The Voters in Great Britain had swept the Liberal Party into power in 1906 in an historic landslide,

but the conservative majority in the House of Lords has been using the Lord's veto power

with aggressiveness unprecedented in modern times.

When the Lords vetoed the 1909 budget bill, a bill the Liberals in the Commons had deliberately larded with tax hikes on the privileged in order to provoke a confrontation, a general election was held, and the British public called upon to decide, who is master of British government, the Lords or the Commons?

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century. Episode 56, The heavens themselves

Flaze forth Back in Episode 56, The Heavens Themselves Blaze Fourth.

Back in episode 46, as you'll recall, we saw how Britain's liberal government was repeatedly blocked from enacting its policies, in spite of an overwhelming victory at the polls, by the entrenched conservative majority in the House of Lords,

using its power to reject legislation from the House of Commons with unprecedented frequency.

The Liberals responded in 1909 by presenting what came to be called the People's Budget,

which lowered tariffs, increased social spending, and funded a new

round of dreadnought construction, and all this paid for by raising income and estate taxes on the

richest citizens of the country. In other words, the sort of people who held seats in the House

of Lords. We're talking here about tax increases of maybe three percentage points on incomes that in today's

terms are above one half million US dollars per year and higher estate taxes on estates

that run into the millions of US dollars.

The House of Commons passed the people's budget and then dared the House of Lords to reject it.

For the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquiff, and the Liberal majority, this was a win-win.

If the Lords gave in, the government would have a whole new source of funds to further its social reforms,

aimed at bettering the lives of the

British working class, and, not coincidentally, cementing their support for the liberals and

stealing the thunder from the upstart labor party. On the other hand, if the lords quashed to the

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