TOMORROW is the centenary of the day that the Labour Party’s first Prime Minister took office and entered 10 Downing Street. However, there are precious few national events planned for the centenary and there are many people on the left who won’t mark it at all.
That is because the man who became Prime Minister on January 22, 1924, was James Ramsay MacDonald, considered by some as a traitor to the Labour Party and the working classes for his later political conduct.
Yet no-one can displace him from history as the first Labour Prime Minister. His remarkable rise from abject poverty to Downing Street is surely worth more acknowledgement than he will get tomorrow.
MacDonald was born the illegitimate son of a housemaid, Anne Ramsay, and farm labourer John MacDonald in Lossiemouth on October 12, 1866. His name was registered as Ramsay, but he always went by the name of MacDonald.
He was educated at the local Free Church of Scotland school and then Drainie parish school, leaving at 15 to begin working as a labourer on a local farm and becoming a pupil teacher at Drainie school.
At the age of 18 he was recruited to assist Mordaunt Crofton, a clergyman who was attempting to establish a Boys’ and Young Men’s Guild at St Stephen’s Church in Bristol. It was in that city that MacDonald first began to study politics and socialism, joining the proto-socialist Social Democratic Foundation.
He then moved to London and, determined to improve his education, he attended classes at Birkbeck Literary Foundation but failed to graduate due to illness. Along with Charles Fitzgerald he set up the Socialist Union but it did not last though he found that leadership agreed with him, and he was able to develop his skills as an orator.
Becoming a journalist – his first major report was the Bloody Sunday riot of 1887 – MacDonald was increasingly seen as an influential thinker in the small but growing circles of the left in London. He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1894 and unsuccessfully stood for election.
In 1900 he became secretary of the Labour Representation Committee which in time would become the Parliamentary Labour Party – along with his fellow Scots Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, MacDonald is usually seen as one of the Labour Party’s co-founders. He was elected as an MP for Leicester in 1906, one of 29 Labour MPs.
In 1911, the same year as his beloved wife Margaret died, MacDonald became chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party and was acknowledged by all as the party’s overall leader. On the outbreak of war in 1914, MacDonald maintained an avowedly anti-war stance and resigned his leadership of Labour.
His speeches against the war were widely condemned and the fact of his illegitimacy was dragged up by the gutter press. It was only when the war continued with utter carnage of the Western Front that his reputation began to recover. It was not enough to save his seat but he returned to Parliament in 1922 as MP for Aberavon in Wales.
READ MORE: Experts at National Museums Scotland reconstruct 'rare' Roman armour
He immediately became party leader again, and in the 1923 General Election Labour outpolled the Liberals so that MacDonald became Leader of the Opposition. Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives had only a small majority but it proved unworkable and lost votes of confidence. King George V sent for MacDonald and with the support of the Liberals, the first man from a working-class background to hold the highest office became Prime Minister 100 years ago tomorrow.
MacDonald appointed himself Foreign Secretary, a role he relished as he had long been Labour’s leading internationalist thinker. He made Philip Snowden his Chancellor and the two men immediately set about activity on behalf of working people, increasing benefits and bringing in the Wheatley Act, named after John Wheatley, the Red Clydeside MP and Housing Minister who piloted the act through the Commons.
It remains one of the greatest of all pieces of Labour legislation, creating council houses for more than 500,000 families. More importantly, perhaps, Wheatley Houses had their own internal bathrooms, a huge advance for the working classes.
The official history pages of gov.uk are remarkably even-handed in their treatment of MacDonald, recording that “in the first-ever Labour government, the survival of MacDonald’s small Commons majority depended on the goodwill of opposition parties. This difficult situation prompted him to call an election. During the campaign a newspaper published the notorious ‘Zinoviev letter’. Although later accepted to be a fraud, the letter ruined MacDonald’s anti-Communist credentials. His Labour administration was then heavily defeated in the election.”
READ MORE: Long-searched-for Andy Warhol piece goes on display in Edinburgh
MacDonald spent much of his time in opposition travelling and meeting many political leaders. In 1927, on a trip to the USA he nearly died of a throat infection and spent a month in hospital.
In the 1929 General Election MacDonald led Labour to their biggest win so far, yet the 287 seats were not enough to form a government, the balance of power being held by Lloyd George’s Liberals. MacDonald entered No 10 again, but the growing economic crisis saw the second Labour government collapse, forcing MacDonald to create a National Government of all parties. He eventually called an election in 1931 in which Labour was all but wiped off the political map. MacDonald stayed on as Prime Minister of the National Government which was Tory in all but name.
As gov.uk states: “The coalition was considered by many party members to be a cynical betrayal of their hopes and MacDonald subsequently lost his seat. He then fought to return to Parliament, winning a by-election two years before his death on the way to South America in 1937.”
No matter what you think of him Ramsay MacDonald made history as Labour’s first Prime Minister. Will Sir Keir Starmer be its next?
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here