Oliver Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

After the war Baldwin served briefly as British Vice-Consul in Boulogne, and then travelled in north Africa. He refused to be supported by his father, and earned a living as a journalist and travel writer. A chance meeting in Alexandria led to an appointment as an infantry instructor in the newly independent Armenia, but soon after he took up the post in 1920 the democratic government collapsed and Baldwin was imprisoned by Bolshevik-backed revolutionaries. He was freed two months later when democracy was restored, but en route back to Britain he was arrested by the Turkish authorities, accused of spying for Soviet Russia.[15] He was held for five months, in grim conditions, with execution a constant threat.[16] He later wrote a book about his experiences, called Six Prisons and Two Revolutions.[12] After his release Baldwin returned to Britain.

Baldwin's father, Stanley in the 1920s

In 1923, around this time, the leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister Bonar Law retired due to ill health. Baldwin's father, Stanley, already Chancellor of the Exchequer, became prime minister in Law's place. The younger Baldwin by now considered himself a committed socialist, and shortly after his father's elevation, he publicly declared his political beliefs, and broke off contact with his parents, much to their distress.[17] At the 1924 general election Baldwin contested the seat of Dudley for the Labour Party, attracting press comment. He was unsuccessful; but Baldwin Snr, who had been out of power since the 1923 general election, returned to power for a second term as prime minister.[12] Shortly afterwards, the breach between parents and son was patched up. Father and son remained on the warmest personal terms, assisted by agreement to avoid political discussions, and in politics Baldwin refrained from personally attacking his father.[18][6]

At the 1929 election Baldwin won Dudley, and served as a backbench supporter of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government. His father had lost the election, but remained an MP, and became Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons; unusually, father and son now sat facing each other across the House of Commons. Baldwin Snr initially found it difficult to bear, telling one of his daughters that he ‘nearly died’ when he first saw Oliver sitting on the opposite benches to himself in the House of Commons, but matters were smoothed over by a letter Baldwin wrote to console his father: "Wherever I have gone on my political rounds during the past six years I have never heard any of our supporters speak other than in a kindly way of your personal self… To you, who have generally been victorious, the results may disappoint you, but take it from one who, until the other day, has always been on the losing side, always in the minority and generally alone, that victory or defeat are both flatterers and as such are of no serious consequence."[17][19]

Like other young left-wing Labour MPs, Baldwin was critical of MacDonald's insistence on strict financial management and refusal to launch large Keynesian public works programmes.[20] Early in 1931 Baldwin resigned from the Labour Party and was briefly associated with Oswald Mosley's New Party, but soon repudiated Mosley and rejoined Labour.[20] When MacDonald formed the National Government, Stanley Baldwin and the Conservatives joined it; most Labour members, including Oliver Baldwin, did not. The 1931 general election resulted in a landslide win for the National Government and a disaster for Labour. Baldwin was among the casualties, defeated by a Conservative candidate, Sir Park Goff, who won by 19,991 votes to Baldwin's 10,837 at Chatham.[21] Baldwin returned to journalism. In Walker's view, he was better known as a journalist than as a politician, writing anti-fascist articles in the usually pro-appeasement Rothermere press during the 1930s.[6] He also wrote what the reviewer Andrew Lycett calls "a curious novel called The Coming of Aissa, which emphasised the socialistic leanings of Jesus within an agnostic, Asian, neoplatonic context."[6]

Baldwin fought Paisley at the 1935 election, failing to be elected by 389 votes behind the Liberal candidate.[22] In 1937 Stanley Baldwin retired from politics and was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. As a result, Oliver Baldwin acquired the courtesy title Viscount Corvedale, which did not entail membership of the House of Lords. In 1939 he rejoined the army, becoming a major in the Intelligence Corps and serving in the Near East and north Africa.[23][12]

At the 1945 general election, when Labour returned to power under Clement Attlee, Corvedale was elected for Paisley with a majority of 10,330.[24] The Attlee government lacked representation in the House of Lords, which was dominated by Conservative peers. In 1947 Corvedale accepted the prime minister's offer of a peerage, but before he could take his seat his father died and Corvedale was automatically elevated as the second Earl Baldwin. Lycett comments that had it not been for the first earl's death Baldwin father and son would, uniquely, have sat opposite each other in both houses of parliament.[6]

In February 1948 Baldwin was appointed Governor and Commander in Chief of the Leeward Islands, a British colonial territory in the Caribbean, arriving there a month later.[25]

His male life partner, Boyle, accompanied him, to the disapproval of some of the British establishment in Antigua. There were rumours of "strange and unnatural happenings at Government House" that were reinforced by complaints from naval captains whose crews had been commandeered by the governor for nude bathing sessions.[26]

Partly for this reason, and partly because Baldwin made no secret of his continuing socialist views or his desire for multiracial inclusiveness, he was recalled in 1950.[6]