What are the origins of the names of the main political parties?
The Conservative and Unionist Party dates back to the Tory Party of the late eighteenth century. This broadly represented the interests of the country gentry, merchant classes and official ad-ministerial groups. After Britain’s 1832 (electoral) Reform Act, members of the old Tory Party began forming ‘conservative associations’. The name Conservative was first used as a description of the Party in the Quarterly Review of January 1830, because the Party aimed to conserve traditional values and practices. The Conservative Party today is the leading right-wing party. The term ‘Tory’ is still used today to refer to somebody with conservative political views. The original title of the Labour Party, the Labour Representation Committee, makes the origins of the party clear – to promote the interests of the industrial working class. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress co-operated with the Independent Labour Party (founded 1893) to establish The Labour Representation Committee with Ramsay MacDonal
