In 1905, Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister, made a bad miscalculation.  He resigned and let the Liberals form a government, confident that they would make a hash of things.  The following year, 1906, Mr.Campbell-Bannerman called a general election and won a landslide victory for the Liberals.  Oops!  In 1908, Mr. Asquith succeeded as the Liberal Prime Minister and he lasted until 1916 when his colleague, David Lloyd-George - dismayed by the slaughter being suffered in the Great War - did a deal with the Tories to oust him. 

Balfour survived as Tory leader until 1911 when there were two main rivals to succeed him: Austen Chamberlain and Herbert Long.  However, both had broadly similar support and both decided to withdraw in favour of a compromise candidate - Andrew Bonar Law.  Bonar Law brought the Tories back to a limited share in power, if not the premiership, by joining a wartime coalition under Asquith in 1915.  Then, in 1916, he deferred to Lloyd-George as the new premier of a coalition government when Asquith was forced to resign. 

The 1918 general election virtually destroyed the Liberal Party because most of the MPs elected on the coalition ticket to support Lloyd-George were Tories.  The Asquithian Liberals were reduced to a rump - and have never really recovered.

Bonar Law had to resign through ill-health in 1921.  From 1921 to 1922, Austen Chamberlain led the Conservatives in the House of Commons and Lord Curzon in the House of Lords; with Lloyd-George remaining as Prime Minister.  Then, in 1922, the Tory backbenchers revolted.  At a meeting at the Carlton Club, they voted to end the coalition (and, in memory of this dramatic event, the Tory backbenchers, en masse, still rejoice in the name of The 1922 Committee).  Austen Chamberlain had unwisely become too allied with Lloyd-George, and so Bonar Law, his health apparently better, became the new (Tory) Prime Minister.  (This left Austen Chamberlain as the only Tory leader during the 20th Century who had failed to become Prime Minister - until William Hague slipped in as a late entrant to keep him company in 1997.) 

Alas, though, Bonar law's health failed again in 1923; and, after losing his voice, he promptly died from throat cancer. To the utter astonishment of Lord Curzon (who had never been accused of suffering from a lack of self-esteem) the fixers in the Tory Party then plucked out Stanley Baldwin as the new Tory leader and Prime Minister.  Mr. Baldwin (who had been President of the Board of Trade, and a moving spirit in ousting Lloyd-George) was a level-headed sort of chap, and he smoked a pipe - which in those days was re-assuring to people.  He had also made a lot of money in the manufacturing industry - and he decided it was his public duty to donate a good chunk of it to reduce the national debt.  (Question:  Is there any evidence that England has changed a lot over the past three or four generations?)

Mr. Baldwin then played musical chairs with Ramsey McDonald, who was the first Labour (briefly) Prime Minister and who then became another coalition premier relying mainly on Tory support.  'Safety First' Stanley returned to No.10 Downing Street from 1935 to 1937 to handle the abdication of the appalling King Edward VIII, and then he retired. His successor as Tory leader and Prime Minister was never in doubt - he was the outstandingly able Neville Chamberlain (son of Joe Chamberlain by his second marriage, and a younger half-brother of Austen Chamberlain), a vigorous domestic reformer and, by 1938, the hero of a very popular song extolling his merits for having saved the country from going to war.

Things then took a turn for the worse for Neville.

I suppose that most of us have never had to make a national radio broadcast saying that we were back at war with Germany again (and with no option to substitute France, instead); so we should perhaps temper our criticisms of Neville's presentation.  But he was probably unwise, in his radio broadcast, to focus on seeking sympathy for the distress this outcome had caused him personally.  Most regrettably, our Neville was a very vain - and perhaps unduly self-obsessed - man indeed; one who thought ex-Corporal Hitler was merely some mid-European oik who could be cunningly contained by some lofty concessions from his intellectual and social superior.

With the passage of time - and detailed probing of the Churchillian myths - it becomes inescapable that Neville Chamberlain was certainly no buffoon, and that he probably had a clearer strategic grasp of the long-term interests - and weaknesses - of the British Empire (as then constituted) than did Winston Churchill in 1939/1940.

The main point that concerns us here is the attitude of the Conservative Parliamentary Party in May 1940; and what they did about it.  A majority wanted to retain Chamberlain as Prime Minister; but the Labour Party refused to join a national coalition under his leadership.  So he had to go.  The Tories would then have chosen Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary; and Labour would have agreed to this.  But it now seems that Chamberlain scuppered this.  He conveyed a secret message to Churchill that he would be asked whether he would serve under Halifax, and that he should remain silent. This is what happened.  Halifax's nerve broke and he withdrew.  Churchill went to King George VI (who would also have much preferred Halifax at this stage) and was appointed Prime Minister.

What prompted Chamberlain's sudden support for Churchill?  It was his realisation that Halifax was still conducting surreptious peace negotiations with Hitler via third parties (and that his junior minister, R. A. Butler, was scurrying around in support, doing things that were downright treasonable.  This had further repercussions 17 years later, and again 23 years later, in future tussles for leadership of the Conservative Party).  

So then, to the point.  At arguably the supreme crisis in England's history - May 1940 - were the Conservatives any good at picking the right leader of their party?

Not sure?  Well, actually, it's a trick question.  See the next post, coming shortly.