The Men of 1924

Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the diverse group of men who comprised Britain's first Labour Party in 1924. In January of 1924, the cabinet of the first Labour government consisted of twenty white, middle-aged men, as it had for generations. But the election also represented a radical departure from government by the ruling class. Most members of the administration had left school by the age of fifteen. Five of them had started work by the time they were twelve years old. Three were working down the mines before they entered their teens. Two were illegitimate, one was abandoned at birth, and three were of Irish immigrant descent. For the first time in Britain's history, the cabinet could truly be said to represent all of Britain's social classes. This unheralded revolution in representation is the subject of Peter Clark's fascinating new book, The Men of 1924. Who were these men? Clark's vivid portrayal is full of evocative portraits of a new breed of politician, the forerunners of all those who, later in the last century and this one, overcame a system from which they had been excluded for too long.