Was it the Liberals who won the 1906 elections or was it the conservatives who lost it?.
It was the conservatives who lost the 1906 elections as they had a large majority of the electorate supporting their party, and they would have to do something which displeased those supporters of the conservative party for them to take away their support in the party. This is shown by the fact that in 1900 the conservatives held 402 out of the 670 seats, and had 51.1% of the vote. Whereas the Liberals had only 184 out of the 670 seats, but in 1906, only six years later, the roles were completely reversed. The Liberals won 400 seats out of the 670, and had 49% of the vote. Whereas the conservatives had only 157 seats. These figures may seem strange as 402 out of 670 seats are more than 51.1%. This is because in the U.K we do not have proportional representation. They do have this in countries such as Germany. Proportional representation is where the number of votes won all together reflects in the number of seats held in parliament. In Britain we have a process of whomever wins the vote of each constituency win a seat in parliament, therefore not depending on the margin of victory. So if every constituency is a closely contested but is won by the same party, in this case the liberals, the margin of victory will seem a lot greater judging on the number of seats won by that particular party. .
The Boer war revealed many weaknesses in the conservative party. The sheer cost of the war was a sign that they lacked military knowledge. The total cost of the war was £25m when it was supposed to be £10m which showed the lack of organisation and the British people mistrusted the conservatives because of this, as they promised to pay for social reform and other measures in the 1900 mandate, and how were they going to meet these payments if they wasted £15m pounds defeating an inferior army? Also the Boer war showed the lack of military ability as the British took so long to defeat a much weaker nation, and at such a high price.
