Free Breakfast Table (original) (raw)

The Free Breakfast Table was the demand of British working-class Liberalism from the 1860s to the early twentieth century. It entailed abolishing duties on basic foodstuffs as these were indirect taxes and therefore regressive. It was as a result of the abolition of Protectionism. The phrase is said to have been coined by the Radical MP John Bright. There was also a campaigning organisation called the Free Breakfast Table Association. In 1891 the National Liberal Federation convened in Newcastle and adopted the Newcastle Programme, which included a pledge in favour of the Free Breakfast Table.