Accompanies the new BBC Radio 4 documentary Ramsay MacDonald: Labour’s First Prime Minister
Late in the morning of 22 January 1924, Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin stepped out of the rear of Downing Street, hailed a passing taxi and headed to Buckingham Palace for an audience with King George V. Baldwin was making the short journey to hand in his resignation – one taken by so many leaders before and since. But there was one key difference to his experience from those of earlier Tory PMs: this time he was to be succeeded not by a leader of the Conservatives’ long-time opponents, the Liberals, but by Ramsay MacDonald – who would shortly be confirmed as the first Labour Party prime minister in British history.
These events marked a striking reversal of fortune for MacDonald: less than a decade earlier, his staunch opposition to the First World War had made him one of the most hated men in Britain. He now made the leap to premier without having ever previously held high office.
This was also a moment of truth for the Labour Party itself, less than a quarter of a century old and forming a government for the first time. For many Britons, the all-toorecent horrors of the Bolshevik revolution were proof that socialists, even ostensibly moderate ones, could not be trusted with power. The king, a cousin of the slain Russian royal family, was also apprehensive. During
