Editing Stanley Baldwin (section)

==Leader of the Opposition (1924)==
Baldwin successfully held on to the party leadership amid some colleagues' calls for his resignation.<ref>Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour'', p. 383.</ref> For the next ten months, an unstable minority Labour government under Prime Minister [[Ramsay MacDonald]] held office. On 13 March 1924, the Labour government was defeated for the first time in the Commons, although the Conservatives decided to vote with Labour later that day against the Liberals.<ref name="Cowling1">Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour'', p. 410.</ref>

During a debate on the naval estimates the Conservatives opposed Labour but supported them on 18 March in a vote on cutting expenditure on the [[Singapore Naval Base]].<ref name="Cowling1"/> Baldwin also cooperated with MacDonald over Irish policy to stop it becoming a party-political issue.<ref>Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour'', p. 411.</ref><ref>Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, ''Baldwin: A Biography'' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), pp. 269–70.</ref>

The Labour government was negotiating with [[History of the Soviet Union#Treaty on the Creation of the USSR|the Soviet government]] over intended commercial treaties – 'the Russian Treaties' – to provide [[most favoured nation]] privileges and diplomatic status for the UK trade delegation; and a treaty that would settle the claims of pre-revolutionary British bondholders and holders of confiscated property, after which the British government would guarantee a loan to the Soviet Union.<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, pp. 271–2.</ref> Baldwin decided to vote against the government over the Russian Treaties, which brought the government down on 8 October.<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, pp. 273–4.</ref>

===1924 re-election===
The [[1924 United Kingdom general election|general election held in October 1924]] brought a landslide majority of 223 for the Conservative party, primarily at the expense of an unpopular [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]]. Baldwin campaigned on the "impracticability" of socialism, the [[Campbell Case]], the [[Zinoviev letter]] (which Baldwin thought was genuine, and the Conservatives leaked to the ''Daily Mail'' at a most damaging time to the Labour campaign; the letter is now widely believed to have been a forgery<ref>''The Hidden Hand'', BBC Parliament, 4 December 2007</ref>) and the Russian Treaties.<ref>Cowling, ''The Impact of Labour'', pp. 408–9.</ref> In a speech during the campaign Baldwin said:

<blockquote>It makes my blood boil to read of the way which Mr. Zinoviev is speaking of the Prime Minister today. Though one time there went up a cry, "Hands off Russia", I think it's time somebody said to Russia, "Hands off England".<ref>Middlemas and Barnes, p. 275.</ref></blockquote>