Mum - who WERE the Whigs and the Tories? What were the Corn Laws?

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Ds is a great consumer of the Horrible History franchise, but he is starting to need something with a bit more depth.

What is there that does this? Maybe Home-Edders know of things?

(Ds is 9, but is fine with stuff written for up to about GCSE.)

The corn laws were laws (surprise there eh? ) that set a levy on imported corn that kept British corn prices artificialy high. They were set in place to maintain income for farmers, but the down side was that they kept the price of corn artificially high.

And there was a knock on effect on the price of bread which affected the poor.

The anti corn law movement was one that a number of weathly individuals suppored, including the man who started Carrs bisciuit factory (he was a quaker).

the corn laws were eventually repealled

Have a look at this History website and links from it.

BBC History

Thank you! - hadn't thought of good old BBC!
MB - I had a go on the Corn Laws - I'd forgotten that it was specifically protectionism, but I did give ds an earful about retrogressive taxation & the Irish famines.

You in particular probably know of ds's other great passion, the Usborne illustrated science dictionaries (chemistry, maths, physics, biology) - there doesn't seem to be a history one, perhaps because the topic doesn't lend itself. Though there is an actual (non-dictionary-format) Usborne history of Britain ...