History

The liberal government set up reforms as part as self preservation as they feared the new labour government that formed in 1906. The new Labour Party had socialist views and after 1885 and the new peoples representation act it meant the franchise of people voting increased to the majority of the male working class. This meant the lower class had the majority of the vote so the liberals now had to attract the working classes vote in order to stay in power. They created national health insurance which was compulsory to people who earned under £160 a year. The government, the employee and the employer all paid in and it meant that the employee would have unemployment cover and health insurance. If they became sick they could have 10 shillings for 15 weeks. This was not enough for someone to live off if they had a family stopping them from starving but also encouraging them to go back to work. If they became ill they could have 26 weeks off and money to help them pay medical bills. It also meant they were treated and meant they went back to work healthily increasing efficiency in businesses. These reforms where introduced by David Lloyd George who himself had grown up in poverty after his father had died suddenly and realised that people weren't in poverty because they were lazy but because of unfortunate circumstances. He felt it was down to the government to help people get out of poverty, where as the general view by members of the government before had been that if they wanted to get out of poverty they would have to try harder.

Poverty was extremely high in Britain, in 1999 the boar war began and Britain called for men to volunteer for the army however they found that nearly 60% of the population were unfit to fight due to no other reason then poverty as they had malnutrition as they weren't able to feed they're family's.