Editing H. H. Asquith (section)

====1910: election and constitutional deadlock====
[[File:1910c H H Asquith.jpg|thumb|Asquith in an [[Autochrome Lumière|Autochrome]] by [[Lionel de Rothschild (born 1882)|Lionel de Rothschild]], {{Circa| 1910}}]]

The [[January 1910 general election]] was dominated by talk of removing the Lords' veto.<ref name="dnb"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Blewett|first=Neal|author-link=Neal Blewett|title=The Peers, the Parties and the People: The British General Elections of 1910|year=1972|location=Toronto and Buffalo|publisher=University of Toronto Press|url=https://archive.org/details/peerspartiespeop0000blew/page/n5/mode/2up|url-access=registration|isbn=0-8020-1838-6}}</ref> A possible solution was to threaten to have King Edward pack the House of Lords with freshly minted Liberal peers, who would override the Lords's veto; Asquith's talk of safeguards was taken by many to mean that he had secured the King's agreement to this. They were mistaken; the King had informed Asquith that he would not consider a mass creation of peers until after a ''second'' general election.<ref name="dnb"/>

Lloyd George and Churchill were the leading forces in the Liberals' appeal to the voters; Asquith, clearly tired, took to the hustings for a total of two weeks during the campaign, and when the polls began, journeyed to [[Cannes]] with such speed that he neglected an engagement with the King, to the monarch's annoyance.{{sfn|Koss|p=117}} The result was a [[hung parliament]]. The Liberals lost heavily from their great majority of 1906, but still finished with two more seats than the Conservatives. With [[Nationalist Party (Ireland)|Irish Nationalist]] and Labour support, the government would have ample support on most issues, and Asquith stated that his majority compared favourably with those enjoyed by [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Palmerston]] and [[Lord John Russell]].{{sfn|Koss|p=118}}

[[File:Herbert Henry Asquith Vanity Fair 17 March 1910.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Asquith caricatured in ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 1910]]

Immediate further pressure to remove the Lords' veto now came from the Irish MPs, who wanted to remove the Lords' ability to block the introduction of Irish Home Rule. They threatened to vote against the Budget unless they had their way.{{sfn|Magnus 1964|p=548}}{{efn| Irish nationalists, unlike Liberals, favoured tariff reform, and opposed the planned increase in whisky duty, but an attempt by Lloyd George to win their support by cancelling it was abandoned as the Cabinet felt that this was recasting the Budget too much, and because it would also have annoyed nonconformist voters. See {{harvnb|Magnus 1964|pp=548, 553}}}} With another general election likely before long, Asquith had to make clear the Liberal policy on constitutional change to the country without alienating the Irish and Labour. This initially proved difficult, and the King's speech opening Parliament was vague on what was to be done to neutralise the Lords' veto. Asquith dispirited his supporters by stating in Parliament that he had neither asked for nor received a commitment from the King to create peers.<ref name="dnb"/> The cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a Conservative government.{{sfn|Heffer|pp=290–293}}

The budget passed the Commons again, and this time was approved by the Lords in April without a division.{{sfn|Koss|p=121}} The cabinet finally decided to back a plan based on Campbell-Bannerman's, that a bill passed by the Commons in three consecutive annual sessions would become law notwithstanding the Lords' objections. Unless the King guaranteed that he would create enough Liberal peers to pass the bill, ministers would resign and allow Balfour to form a government, leaving the matter to be debated at the ensuing general election.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=208–210}} On 14 April 1910, the Commons passed resolutions that would become the basis of the eventual [[Parliament Act 1911]]: to remove the power of the Lords to veto money bills, to reduce blocking of other bills to a two-year power of delay, and also to reduce the term of a parliament from seven years to five.{{sfn|Heffer|pp=286–288}} In that debate Asquith also hinted—in part to ensure the support of the Irish MPs—that he would ask the King to break the deadlock "in that Parliament" (i.e. that he would ask for the mass creation of peers, contrary to the King's earlier stipulation that there be a second election).{{sfn|Heffer|p=293}}{{efn|By April the King was being advised by Balfour and the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] (to whom he had turned for relatively neutral constitutional advice) that the Liberals did not have sufficient electoral mandate to demand creation of peers. See {{harvnb|Magnus 1964|pp=555–556}}. King Edward thought the whole proposal "simply disgusting" and that the government was "in the hands of [[John Redmond|Redmond]] & Co". Lord Crewe, Liberal leader in the Lords, announced publicly that the government's wish to create peers should be treated as formal "ministerial advice" (which, by [[Constitutional conventions of the United Kingdom|convention]], the monarch must obey) although [[Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher|Lord Esher]] argued that the monarch was entitled ''[[wikt:in extremis|in extremis]]'' to dismiss the Government rather than take their "advice". See {{harvnb|Heffer|pp=294–296}}.}}

These plans were scuttled by the death of Edward VII on 6 May 1910. Asquith and his ministers were initially reluctant to press the new king, [[George V]], in mourning for his father, for commitments on constitutional change, and the monarch's views were not yet known. With a strong feeling in the country that the parties should compromise, Asquith and other Liberals met with Conservative leaders in a number of conferences through much of the remainder of 1910. These talks failed in November over Conservative insistence that there be no limits on the Lords's ability to veto Irish Home Rule.<ref name="dnb"/> When the Parliament Bill was submitted to the Lords, they made amendments that were not acceptable to the government.{{sfn|Spender & Asquith|pp=298–299}}