text: In the British Cabinet Londonderry was to involve himself in the General Strike of 1926, playing the role of a moderate mine owner, a stance made easier for him by the relative success of the Londonderry mines in County Durham. His performance earned him high praise, and along with the Londonderrys' role as leading political hosts, he was rewarded by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin with a seat in the Cabinet in 1928 as First Commissioner of Works. Londonderry was invited to join the emergency National Government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and Lord President Baldwin in 1931. That was the cause of some scandal as MacDonald's many critics accused the erstwhile Labour leader of being too friendly with Edith, Lady Londonderry.
  When the National Government won the 1931 General Election he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Air (Londonderry held a pilot's licence).  This position became increasingly important during his tenure, not least due to the deliberations of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference at Geneva. In September 1931, Japan seized the Manchuria region of China, setting up the sham state of Manchukuo while making claims to the effect that the rest of China was in the exclusive Japanese sphere of influence, an interpretation that the Chinese government vehemently objected to. In January 1932, the First Battle of Shanghai began which saw the Japanese bomb much of Shanghai into rubble. The scenes of Shanghai in flames together with the increasingly assertive Japanese claims about China and the Far East in general as within its sphere of influence convinced Londonderry that Britain needed a strong Royal Air Force as the best way to deter Japan from attacking the British empire and to ensure that Britain was prepared for war should Anglo-Japanese relations take a turn for the worse.