ABSTRACT
Having completed an unusually long period as Chancellor, Churchill’s position on the Tory front bench should have been secure, even after the electoral defeat of 1929. His achievements at the Treasury had admittedly been mixed – but so had those of Baldwin’s government as a whole. Defeated at the polls, the Conservative Party lost the selfrestraint that had kept the lid on its internal divisions while in government. Churchill had never had much self-restraint. This fault had led him into political controversy and isolation in his earlier career and it was to do so again in this period.
