Electoral Pledges in Britain Since 1918

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   • David Thackeray, Richard Toye

   Pages 1-16

3. Election Promises and Anti-promises After the Great War

   • Luke Blaxill

   Pages 17-46

4. The ‘Woman’s Point of View’: Women Parliamentary Candidates, 1918–1919

   • Lisa Berry-Waite

   Pages 47-69

5. ‘A Fighting Man to Fight for You’: The Armed Forces, Ex-Servicemen, and British Electoral Politics in the Aftermath of Two World Wars

   • Matthew Johnson

   Pages 71-93

6. Broken Promises and the Remaking of Political Trust: Debating Reconstruction in Britain During the Second World War

   • Clare Griffiths

   Pages 95-115

7. Fiscal Promises: Tax and Spending in British General Elections Since 1964

   • Aled Davies, Peter Sloman

   Pages 117-137

8. The Introduction of Race and Immigration in British Post-Imperial Politics: The General Elections of 1964 and 1966

   • Emil Sokolov

   Pages 139-163

9. The Electoral Promises of Winston Churchill

   • Richard Toye

   Pages 165-184

10. ‘I Promise You This. I Won’t Make Empty Promises’. The Election Manifestos of Margaret Thatcher

    • David Thackeray

    Pages 185-205

11. Custodians of the Manifesto: The Struggle over Labour’s Electoral Platforms, 1974–1983

    • Mark Wickham-Jones

    Pages 207-230

12. Thatcherism, the SDP and Vernacular Politics on the Isle of Sheppey, c. 1978–83

    • Jon Lawrence

    Pages 231-248

13. The Promise of ‘Liberal Democracy’, c. 1981–2010

    • Mike Finn

    Pages 249-270

14. ‘We made a pledge, we did not stick to it, and for that I am sorry’: The Liberal Democrats’ 2015 General Election Campaign and the Legacy of the Tuition Fees Debacle

    • Judi Atkins

    Pages 271-289

15. The Rhetorical Lives and Afterlives of Political Pledges in British Political Speech c. 2000–2013

    • James Freeman

    Pages 291-314

16. Back Matter

    Pages 315-327

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Nobody doubts that politicians ought to fulfil their promises – what people cannot agree about is what this means in practice. The purpose of this book is to explore this issue through a series of case studies. It shows how the British model of politics has changed since the early twentieth century when electioneering was based on the articulation of principles which, it was expected, might well be adapted once the party or politician that promoted them took office. Thereafter manifestos became increasingly central to electoral politics and to the practice of governing, and this has been especially the case since 1945. Parties were now expected to outline in detail what they would do in office and explain how the policies would be paid for. Brexit has complicated this process, with the ‘will of the people’ as supposedly expressed in the 2016 referendum result clashing with the conventional role of the election manifesto as offering a mandate for action.

• Democratic process
• Political representation
• Election campaigns
• Political platform
• Enfranchisement
• Suffrage
• Gender
• World Wars
• Tuition fees
• Winston Churchill
• Margaret Thatcher
• Race
• Tax, spending
• Government
• Conservative
• Labour
• Liberal Democrats

• Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

  David Thackeray

• Department of History Amory Building, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

  Richard Toye

David Thackeray is Associate Professor of History at the University of Exeter, UK. He is author of Forging a British World of Trade: Culture, Ethnicity and Market in the Empire/Commonwealth, c.1880-1975 (2019) and has published extensively in the field of British political history, including Conservatism for the Democratic Age: Conservative Cultures and the Challenge of Mass Politics in Early Twentieth Century England (2013).


Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK. He has published widely in the fields of British, international, and imperial history. His books include Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction (2013), The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’s World War II Speeches (2013) and (with Martin Thomas) Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882-1956 (2017). 

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