United Kingdom general election, 1880
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All 652 seats to the House of Commons 327 seats needed for a majority |
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110
113| 1868 election • MPs |
| 1874 election • MPs |
| 1880 election • MPs |
| 1885 election • MPs |
| 1886 election • MPs |
William Ewart Gladstone
Liberal
The United Kingdom general election of 1880 was a general election in the United Kingdom held from March to April 1880.
Intense rhetoric of the election was provided by the Midlothian campaign of the Liberals, led by the fierce oratory of Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone vehemently attacked the foreign policy of the government of Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) as utterly immoral.
The Liberals secured one of their largest ever majorities in the election, leaving the Conservatives a distant second. As a result of the campaign, the Liberal leaders, Lord Hartington and Lord Granville, withdrew in favour of Gladstone, who thus became Prime Minister a second time.
The Conservative government was doomed with by the poor condition of the British economy, And the vulnerability of its foreign policy to moralistic attacks by the Liberals. Gladstone, appealing to moralistic evangelicals, led the attack on the foreign policy of Disraeli (now known as Lord Beaconsfield) as immoral. Historian Paul Smith paraphrases the rhetorical tone which focused on attacking "Beaconsfieldism" (in Smith's words) as a:
Smith notes that there was indeed some substance to the allegations, but, "Most of this was partisan extravaganza, worthy of its target's own excursions against the Whigs."
Disraeli himself was now the Earl of Beaconsfield in the House of Lords, and custom did not allow peers to campaign. His party was unable to deal effectively with the rhetorical onslaught. Although he had improved the organization of the Conservative Party, Disraeli was firmly based in the rural gentry, and had little contact with or understanding of the urban middle class that was increasingly dominating his party. Besides issues of foreign policy, even more important thing Conservatives were unable to effectively defend their economic record on the home front. The 1870s coincided with a long term global depression caused by the collapse of the worldwide railway boom of the 1870s which previously had been so profitable to Britain. The stress was growing by the late 1870s: prices fell, profits fell, employment fell, and there was downward pressure on wage rates that cause much hardship among the industrial working class. The free trade system supported by both parties made Britain defenseless against the flood of cheap wheat from North America, which was exacerbated by the worst harvest of the century in Britain in 1879. The party in power, of course, got the blame, and Liberals repeatedly emphasized the growing budget deficit as a measure of bad stewardship. In the election itself, Disraeli's party lost heavily up and down the line, especially in Scotland and Ireland, and in the urban boroughs. His Conservative strength fell from 351 to 238, while the Liberals jump from 250 to 353. Disraeli resigned on 21 April 1880.
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