Political Compass: Edwardian Edition

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Do think that the Edwardian era was all about sedate garden parties, country house weekends and the King dandling his mistresses on his knee? Wrong! The period between the end of the Victorian Era and the commencement of the First World War was one of extraordinary political upheaval and conflict. From the conflict over Irish Home Rule to the militancy of the suffragettes, from the tumultuous battle over the People's Budget and Lords reform to industrial discontent initiated by a hungry and militant working class, Britain in this era was a powder keg of discontent.

New groups, ideas and parties formed. The Labour Party was founded, feminism found its feet, and the Liberal Party transformed itself. Towering political figures such as Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Edward Carson, the Pankhursts and Keir Hardie emerged. Who would you have been? A militant suffragette? A placard-wielding weirdie-beardie member of the ILP? A spluttering reactionary Tory diehard? Let's find out!

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Do you support Home Rule for Ireland?
- NEVER - Home Rule is ROME RULE! Ulster will fight and ULSTER WILL BE RIGHT!
- YES - so I do, we Irish will never get social justice and freedom until we have our autonomy!
- Only if an autonomous Ireland give women the vote.
- Yes, the struggle of the Irish worker is the struggle of workers everywhere!
- Don't really care about the Irish question tbh
Do you support the People's Budget?
- NO - It's a disgraceful robber's charter that threatens private property. We will defeat it in the Lords! FETCH ME MY PORT WAITER!
- I support some of the spending proposals - like Old Age Pensions - but it would be better funded by Tariff Reform!
- YES - It's a noble crusade to end squalor and poverty! Lloyd George knew my father!
- Mostly not - The Land Tax in particular undermines private property and is unworkable. But spending more on warships and old age pensions is prudent.
- YES - though it doesn't go far enough. Poverty in this country will not be solved by half-measures like this, welcome as it is - we need thoroughgoing reform and a proper welfare state
- I won't support anything that dastardly Lloyd George does until he comes off the fence and properly supports Votes for Women!
Do you support re-arming Britain to face down the German threat? In particular, do you support building more dreadnoughts?
- YES - WE WANT EIGHT AND WE WON'T WAIT! MAINTAIN THE TWO-POWER STANDARD!
- NO - Armaments are immoral. We want peace and love man. The Germans are no threat anyway
- Yes - this is prudent preparation
- Yes, to a moderate degree - though we have to balance military spending against the need to pay for old age pensions
- Yes, but I do wish you'd pass votes for women first
- No, and if women had the vote this would not happen
Do you support Tariff Reform?
- YES! This is the perfect way of drawing the Empire together while also protecting British industry and funding social programmes like old age pensions!
- Sigh. Not really but we'll have to humour Chamberlain and hedge our bets
- NEVER - Free Trade and the cheap loaf forever! Oppose the Tory Bread Tax!
- Mildly yes, but it's not the main issue - we need higher wages and stronger trade unions to defend our interests more than anything
- Absolutely not - this proposal stinks of imperialism and will undermine workers' living standards
- Better this than taxing our land and estates, what?
- Ireland does not want to be forced into a imperial trading bloc. No.
- Do YOU support votes for women?
Do you support votes for women?
- Yes. I mean maybe. Hang on! Not if you carry on like this ladies!
- YES - AND WE WILL DO LITERALLY ANYTHING, FROM BURNING DOWN CHURCHES TO KILLING RACEHORSES, TO ACHIEVE IT!
- Yes, passionately, but we will not engage in terrorism to achieve it and we don't want to be bullied by that mad tyrant Christabel Pankhurst anymore
- Woman with the vote? What next, monkeys? Children? Make my dinner!
- Yes - the cause of women is the cause of labour
Do you support the Parliament Act 1911?
- NEVER - I WILL DIE IN A DITCH BEFORE I LET THESE LIBERALS GET RID OF MY IMMEMORIAL RIGHTS!
- YES! - and if it doesn't pass, we will pack the Lords to force it through. After all, a fully-equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts - but is even less use
- YES - The Tories will always block pro-worker legislation if we don't break their power
- Yes - it's a good first step to Home Rule, as the Lords will try to block that too
- Yes - it will remove a barrier to votes for women
- No - but ultimately, if Asquish pushes it, we should abstain or risk the Lords being flooded with Liberal peers. We should hedge our bets.
Do you support passing the Trade Disputes Act 1906, which established the principle that trade unions could not be sued for damages incurred during a strike?
- YES - Reverse Taff Vale! Victory to the workers!
- Yes - proof that the Liberal Party is the working man's friend.
- NEVER! - These bloody uppity workers need to be taught a lesson, not indulged! What are these weak-kneed woolly liberals doing?!?!
- If only we'd implement Tariff Reform the workers would have no need for these shenanigans
- Oh no dear boy, we could do without more militancy from our working class cousins
- Yes, if the unions stop being such a bunch of misogynists
Do you support disestablishing the Church of Wales?
- Yes boyo, vile Anglican supremacy has oppressed us freedom loving Methodists for too long! We will pay tithes no longer!
- Never! The Church of Wales forever! Never make concessions to the heaving masses of Dissent!
- Oh dear, what a shame. We'll oppose it but make no attempt to reverse it.
- Yes - I am a freethinker who doesn't believe in any established religion!
- Yes - only to annoy the Tories tho, I'm a Roman Catholic!
- Couldn't care less mate.
Do you support the majority report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws?
- Yes - poverty is the result of immorality and the Boards of Guardians were providing too much outdoor relief to people. Keep the Poor Laws, but rename them.
- Nope, but the minority report is rather radical - our liberal reforms of national insurance and old age pensions will do the job!
- Absolutely not. I back the Minority Report - poverty has structural causes. We need a comprehensive welfare state, public healthcare and generous pensions. Abolish the Poor Law!
- Something like that, and do you know what should fund such social reforms? You guessed it. Tariff Reform!
- I think we Irish should have the legislative independence to make our own laws on poverty
Do you support the wave of strikes and industrial action taken by the trade unions in the Great Unrest of 1911 and 1914, and particularly the demand for a Miners' Minimum Wage?
- YES - Victory to the workers and the Triple Alliance! Resist wage cuts!
- Well...we wish it would go away really. But if George Askwith can't sort it out, we'll probably....give in and hope for the best?
- Shoot the lot of them. Bloody socialists.
- I'm sure they're good chaps really, but can't they pipe down and behave? It's a bit unpatriotic.
- I'm more worried about the Dublin Lockout. But yes, basically.
- I bet these unionist chappies are terribly sexist. We'll support them if they support votes for women!
Do you support Britain's entry into the First World War?
- Yes - Crush the Hun! It'll all be over by Christmas, these bloody foreigners can't shoot straight
- Yes - It is our patriotic duty as workers to support the country in a time of crisis!
- Yes - and we'll even stop agitating for female suffrage to support the war effort!
- No! And we'll keep on campaigning for votes for women
- Never - this is an imperialist war! Why support a worker at both ends of a bayonet? War is inherently evil anyway.
- Yes - reluctantly. I don't see what other choice we have.
- I cannot believe that this is going to delay Home Rule. After all that effort! ARGHH

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