The TUC called a general strike on the 3rd May 1926. I believe the most important reason for this was the fact that for the previous two days, miners had been locked out of their mines due to a dispute between them and the mine owners, who wanted to increase their shifts from seven hours to eight hours and reduce their pay by 13%. The TUC believed that if many industries reacted then the government would be forced to take action against the greedy mine owners. People from many industries joined the strike to fight against the money-grabbing mine owners and to try to get the conservative government to take action and prove that they supported the British working classes. This is a social factor as it involved how the British lower and middle classes felt a sense of unity at this time, which was probably related to the war effort during world war two.
I believe that the second most important reason for the general strike would be the attitudes of the British people at this time and the period just before. In the early 1900’s the general consensus amongst the upper classes was that it was the fault of the poor that they were poor, and that they were nobody else’s responsibility. The views of people changed during the Edwardian period, where people began to believe that it was morally wrong that such extreme wealth should exist alongside such extreme poverty, the New Liberal government shared this view and believed that the government should take responsibility for its poor. Although most people agreed with this view, many of the upper classes still agreed with the old views, this is definitely the case where the upper class mine owners think that they are better than the poor miners. This is a very conservative view, which is typical of the Tory government that was in place at this time. This is another social reason for the strike, but also a political reason as many of these