ABSTRACT
The beckoning world of post-war politics held many possibilities. The war had produced an unstoppable impetus towards universal male suffrage. The Representation of the People Act 1918, often known as the Fourth Reform Act, enfranchised the many men who had not had the vote, for instance because they were not householders in their own right, and women over 30 (see Chapter 2 box, ‘Suffragists and suffragettes’). With no opinion polls, who this vast new electorate would favour was unknown. Trade union membership had grown rapidly during the war and the Labour Party had been in office as part of the wartime Coalition. Would it now continue on this constitutional path, or follow the pre-war syndicalist line of direct industrial action, or be influenced by Russia’s Bolsheviks, and how many of the new electorate would follow it?
