105. Grey, the Poor and the Irish

105. Grey, the Poor and the Irish

Another significant measure passed by the Grey government was a lot less creditable than the Great Reform Act or Abolition of Slavery. The 1834 Poor Law mandated the construction of workhouses and set out to achieve the aim of making public assistance to the unemployed, sick or old, a lot less pleasant than work – an aim often pursued by politicians today as well and which it achieved.

It wasn’t that which brought Grey down, however. It was that constant bugbear of British governments, Ireland. Emancipation hadn’t quietened tempers among the Catholic Irish, it had merely refocused anger on another issue, the requirement on the Irish, the majority Catholic, to pay for the support of the Church of Ireland, the equivalent in the island of the Church of England, which was Protestant and immensely wealthy.

The effort to do something about that grievance, however, opened splits in the Cabinet, and the resignation of Ministers. In the end, that culminated in the resignation of the Prime Minister himself.

Earl Grey was gone.

Illustration: Cartoon of the interior of a Workhouse. Public Domain

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Jaksot(274)

257. Iron Lady out, Grey Man in

257. Iron Lady out, Grey Man in

With the poll tax, Thatcher took one bad decision to many. From the point of view of orthodox Thatcherite thought, it sounded like a good idea. She’d been working for years to shrink the state but, wh...

24 Elo 202514min

256. Maggie losing it

256. Maggie losing it

Having looked last week at how Maggie Thatcher was running out of options for how to carve out a new role for Britain on the world stage, this week we look at how things were going at home. After all,...

17 Elo 202514min

255. Maggie: lioness or poodle?

255. Maggie: lioness or poodle?

Maggie Thatcher in 1987 pulled off a trick that had eluded all other British Prime Ministers of the twentieth century: she won three general elections in a row. Even more, she won a second Commons lan...

10 Elo 202514min

254. Maggie reaching the top

254. Maggie reaching the top

Thatcher’s victories, including a general election landslide and breaking the miners’ strike, emboldened her to launch another phase in the reduction of the role of the state in the British economy. N...

3 Elo 202514min

253. The Enemy Within

253. The Enemy Within

What had converted Maggie Thatcher from something of a lame duck into a front runner for the next British general election?While the economy had begun to pick up, that had been patchy at best, with so...

27 Heinä 202514min

252. Iron Lady

252. Iron Lady

Mrs Thatcher’s first term in office was one of the great get out of jail events. She came into office intent on braking with the Keynesianism and social democracy of the postwar consensus. She drew on...

20 Heinä 202514min

251. Unlucky Jim

251. Unlucky Jim

In 1976, Jim Callaghan took over from Harold Wilson as leader of the Labour Party and British Prime Minister. He was a competent politician, though not an outstanding one. He did his job well, but he ...

13 Heinä 202514min

250. Return of the crisis man

250. Return of the crisis man

When Harold Wilson formed his second government, he immediately faced a major crisis inherited from Heath’s administration: the coalminers were on strike, a state of Emergency (Heath’s fifth in four y...

6 Heinä 202514min

Suosittua kategoriassa Historia

olipa-kerran-otsikko
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
mayday-fi
huijarit
rss-ikiuni
mystista
tsunami
konginkangas
totuus-vai-salaliitto
rouva-diktaattori
rss-i-dont-like-mondays-2
rss-kirkon-ihmeellisimmat-tarinat
historiaa-suomeksi
rss-subjektiivinen-todistaja
rss-sattuu-sita-suomessakin
apinan-vuosi
sotaa-ja-historiaa-podi
historian-nurkkapoyta
matakuu
rss-peter-peter