the Lloyd George and Asquithian wings of the party, Guedalla was unable to gain Derbyshire North East and fell to the foot of the poll behind the Conservatives. He tried again in Derbyshire North East at the 1924 general election but again came third behind the Tories in a three-cornered fight. Guedalla next attempted to enter the House of Commons as Liberal candidate for Manchester Rusholme at the 1929 general election. This had been a Liberal seat between 1923 and 1924 having been held by Charles Masterman a former Liberal Cabinet minister. Guedalla maintained second place behind the sitting Tory MP Sir Frank Boyd Merriman but was unable to regain the seat. At the 1931 general election Guedalla moved constituencies again, this time to nearby Manchester Withington. This was a Liberal seat, held between 1923–1924 and 1929-1931 by Ernest Simon. However, in the summer of 1931 an economic crisis led to the formation of a National Government led by prime minister Ramsay MacDonald supported by a small number of National Labour MPs and initially backed by the Conservative and Liberal parties. In many constituencies the main opposition party to Labour simply assumed the mantle of the Coalition government but in Manchester the Conservative and Liberal parties could not work together to agree an electoral pact, even in the unique circumstances of the national emergency. So Guedalla found himself opposed by Edward Fleming for the Conservatives who won the seat comfortably with a majority of 14,718. In 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council. Death Guedalla died in hospital in London on 16 December 1944 at age 55, having contracted an illness during his service in the RAF. Sleuth reference In the play Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer, mystery writer Andrew Wyke says, "Do you agree that the detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds? I'm quoting from Philip Guedalla, a biographer of the thirties, that golden age when every Cabinet Minister had a thriller by his bedside and all detectives were titled." Works Ignes Fatui - A Book of Parodies (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell; London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1911) The Partition of Europe: A Textbook of European History, 1715-1815 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914) Supers and Supermen: Studies in Politics, History and Letters (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1920) The Second Empire: Bonapartism, The Prince, The President, The Emperor (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922) Masters and Men (London: Constable,