UK Politics: The Reform Acts

7 Pages 1682 Words

1829 led to an increasing cost of living standard. To make matters worse England’s economy was still in the phase of a recession, many people were losing their jobs, and those that had retained their jobs saw a decrease in wages.
After the reform was passed the voting population doubled from 350,000 in 1831 to 717,000 in 1832. The 1832 Reform Act was a victory for the middle class while the labor class was once again ignored, but for the middle class it was not a complete victory either. The fact is that after 1832 only one in five adult men could vote, though this was better than in the previous years, but it shows a massive population that had no say in public affairs. Those middle class men that did have a vote also had landlords who pressured their tenants to vote a certain way; a tactic that proved to be very effective. Further diluting the middle class vote was the provision in the new reform that required voters to pay at least £10 in rent a year to acquire voting privileges. That p...