"A decent and decisive solution to the Greek incident must be sought." After reading the latest news from Germany, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, a Conservative, sighed helplessly at a cabinet meeting, "Otherwise, the mood of the whole Europe will be out of our control, and more importantly, in such a turbulent situation at home, it is really not appropriate to make extraneous branches." ”

Everyone nodded with a heavy heart.

The Conservative-controlled British government was in the midst of a storm, and the Liberal's Lloyd George, the Liberal, who led Great Britain to victory in the war, the Treaty of Versailles, and the establishment of European order, had retired a year earlier, and the main reason for his ouster was the country's economic woes.

After the end of the war, Britain went from a creditor country to a debtor country, and although it succeeded in obtaining a large amount of reparations from Germany, because Germany was also facing an economic crisis, it was obvious that the reparations could not be obtained, and the debt owed to the United States had to be paid off gradually, and cash flow was a big problem.

Originally, the issue of deferring the repayment of US debts could have been discussed, but because Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Clemenceau joined forces to push the Americans back to the other side of the Atlantic in order to maintain the dominant European system, the angry US government refused to even participate in the League of Nations. What's worse is that in the face of the unfavorable economic situation in the United Kingdom, Lloyd George heeded the advice of traditional economists and adopted austerity therapy, trying to cut spending, reduce finances, reduce deficits, restore budget balance and forcibly bring up the pound exchange rate again.

This is obviously a measure that runs counter to the actual situation, Great Britain has faced a series of problems such as under-construction and unemployment of workers after the end of the war, and continued fiscal austerity can only force the economy to fall into a deeper contraction and cause more unemployment, and the operation of forcibly raising the exchange rate of the pound and sticking to the gold standard has been used by international consortiums to carry out speculative arbitrage, and they use various financial channels to raise pounds and exchange them for gold. The Bank of England (the Central Bank of Great Britain), which wanted to maintain the gold standard, struggled to cope, and the British Isles continued to flow gold, while the pound sterling was always circling in various sectors of the financial system.

It is not that the British government has not failed to consider defaulting on its debts to the United States, but if they dare to do so, the credibility of the pound and British government bonds will be immediately discredited, and it is easy to default on a debt, but it is not easy to bury the credibility of a country accumulated over centuries in order to default on debts – no politician dares to do so.

Lloyd George had no choice but to step down and hand over the prime minister to the Conservatives, but although the Conservatives verbally attacked Lloyd George for his incompetence, in reality they adopted similar methods, which were nothing more than a change of faction to carry it out.

In this way, there is only one result: the rich class, especially the elite class who hold financial power, is getting richer and richer, and the deposits and incomes of the middle class are beginning to grow (on the surface, the pound has not depreciated, but asset prices have risen rapidly, and the relative purchasing power has shrunk significantly, just like a large East Asian country in later generations, on the surface, it seems that income continues to grow, the exchange rate is stable, and ordinary living materials can also be coped, but housing prices have risen like rockets, and 10 years ago, a pair of young people in big cities could barely buy a bedroom after working for a year, and it was difficult to even buy a toilet after 10 years, incomes as measured by housing prices continue to fall), and the lower classes are at increasing risk of falling into extreme poverty as unemployment rises.

In the final analysis, Britain has not yet come to terms with the fact that the world's financial center has gradually shifted from London to New York after the end of World War I, and is still struggling in vain rather than pushing the boat along, but countries like Italy have simply used currency depreciation to complete the economic turnaround. It is not that the British ruling class does not see the benefits of currency devaluation, but that they fear that it will create a revolutionary storm. The devaluation of the currency in Italy triggered the fascist rise to power, and the devaluation of the German currency led to the National Socialist Party riots, and if Great Britain dared to promote a competitive currency devaluation, there would be a revolution and a guillotine waiting for the decision-makers, so they did not dare to choose.

This kind of tinkering and confusing policy made Lloyd George and the Liberal Party step down, and even the momentum that could have competed with the Conservative Party has been reduced a lot, after Lloyd George stepped down, Andrew Bernal Law and Baldwin successively became Prime Minister of the Cabinet as the Conservative Party, but the support rate of the Conservative Party is also very low, Law stepped down after half a year as Prime Minister, Baldwin, the Prime Minister, may also fall soon, according to the schedule, due to the House of Commons passed a vote of no confidence in the Cabinet, although the House of Lords rejected it, But Baldwin decided that the situation was unsustainable and decided to hold another general election next month, with many people boldly predicting that the next prime minister would be a Labour party for the first time, but it was not known when that day would come.

The decline of the Liberal Party and the languish of the Conservative Party are in stark contrast to the rise of the British Labour Party. The Labour Party not only unequivocally proposed to "abolish private ownership", but also stated that it would adjust the structure of fiscal expenditures and "transfer useless and extravagant military spending to the people's livelihood", the most obvious of which was the cutting of the fleet, which believed that after the sinking of the German Grand Fleet, Great Britain had no maritime threat in Europe, and that there was no need to maintain such a large and very obsolete fleet.

On the Greek issue, the Labour Party repeatedly stressed that the Labour Party was not interested in engaging in such a war - a regional war triggered purely by the support of certain countries to carry out terrorism, which was welcomed by the war-weary public, who were really unwilling to donate taxes and blood and sweat for the war. Many Britons did not even know where Greece was, and when they heard that Greece had assassinated an Italian lieutenant general, they did not think that Great Britain should fight for it, either on the basis of their own interests or a "simple" sense of justice, and even that Britain should uphold justice and help Italy.

"Kill these Mediterranean barbarians!"

"Italians and Greeks love to fight as long as they want!"

This voice is so strong that it also adds points to the aggressive posture of the Labour Party, although in the eyes of the Conservative government, Greece is a much more important ally than Italy, but if this ally wants to pull Britain to fight, it is not a good ally, Mussolini's tough statement, Italy's attitude and the trend of public opinion in Britain forced the veteran politician Baldwin to make a quick decision: not to support Greece's war behavior, and strive to solve the problem within the framework of the League of Nations as soon as possible, if an agreement can be reached before the general election, There may be hope of reversing the decadence of the election.