1927 Southwark North by-election

Haden-Guest had represented Southwark North since the 1923 general election but found himself increasingly at odds with official Labour Party policy.

They endorsed his stance against Labour's Chinese policy which they described as 'anti-British' and their candidate, Rear Admiral Humphrey Hugh Smith announced his willingness to stand aside for Haden-Guest at a by-election urging local Conservative supporters to vote for him.

[16] Haden-Guest wished not only to appeal to the electorate on the basis of his opposition to Labour policy and what he and the Conservatives were presenting as the struggle between constitutional government and socialism.

His campaign devoted much time and effort to local issues in addition to the national and Imperial questions which were dominating the fight between Haden-Guest and Isaacs.

The Liberals also tried to knock the shine off Haden-Guest's medical good works by pointing out that his clinic was not personally funded by him, as some Constitutionalist supporters were happy to imply.

He displayed a proprietarial disposition towards the electorate saying that Strauss had "......intrude[d] on what I had hoped was going to be the direct vote of my own people on the unpatriotic attitude of the Labour Party.

However, many Liberal analysts – including David Lloyd George – were cautious, worrying that a combination of three-cornered contests and growing Labour strength in industrial areas would weigh seriously against them under the first-past-the-post electoral system.

[23] The outcome of the 1929 general election saw the fears of the doubters realised however with only a limited increase in Liberal representation in the House of Commons and in Southwark North Strauss was unable to hold off a renewed challenge by Isaacs who took the seat by a majority of 432.