ww2, britain and general elections (the lack of)

[Pierson's]

i recently found out that between 1935 and 1945 there were no general elections in the UK. wikipedia says that it was because of world war two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1935
does anyone know anything more about this, under what rules the elections were suspended and so on? and what do people think about this generally?
someone i was talking to about it said that because of the war, democracy had to be suspended, and that you couldn't have held a vote when the germans were bombing the country so much. except, that australia managed to have a number of elections in the same time period 1937, 1940 and 1943, and they were at war too.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There was a two-thirds Parliamentary majority required to suspend elections.

[Invader Zim]

and what do people think about this generally?

I'm not sure, though it is a part of the general outlook the government attempted to propagate during the war of dropping internal divisions and coming together.


except, that australia managed to have a number of elections in the same time period 1937, 1940 and 1943, and they were at war too.

While I take your point I'm not sure that is an apt comparison. To play devils advocate, firstly Japan declared war on Australia in 1941, as such the elections in 1937 and 1940 don't really count for a lot in this discussion. Secondly, the air raids against Australia in 1942-43 saw 97 attacks, the most deadly of which involved less than 250 aircraft. During the blitz, London was attacked night after night by considerably larger number of aircraft and the entire campaign cost 43,000 lives. Thirdly the scale of the war effort in Britain made it a total war, I doubt the same can be said of Australia.

[Pogue]

They had a wartime cabinet, which was amde up of members of all parties. Holding an election in the context of a war would hae been impossible and they basically wanted to make a centralised, efficient government to make fighting the war effort easier, because for example debating for a week on whether to send mroe troops would cost lives, etc.

[Forward Union]

They had a wartime cabinet, which was amde up of members of all parties. Holding an election in the context of a war would hae been impossible and they basically wanted to make a centralised, efficient government to make fighting the war effort easier, because for example debating for a week on whether to send mroe troops would cost lives, etc.

and they talked about doing it in response to the Crisis aswell, accordign to the guardian.

[Pierson's]

There was a two-thirds Parliamentary majority required to suspend elections.
thanks.


They had a wartime cabinet, which was amde up of members of all parties. Holding an election in the context of a war would hae been impossible and they basically wanted to make a centralised, efficient government to make fighting the war effort easier, because for example debating for a week on whether to send mroe troops would cost lives, etc.
was it justified though? is a centralised efficient government required to fight a war? aren't you an anarchist?

[bunnytheoctopus]

The Revolutionary Communist Party General Secretary, Jock Haston, stood on the programme of Trotskyism in Neath, South Wales in a by-electio held in 1945. There was also a bye-election in Cardiff when Fenner Brockway (ILP) stood, and a few others

[The Idler]

thanks.


was it justified though? is a centralised efficient government required to fight a war? aren't you an anarchist?
It doesn't justify it. But if the question is what actually happened and what reasons did the government give for inviting parties (which didn't even have a simple majority of seats) into government, then the answer is accurate. There is pretty much no parliamentary opposition if you have a absolute majority of seats. Weren't elections suspended during World War 1 and even between 1931 and 1935?