In the following essay I will consider the two questions; why were the liberals out of power for so much of the period 1886-1906 and how do historians explain Conservative success in the period 1886-1906.
At first glance it seems a simple answer why the liberals were out of power for all but 3 years (as a minority government) out of 20, the simple answer is that the liberal party was weakened, seemingly beyond repair when in 1886 ninety-three liberal MP's left the liberal party and formed their own party the Liberal Unionists over the issue of home rule. This group was made up of two very different sections of the liberal party, seventy of the group where Whigs- the old aristocracy of the Liberal party and the most 'right' of the liberal party under Lord Harrington, and the other twenty-three where radicals under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain. The split as I stated before was over Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, which basically was giving Ireland the right to what we now know today as devolution.…
