Background note

by Michael Behrend

The Party System was added to this website in early September, 2015, during the leadership election of the British Labour Party.  Though written over a hundred years ago, it may help to explain the hostility of the party’s higher ranks towards Jeremy Corbyn, who seemed to many people to be the only candidate genuinely opposed to the Conservatives. 

There have, of course, been changes since the book was written.  The chief opposition, or notional opposition, to the Conservatives is now the Labour Party, not the Liberals.  There are not so many family links between members of opposing parties.  The secrecy about party funding, which Belloc tried unsuccessfully to end, has been lessened by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act (2000), which requires political parties to disclose donations of more than £5000. 

The table below shows the number of seats won by the largest four parties in the last three general elections before The Party System was written.  At that time there were 670 seats in the Commons and voting was spread over several days.  Belloc was elected as a Liberal MP in 1906 and soon became disillusioned with parliamentary proceedings, for reasons that are made clear in the book.  He was re-elected in January 1910 but did not stand for Parliament thereafter.  The book was written early in 1911, and the election referred to in the Preface is that of December 1910.