the party of safeguarding of industry. Edge's supporters too entered the campaign with public declarations of forthcoming victory and Spears’ team seemed less inclined to predict a good result than their candidate. Labour were also confident but wary of making an early public announcement of their prospects. Minto hoped to make headway on the Trade Unions Bill in the Coalville area of the constituency. The town was the main coal mining centre, where nearly a third of the electorate of the constituency lived and Labour stronghold on the local Urban District Council. He attacked the Bill vehemently. Edge tried to steer a middle path on the trades disputes issue, accusing the Labour Party of bringing the law on themselves by their behaviour over the general strike but attacking the Tories for damaging industrial relations and trade and inviting accusations of class animosity. The letters sent by the Labour and Conservative party leaders to their candidates concentrated almost exclusively on the Trade Union Bill. Ramsay MacDonald called it a “disruptive and partisan attack upon the trades unions” and appealed to the electors of Bosworth to reject this “attack upon the workers.” The prime minister Stanley Baldwin called the Bill. “the great issue before the country at the present time.” He said it was a measure against “tyranny and intimidation” and urged those who valued “the maintenance of the democratic institutions of [the] country” to vote for Spears. Campaign strengths When the candidates’ nominations which had been handed into the Returning Officer were made public on 23 May 1927, it was the Liberals who seemed to have the advantage if the numbers of supporting signatures was an accurate reflection of opinion in the contest. The Liberals had submitted 330 nomination sheets, signed by 3,300 electors in the constituency. They claimed that one was signed wholly by former Conservative voters and one signed wholly by trade unionists. They had submitted 75 papers signed by 750 electors from the Coalville electoral districts where the voters were largely miners, which would have been seen as a blow to Labour hopes. Compared to this show of support, Spears put in 66 papers, including some signed by ex-Liberals and Minto submitted 33. In other indications of the way things were going, Lloyd George addressed a crowd estimated at 10,000 strong in Coalville, while Arthur Henderson attracted about one quarter of that number for Labour; and one reporter