Editing Henry Labouchère (section)

==Return to Parliament==
[[Image:Punch - Henry Labouchere.png|1881 ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' cartoon|left|thumb|upright]]
Labouchère returned to Parliament in the [[1880 United Kingdom general election|1880 election]], when he and [[Charles Bradlaugh]], both Liberals, won the two seats for [[Northampton (UK Parliament constituency)|Northampton]]. (Bradlaugh's then-controversial atheism led Labouchère, a closet agnostic, to refer sardonically to himself as "the Christian member for Northampton".)<ref name=odnb/>

In 1884, Labouchère unsuccessfully proposed legislation to extend the existing laws against cruelty to animals.<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1885/aug/06/consideration#S3V0300P0_18850806_HOC_209 "Cruelty to Animals Acts Extension Bill"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211003015237/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1885/aug/06/consideration#S3V0300P0_18850806_HOC_209 |date=3 October 2021 }}, Hansard, 7 February 1884</ref> In 1885, Labouchère, whose libertarian stances did not preclude a fierce [[homophobia]],<ref name=odnb/> drafted the [[Labouchere Amendment|Labouchère Amendment]] as a last-minute addition to a Parliamentary Bill that had nothing to do with homosexuality.{{#tag:ref|The [[Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885|Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 1885]] was introduced to outlaw sex between men and underage girls.<ref>[http://www.swarb.co.uk/acts/1885Criminal_Law_AmendmentAct.shtml Text of the 1885 Act], accessed 7 March 2012</ref>|group= n}} His amendment outlawed "gross indecency"; [[sodomy]] was already a crime, but Labouchère's Amendment now criminalised any sexual activity between men.{{#tag:ref|Labouchère's contemporary [[Frank Harris]] wrote that Labouchère proposed the amendment to make the law seem "ridiculous" and so discredit it in its entirety; some historians agree, citing Labouchère's habitual obstructionism and other attempts to sink this bill by the same means. Others write that Labouchère's role in the [[Cleveland Street scandal]] makes it plain that he was strongly in favour of using the criminal law to control male sexuality, despite his own irregular private life.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Sodom on the Thames: sex, love, and scandal in Wilde times |first=Morris B. |last=Kaplan |url=https://archive.org/details/sodomonthamessex00kapl |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/sodomonthamessex00kapl/page/175 175]|year=2005 |publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=9780801436789 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zLWTqBmifh0C&pg=PA298 |page=298 |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2003 |isbn = 9780415159838|editor-first=Robert |editor-last=Aldrich |editor2-first=Garry |editor2-last=Wotherspoon}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Talk on the Wilde side: toward a genealogy of a discourse on male sexualities |first=Ed |last=Cohen |publisher=Psychology Press |year=1993 |page=92 |isbn=9780415902304 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_CZb6HwCPMcC&pg=PA92}}</ref>|group= n}} Ten years later the Labouchère Amendment allowed for the prosecution of [[Oscar Wilde]], who was given the maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour.<ref name=odnb/> Labouchère expressed regret that Wilde's sentence was so short, and would have preferred the seven-year term he had originally proposed in the Amendment.<ref name=odnb/>

[[Image:Labouchere and Gladstone.png|thumb|upright|1892 cartoon of Labouchère as a hungry tramp; Gladstone eyes him from within the parliamentary bakery.]]
During the 1880s, the Liberal Party faced a split between a Radical wing (led by [[Joseph Chamberlain]]) and a Whig wing (led by the [[Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire|Marquess of Hartington]]), with its party leader, [[William Ewart Gladstone]] straddling the middle. Labouchère was a firm and vocal Radical, who tried to create a governing coalition between the Radicals and the [[Irish Nationalists]] that would exclude or marginalise the Whigs. This plan was wrecked in 1886, when, after Gladstone came out for [[Home Rule]], a large contingent of both Radicals and Whigs chose to leave the Liberal Party to form the [[Liberal Unionist Party]] allied with the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]].<ref name=odnb/>

Between 1886 and 1892, a Conservative government was in power, and Labouchère worked tirelessly to remove them from office. When the government was turned out in 1892, and Gladstone was called to form an administration, Labouchère expected to be rewarded with a cabinet post.<ref name=odnb/> [[Queen Victoria]] refused to allow Gladstone to offer either Labouchère or [[Charles Dilke]] an office, however, as she had a strong personal dislike of them – "she would ''never'' allow such horrid men to enter the Gov<sup>t</sup>".<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Ponsonby |editor1-first=Arthur |title=Henry Ponsonby: His Life From His Letters |date=1943 |page=215 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.211236/page/n257/mode/2up}}</ref> Her dislike of Labouchère stemmed from his editorship of ''Truth'', which she felt had insulted the Royal Family.<ref name=Bogdanor34>Bogdanor, p. 34</ref> According to the historian [[Vernon Bogdanor]], this was the last time a British monarch vetoed a prime minister's appointment of a cabinet minister.<ref name=Bogdanor34/>{{#tag:ref|[[Francis Beckett]] (quoting from the diaries of [[Alan Lascelles|Sir Alan Lascelles]]) claims otherwise, suggesting that [[George VI of the United Kingdom|George VI]] vetoed the appointment of [[Hugh Dalton]] as foreign secretary by [[Clement Attlee]] in 1945.<ref>Beckett, p. 199</ref> [[Roy Jenkins]], however, notes that Attlee ignored the king's advice, which was given on 26 July 1945, and offered the foreign secretaryship to Dalton the following day, later changing his mind after receiving representations from [[Herbert Morrison]] and senior civil servants.<ref>Jenkins, pp. 447–448</ref>|group= n}} However, Gladstone may have been happy to drop Labouchère given his lack of political support.<ref name=Bogdanor34/> Likewise, the new foreign secretary, [[Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery|Lord Rosebery]], a personal enemy of Labouchère, declined to offer him the ambassadorship to Washington for which Labouchère had asked.<ref name=odnb/>

[[Image:South Africa Committee Vanity Fair 1897-11-25.jpg|thumb|"Empire Makers and Breakers": scene at the South Africa Committee 1897. Left to right: [[Richard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone|Richard Webster]], Labouchère, [[Cecil Rhodes]], [[William Harcourt (politician)|William Harcourt]], [[Joseph Chamberlain]]]]
Through the 1890s, Labouchère was a critic of both Liberal and Conservative Imperial policies; he demanded an enquiry into Rhodesian policy in 1893–94, and in 1895 sat on the commission enquiring into the [[Jameson Raid]]. However, his position became gradually alienated from his party and from public opinion, as he strongly opposed the [[South African War]] and argued for peace.<ref name=odnb/> His reputation was also tarnished by a series of financial scandals: in 1897, he was accused in the press of share-rigging, using ''Truth'' to disparage companies, advising shareholders to dispose of their shares and, when the share prices fell as a result, buying them himself at a low price. He failed to reply to the accusations, and his reputation suffered.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/60216993 "The stock-jobbing of Henry Labouchere"], LSE Selected Pamphlets, 1897, accessed 28 May 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref> A later pamphlet by Henry Hess of ''The Critic'', in 1905, revealed further financial misdealings.<ref name=odnb/>