The Twenties
One might be forgiven for thinking that with all the 'modern' changes to life, from radio broadcasts to the 'talkies', from the first Labour Government to expansion of car ownership, that old ideas of deference and class division would begin to dissipate. This was not to be the case, for as Victorians could have told this new generation, 'The Poor are always with us'.
Yet it was a 'new' poor, formed from those who had seen the horror of the trenches but had also glimpsed a new world arising in Soviet Russia. Strikes and riots began at the very start of the postwar period and climaxed in The General Strike of 1926.
However, The Twenties ended with no serious threat to the role of employers or to the traditional Two Party democratic system.