After a 10-year journey in the political wilderness, the Liberal Party was back in power in the United Kingdom for the first time in the new century after a landslide victory.

They had won their way back into power by opposing the excesses of the Boer War, supporting the demands of the working class and the non-conformists, and by allying

with the fledgling Labor Party and the suffragist movement.

But now that they were back in government in Westminster and held the power, what were they

going to do with it? How can they keep such a broad coalition together?

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century. Episode 46

Deeds, not words.

What does a liberal government Episode 46. Deeds, not words.

What does a liberal government want?

That's a more difficult question to ask than what does a conservative government want.

Conservatives want the status quo. Liberals want change.

But change is not a policy. It needs to be defined.

But the liberals are a fractious coalition. The Liberal Party encompasses figures from the new Prime Minister, Henry Campbell Bannerman, a businessman, to the new Chancellor, Herbert Asquiff, a barrister, to Lord Roseberry,

former liberal PM, whose stances in favor of the Boer War and against Irish home rule,

cost him a place in the new liberal government, to the new foreign secretary, Sir Edward

Gray, a country gentleman, to the new president of the Board of Trade, David

Lloyd George, a Welsh lunatic.

This new liberal government had won so smashing a victory that it held an outright majority

in the Commons.

It didn't even need the votes of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as had been the case with past liberal governments.

As a result, although the Prime Minister, Campbell Bannerman, was personally a proponent of Irish Home Rule,

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