin’s Governments were cautious ones, at least after his relinquishing of office and a comfortable majority in 1923 in an unsuccessful dash to the polls to secure electoral endorsement of Protection. The inability of the Triple Alliance of transport workers, railwaymen and coal miners to pursue their confrontation with the Government in 1921, only postponed the clash.
