Nothing has shown so clearly the evils of elective dictatorship as the past few weeks, which had culminated in the Lib–Lab pact. - Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone

To our refusal to accept the French view of German duplicity and to our failure to regard the peace treaties as binding, many of our present troubles are due.

We live under an elective dictatorship, absolute in theory if hitherto thought tolerable in practice. How far it is still tolerable is the question I want to raise.

Experience shows that at this rate of inflation, democracy cannot survive... A middle-class backlash is inevitable. A populist movement. In the end people will not put up with the law being broken and factions of the workers getting away with it with impunity. People will take control into their own hands, or a strong government will use the public forces to seize control. People will get hurt. Quite likely there will be a lot of violence one way or another. But in the end there is a limit to what middle-class people will tolerate.