As Britain’s modern party system frays, we rewind 300+ years to Queen Anne’s reign to trace the messy, very human birth of Britain’s party politics in conversation with historian George Owers, author of Rage of Party. He charts how religion, war, and raw parliamentary management forged early party politics, as the Whigs and Tories hardened into recognisable parties. Parliament turned from an occasional royal event into a permanent institution, and the job that would later be called “Prime Minister” began to take shape through court craft and parliamentary number-crunching.

___

Please help us improve Parliament Matters by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

Go to: https://podcastsurvey.typeform.com/to/QxigqshS

___

The Glorious Revolution triggered one change that proved transformational: Parliament now had to sit, and sit often. The Monarch’s continental wars needed constant funding, and constant funding required annual Parliaments. That imperative created a new game: the Crown’s ministers had to manage two chambers increasingly organised along party lines, avoiding the dreaded scenario in which a single faction could “force the chamber” and dictate to the Monarch. Out of that pressure cooker evolved new techniques of parliamentary management: whipping, coalition-stitching, patronage-trading. The dark arts of parliamentary arithmetic were born in this crucible.

With Queen Anne’s death in 1714, the Hanoverian succession froze out suspected Jacobite sympathisers and handed the initiative to the Whigs. Over the following decade, Robert Walpole consolidated that advantage into something new: stable, one-party government under a single commanding figure. His mix of administrative grip, parliamentary mastery, and monarchical confidence is why he is widely counted as Britain’s first true Prime Minister.

Our conversation lands back in the present with a sobering parallel. If today’s House of Commons continues to splinter, tomorrow’s successful leaders may look less like top-down disciplinarians and more like Walpole: Commons operators who live in the tea room, count every vote, understand every constituency interest, and build governing majorities from shifting factions rather than from iron party control. It’s a story about where our party system came from – and a primer for the coalition politics it may be heading back towards.

___

🎓 Learn more using our resources for the issues mentioned in this episode.

❓ Send us your questions about Parliament:

✅ Subscribe to our newsletter.

📱 Follow us across social media @HansardSociety / @hansardsociety.bsky.social

£ - Support the Hansard Society and this podcast by making a donation today.

Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox

Producer: Richard Townsend

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.