National Government (United Kingdom)

In the politics of the United Kingdom, a National Government is a coalition of some or all of the major political parties. In a historical sense, it refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931 until 1940.

The all-party coalitions of H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George in the First World War and of Winston Churchill in the Second World War were sometimes referred to as National Governments at the time, but are now more commonly called Coalition Governments. The term "National Government" was chosen to dissociate itself from negative connotations of the earlier Coalitions.[1][2] Churchill's brief 1945 Caretaker Government also called itself a National Government and in terms of party composition was very similar to the 1931–1940 ones.

  1. ^ "MacDonald forms a coalition". The Guardian. 25 August 1931. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  2. ^ Buchan, John (1932). The Gap in the Curtain. London: Hodder and Stoughton. p. 162. A Coalition...only shares the loot, but a national government pools the brains.

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