Campbell-Bannerman is one of a series of books, published by Haus Publishing, focused on 'The 20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century'. It has at its subject, arguably, the most obscure member of this elite group.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman (originally just Campbell but latterly known to all as 'CB') was Prime Minster for less than three years - from December 1905 when the Liberals won by a landslide, to April 1908 when ill health forced him to resign in favour of Asquith. He died that same April and in so doing became the only Prime Minister to die at 10 Downing Street.
Another factoid was that he was the first Prime Minster formally to be designated with that title, (some) predecessors may have been called PM informally but in official terms were in fact First Lords of the Treasury.
The foregoing is trivia but as Hattersley succinctly and clearly describes, CB scored some notable triumphs during his short tenure in the highest elected office. He was, for example, responsible for a more generous settlement than many advocated, via the Vereeniging Treaty, with the Boers after the Boer War - generosity which led to the formation, for good or bad, of 20th century South Africa.
CB was also directly responsible for removing liability from Trades Unions for damage caused by strike action; and thirdly, perhaps most consequentially, he began the process which removed the real veto the House of Lords had over any Commons legislation changing it, in time, merely to a right to suggest amendments or to delay. In so doing CB was at the beginning of the movement to establish the House of Commons as the supreme legislator in Great Britain.
Hattersley clearly likes CB. He is impressed by his radicalism and the fact that before and during his term as Prime Minister, he entered meetings with an open mind rather than a pre-set position. This did not, on occasion, contribute to his political potency but it did, over time, increase his standing in the eyes of his colleagues, his political opponents and the country at large who all came to recognize they were dealing with a thoroughly decent man albeit one without the normal style and flash of the politicians we know today.
This is the first of the Haus Publishing series I have read and I have to wonder, given they all seem to be more or less the same length, how much more compression is required in, say, the books about Lloyd George or, indeed Churchill than appears here. As I said, Hattersley is succinct and he expects his reader to know something of late 19th and early 20th century British politics and of domestic and Imperial history. But he is also straightforward and frequently, if gently, entertaining.
In the spirit of the latter comes the newly elected CB's response, to the former Tory PM Arthur Balfour who "returned to Parliament in a contrived byelection [and] attempted to win over the House with an exhibition of elegant wit and contrived classical reflections - a technique which had made him the darling of the late Victorian Tory benches. In two dismissive sentences the new Prime Minister destroyed him. Enough of this tomfoolery. It might have answered very well in the last Parliament, but it is altogether out of place in this ...
Campbell-Bannerman by Roy Hattersley, published in 2006 (paperback) by Haus Publishing. 161pp.
