History of the Labour Party (UK)

This article is about the history of the British Labour Party. For information about the wider history of British socialism, see History of socialism in Great Britain.

A graph showing the percentage of the popular vote received by major parties in general elections, 1832-2005. The rapid rise of the Labour Party after its founding during the Victorian era is clear, and the party is now considered as one of the dominant forces in British politics

The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century, and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. It has had several spells in government, first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–31, then as a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940–1945, and then as a majority government, under Clement Attlee in 1945–51 and under Harold Wilson in 1964–70. Labour was in government again in 1974–79, under Wilson and then James Callaghan, though with a precarious and declining majority.

The previous national Labour government won a landslide 179 seat majority in the 1997 general election under the leadership of Tony Blair, its first general election victory since October 1974 and the first general election since 1970 in which it had exceeded 40% of the popular vote. The party's large majority in the House of Commons was slightly reduced to 167 in the 2001 general election and more substantially reduced to 66 in 2005.

Founding of the party

Background

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The Independent Labour Party, founded in 1893

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century numeric increase of the urban proletariat and the extension of the franchise to working-class males, when it became apparent that there was a need for a political party to represent the interests and needs of those groups. Some members of the trade union movement became interested in moving into the political field, and after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

It was during this period that British socialism began to make headway in local government. In 1889, a "Progressive" party composed of Fabians and British Liberals took control of London County Council at the first elections held there. This was the first council to have substantial socialist influence, and carried out a programme of municipalisation, while constructing some of the first social housing in England and increasing public spending on services such as the Fire Brigade. In addition, the number of parks and public baths were increased, London’s sewage system was improved, roads were widened and paved, and the Blackwall Tunnel, linking the Isle of Dogs with Greenwich, was opened in 1897.

The Women’s Labour League, which was active in the field of social policy, set up a child welfare clinic in Kensington before the outbreak of World War I.

In 1892, Fred Jowett a member of the Independent Labour Party) became the first socialist to be elected to Bradford City Council. A few months later, Jowett founded a branch of the Independent Labour Party in that city. As a member of Bradford City Council, Jowett was responsible for the passage of several important reforms that were eventually imitated by other local authorities. In 1904, for instance, Bradford became the first local authority in Britain to provide free school meals, while a successful campaign led to the clearing of a slum area and its replacement with new houses. Jowett was also a supporter of reforming the 1834 Poor Law, and attempted to improve the quality of the food given to the children in the Bradford Workhouse after being elected as a Poor Law Guardian.

In 1898, West Ham borough became the first ever Labour council. The new administration embarked on a programme involving the enlargement of the municipal workforce and bringing it directly under public control in order to improve job security, conditions, and pay for workers. A minimum wage and an eight-hour workday were introduced for council employees, together with a fortnight’s annual holiday. Although Labour lost its majority two years later, its achievements in the council demonstrated Labour’s effectiveness at instigating reform at a municipal level.

In the 1895 General Election the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie, the leader of the party believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups.

Labour Representation Committee

Keir Hardie, one of the Labour Party's founders and its first leader

In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, and the proposed conference was held at the Congregational Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations — trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates.

After a debate, the 129 delegates passed Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population. It had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively; total expenses for the election only came to £33. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful; Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.

Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union being ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgment effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative Government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests (traditionally the allies of the Liberal Party in opposition to the Conservative's landed interests) intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems.

Labour Party Plaque from Caroone House, 8 Farringdon Street

In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by a secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.

In their first meeting after the election the group's Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name "The Labour Party" formally (15 February 1906). Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have individual membership until 1918 but operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, while Labour parliamentarians encouraged and supported progressive measures such as the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906, the Mines Act 1908, the Old Age Pensions Act 1908, and compulsory medical inspections in state schools. In 1906, the Labour Party scored its first ever legislative success in the new Parliament with the passage of a bill put forward by the Labour MP Fred Jowett in the form of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906.

Early years and the rise of the Labour Party

The 1910 election saw 42 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons, a significant victory since, a year before the election, the House of Lords had passed the Osborne judgment ruling that Trades Unions in the United Kingdom could no longer donate money to fund the election campaigns and wages of Labour MPs. The governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation. The height of Liberal compromise was to introduce a wage for Members of Parliament to remove the need to involve the Trade Unions. By 1913, faced with the opposition of the largest Trades Unions, the Liberal government passed the Trade Disputes Act to allow Trade Unions to fund Labour MPs once more.

By 1914, there were about 420 labour representatives sitting on municipal Councils of various kinds, not including a few County councilors in the mining areas, or a much larger number on Boards of Guardians, Parish Councils, and District Councils. Aside from education, and the feeding and medical inspection and treatment of schoolchildren, the issues which the Labour Party pressed most urgently in local government were the local provision of work for the unemployed, the eight-hour workday, the adoption and enforcement of the fair Wages Clause in public contracts, and fair wages and conditions for local authority employees. In some areas (particularly Birmingham And Glasgow) there was active pressure in support of municipal housing and slum clearance schemes, while there was also continued agitation (in relation to the Board of guardians) for improved treatment both of the unemployed and other classes of paupers, particularly the disabled and the aged. House-building, midway between a public health service and a trading enterprise, became one of the main planks in the Labour municipal platform.

During the First World War, the Labour Party split between supporters and opponents of the conflict but opposition to the war grew within the party as time went on. Ramsay MacDonald, a notable anti-war campaigner, resigned as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Arthur Henderson became the main figure of authority within the party.

In 1915, the Labour Party experienced ministerial office for the first time when leading members of the party were invited to join Herbert Asquith’s wartime government. The rationale behind this was that the government needed the co-operation of the trade union movement, and felt that one way of achieving was to provide Labour with ministerial positions. From that time onwards, the Labour Party remained a part of the wartime coalition until the end of hostilities in November 1918. The secretary of the Labour Party, Arthur Henderson, was accepted into Prime Minister Asquith's war cabinet (becoming the first Labour Party member to serve in government) as both President of the Board of Education and as unofficial adviser on labour issues, while minor positions were given to G.H. Roberts (a printer, who became a government whip) and William Bruce (a miner, who acquired an under-secretaryship). In December 1916, when the wartime coalition was reconstructed by David Lloyd George (Asquith’s successor as prime minister), Henderson was promoted to the inner war cabinet, while George Barnes of the engineers became Minister of Pensions and John Hodge of the steel workers became Minister of Labour. William Bruce, G.H. Roberts, and James Parker (another Labour MP) were offered minor posts.

Despite mainstream Labour Party's support for the coalition, the Independent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing conscription through organisations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship while a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party, organised a number of unofficial strikes. Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amid calls for party unity to be replaced by George Barnes.

During the course of the First World War, while serving both inside and outside of government, the Labour Party was able to influence a number of progressive developments in social policy. At a time when 90% of housing was privately rented, landlords sought to increase rents in the face of rising wartime prices (and in some cases as a means of profiteering). This resulted in a range of largely spontaneous protests in 1915 which were then often co-ordinated by local Labour movements, such as that in Glasgow, where the ILP played a leading role. This forced the government to pass legislation which fixed wartime rents at pre-war levels. This was significant in that it showed labour to be the party that would defend working-class interests in housing, more than its rivals, while also helping Labour to move away from trade union related issues towards areas which some direct appeal to women, in particular. In addition, as argued by Andrew Thorpe, it also “added credibility to the idea of state action to control market forces which disadvantaged the working class.”

The Labour Party also campaigned for “fair shares,” attacking profiteering and unrestricted market forces, and secured some advances by applying pressure on the government. The Labour Party pushed hard for high taxation of war profits, rationing, and other controls, and in 1917, price controls were introduced which stabilised food prices, while rationing, which came into operation at the beginning of 1918, ensured degree of “fair play.” An excess profits duty was also introduced in 1915 which stood at 80% by 1917, and Labour’s credentials were further established by the WEC’s “Conscription of Riches” campaign, launched in 1916.

Since ‘fair play’ was one of the great traditions of British radicalism, it was clearly to Labour’s advantage to push in this direction, and the fact that such policies could be implemented greatly enhanced labour’s general credibility.

— Andrew Thorpe, A History of The British Labour Party

The wartime experience of the Labour ministers made them feel more confident of their party’s ability to use the machinery of state to bring about social change, and encouraged them to resist policies "direct action" urged by local Soviets and the fledgling Communist Party of Great Britain.

The growth in Labour's local activist base and organisation was reflected in the elections following the war, the co-operative movement now providing its own resources to the Co-operative Party after the armistice. The Co-operative Party later reached an electoral agreement with the Labour Party. The Communist Party of Great Britain was refused affiliation between 1921 and 1923. Meanwhile the Liberal Party declined rapidly and the party suffered a catastrophic split that allowed the Labour Party to co-opt much of the Liberals' support.

With the Liberals in disarray Labour won 142 seats in 1922, making it the second largest political group in the House of Commons and the official opposition to the Conservative government. After the election the now-rehabilitated Ramsay MacDonald was voted the first official leader of the Labour Party.

First Labour governments under Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister, 1924, 1929–35 (National from 1931-35)

The first Labour government (1924)

Main article: First Labour Government (UK)

The 1923 general election was fought on the Conservatives' protectionist proposals; although they got the most votes and remained the largest party, they lost their majority in parliament, requiring a government supporting free trade to be formed. So with the acquiescence of Asquith's Liberals, Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister in January 1924 and formed the first ever Labour government, despite Labour only having 191 MPs (less than a third of the House of Commons).

Because the government had to rely on the support of the Liberals, it was unable to get any arguably socialist legislation passed by the House of Commons. The most significant measure was the Wheatley Housing Act which began a building programme of 500,000 homes for rent to working-class families.

The government collapsed after only nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry into the Campbell Case, a vote which MacDonald had declared to be a vote of confidence. The ensuing general election saw the publication, four days before polling day, of the notorious Zinoviev letter, which implicated Labour in a plot for a Communist revolution in Britain, and the Conservatives were returned to power, although Labour increased its vote from 30.7% of the popular vote to a third of the popular vote - most of the Conservative gains were at the expense of the Liberals. The Zinoviev letter is now generally believed to have been a forgery.

The General Strike (1926)

The new Conservative government led by Stanley Baldwin faced a number of labour problems most notably the General Strike of 1926. Ramsay MacDonald continued with his policy of opposing strike action, including the General Strike, arguing that the best way to achieve social reforms was through the ballot box, although Labour claimed that the BBC was biased in its reporting against the party over the issue.

Second Labour government (1929-1931)

The election of May 1929 left the Labour Party for the first time as the largest grouping in the House of Commons with 287 seats, and 37.1% of the popular vote (actually slightly less than the Conservatives). However, MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government. MacDonald's government included the first ever woman cabinet minister Margaret Bondfield who was appointed Minister of Labour.

MacDonald's second government was in a stronger parliamentary position than his first, and in 1930 he was able to pass a revised Old Age Pensions Act, a more generous Unemployment Insurance Act, and an act to improve wages and conditions in the coal industry (i.e. the issues behind the General Strike).

Great Depression and the split under MacDonald

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and eventual Great Depression occurred soon after the government came to power, and the crisis hit Britain hard. By the end of 1930 the unemployment rate had doubled to over two and a half million.

The Labour government struggled to cope with the crisis and found itself attempting to reconcile two contradictory aims; achieving a balanced budget in order to maintain the pound on the Gold Standard, whilst also trying to maintain assistance to the poor and unemployed. All of this whilst tax revenues were falling. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden refused to permit deficit spending.

One junior minister, Oswald Mosley, put forward a memorandum in January 1930, calling for the public control of imports and banking as well as an increase in pensions to boost spending power. When this was repeatedly turned down, Mosley resigned from the government in February 1931 and went on to form the New Party, and later the British Union of Fascists after he converted to Fascism.

By 1931 the situation had deteriorated further. Under pressure from its Liberal allies as well as the Conservative opposition who feared that the budget was unbalanced, the Labour government appointed a committee headed by Sir George May to review the state of public finances. The May Report of July 1931 urged public-sector wage cuts and large cuts in public spending (notably in payments to the unemployed) in order to avoid a budget deficit.

This proposal proved deeply unpopular within the Labour Party grass roots and the trade unions, which along with several government ministers, refused to support any such measures. Several senior ministers such as Arthur Henderson and J. R. Clynes threatened to resign rather than agree to the cuts. MacDonald, and Philip Snowden however, insisted that the Report's recommendations must be adopted to avoid incurring a budget deficit.

The dispute over spending and wage cuts split the Labour government; as it turned out, fatally. The cabinet repeatedly failed to agree to make cuts to spending or introduce tariffs. The resulting political deadlock caused investors to take fright, and a flight of capital and gold further de-stabilised the economy. In response, MacDonald, on the urging of King George V, agreed to form a National Government, with the Conservatives and the Liberals.

On August 24, 1931 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues, most notably Snowden and Dominions Secretary J. H. Thomas, in forming the National Government with the other parties. MacDonald and his supporters were then expelled from the Labour Party and formed National Labour. The remaining Labour Party, now led by Arthur Henderson, and a few Liberals went into opposition.

Soon after this, a General Election was called. The 1931 election resulted in a landslide victory for the National Government, and was a disaster for the Labour Party which won only 52 seats, 225 fewer than in 1929.

MacDonald continued as Prime Minister of the Conservative dominated National Government until 1935. MacDonald's actions in ditching the Labour government to form a coalition with the Conservatives, led to him being denounced by the Labour Party as a "traitor" and a "rat" for what they saw as his betrayal.

Opposition during the time of the National Government

Arthur Henderson, who had been elected in 1931 as Labour leader to succeed MacDonald, lost his seat in the 1931 General Election. The only former Labour cabinet member who survived the landslide was the pacifist George Lansbury, who accordingly became party leader.

The party experienced a further split in 1932 when the Independent Labour Party, which for some years had been increasingly at odds with the Labour leadership, opted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. The ILP embarked on a long drawn out decline. The role of the ILP within the Labour Party was taken up for a time by the Socialist League led by Stafford Cripps, until it was wound up in 1937.

The Labour Party moved to the left during the early 1930s. The party's programme "For Socialism and Peace" adopted in 1934, committed the party to nationalisation of land, banking, coal, iron and steel, transport, power and water supply, as well as the setting up of a National Investment Board to plan industrial development.

Public disagreements between Lansbury and many Labour Party members over foreign policy, notably in relation to Lansbury's opposition to applying sanctions against Italy for its aggression against Abyssinia, caused Lansbury to resign during the 1935 Labour Party Conference. He was succeeded by his deputy Clement Attlee, who achieved a revival in Labour's fortunes in the 1935 General Election, winning a similar number of votes to those attained in 1929 and actually, at 38% of the popular vote, the highest percentage that Labour had ever achieved, securing 154 seats. Attlee was initially regarded as a caretaker leader, however he turned out to be the longest serving party leader to date, and one of its most successful.

With the rising threat from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Labour Party gradually abandoned its earlier pacifist stance, and came out in favour of rearmament. This shift largely came about due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton who by 1937 also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.

Labour achieved a number of by-election upsets in the later part of the 1930s despite the world depression having come to an end and unemployment falling.

Local Labour reforms in the inter-war period

The original "Liberty" logo, in use until 1983

Although Labour remained out of office for most of the inter-war period, it was able to control of many local authorities and put its socialist principles into practice on a small scale.

The Labour-controlled local authorities, and also those in which Labour was the strongest single party, had in practice to concentrate mainly on making the most of the opportunities offered to them by national legislation – especially in the fields of housing, education, public health services, and, after 1929, the services transferred to them from the Boards of Guardians. In all these fields, Labour had a notably good local government record.

— G.D.H Cole, A History of the Labour Party from 1914

During the interwar period, Labour in local government sought to use the power of municipal authority to improve the working and living environments of its primarily working-class constituents. The functions of local government provided Labour Party members with experience in office, and provided them with the opportunity to improve the living standards of its constituents through measures such as improvements in housing and health care, the provision of maternity clinics, and free milk and meals for schoolchildren. Following the end of World War I, Labour councillors returned in 1919 adopted a policy of municipal socialism (particularly in boroughs of London to tackle social problems such as poor health, inadequate housing, and general insecurity. Labour in local government sought to establish a "proto-welfare state" through, for instance, the elected Boards of Guardians, paying more generous levels of poor relief to the jobless and encouraging the construction of clinics, houses, and municipal baths which, apart from providing necessary services, also provided employment opportunities. Also, although Labour groups often remained in the minority on their respective councils, they and their supporters mounted campaigns to safeguard and extend people’s standard of living. For example, minority Labour groups could block council initiatives that they saw as going against the interests of their constituents.

During the Twenties, Labour councillors forced the pace in local administration, whether in councils or (until their abolition in 1929) on boards of guardians. As noted by John Wheatley, “One of the brightest results of the growth of the Labour movement is that the control of the poor has been passed on into the hands of popular boards of guardians.” In general, Labour councillors showed more willingness than others in pressing their legal powers to the limit and less concerned about the cost to the rates, and before the end of the Thirties, 60 local authorities were under the control of the Labour Party.

During the Great Depression, Labour councils made great efforts to protect unemployed people from the worst effects of the slump, and sought to ensure that the public assistance system for the needy was made as generous as possible. In Durham and Glamorgan, the Labour administrations there paid more than the minimum, while operating the means test more humanely than they were supposed to. In Hackney, the London Labour Party secretary Herbert Morrison resorted to charitable methods to counteract the effects of unemployment. In Nelson, the Labour council of the Thirties invested in essential servicse like education and child welfare. In Glasgow, Patrick Dollan’s Glasgow corporation carried out a slum-clearance programme that resulted in the construction of some 200,000 homes between 1934 and 1939. In Barnsley, the school-leaving age was raised by six months in order to promote education and keep some 500 teenagers off the unemployment figure. In addition, priority was given to housing construction and slum clearances.

Labour authorities also sought to humanise the services provided by local authorities, together with enabling reducing the harshness of the way in which welfare services operated and enabling working-class people to enjoy the benefits of open space and culture. In Norwich, Labour ensured that school architecture was made bright and modern, while the Labour administration in Glasgow put an end to a controversial system in which elderly couples claiming poor relief could be split up into separate hostel units. In many Labour authorities such as Norwich and West Ham, assistance was given to poor mothers as well as the disabled.

Labour representatives on the Boards of Guardians in the Twenties and on the Public Assistance Committees of the early Thirties sought to offset the effects of unemployment and poverty as best as they could within existing structures. This often led to interventionist measures such as the provision of free school meals or ensuring that benefit claimants received the relief that was owed to them. Labour councils sought to administer the means test in the most favourable terms possible, which involved accepting a higher percentage of applications for transitional benefit than in non-Labour localities and providing the maximum rate of relief available. In Poplar, Bethnal Green, and Stepney, for instance, Labour took positive steps on behalf of its working-class supporters, providing protection, jobs, and relief at a time of economic uncertainty.

Female Labour members played an active role in the policy-making of local labour councils, and the extension of accepted (or expected) municipal responsibility brought politics into areas to which women were the acknowledged experts. As recalled by Hannah Mitchell, when she sat on relief committees she "knew just how much food could be bought out of the allowance, knew the cost of children’s clothes and footwear, could tell at a glance if an applicant was in ill health." Through first-hand knowledge of such issues, women contributed to the implementation of reforms which benefited their constituents, such as the building of wash houses, maternity centres, health clinics, playgrounds, and parks. These reforms not only extended Labour’s appeal, but also provided women with "a distinctive place within Labour and municipal politics."

The Labour Party also enjoyed a strong following in Wales, where in the 1935 general election it won 8 out of 35 seats. In regards to social legislation (including health, housing, and education), the Labour-controlled authorities were both progressive in outlook and generous in spending. This meant that, despite extreme poverty, South Wales (where Labour was strong), had better outcomes in health, housing, and education than other parts of Wales, and this despite the poverty of the councils themselves. For instance, Glamorgan, Carmarthenshire, parts of Monmouthshire and Wrexham provided free school meals, while provision of this kind was exceptional in most of North Wales. A move towards expanding secondary school places to be filled on merit was also far more evident in authorities controlled by the Labour Party. In the most industrialised parts of Wales, Labour-dominated councils successfully tried not only to increase the number of secondary-school places (even during the years of the Great depression), but also worked towards providing these places free, and therefore on merit, instead of on ability to pay. By 1932, over 60% of places were free, a far higher figure than in England. In Rhondda, the dominant Labour council introduced progressive measures such as free milk for children from poor households which helped to counteract some of the worst effects of the Great Depression, while in Swansea, a government grant was obtained to finance a number of civic building projects, the means test was exercised relatively humanely, and a nursery school was opened.

The biggest breakthrough for Labour in local government came in 1934, with the capture of the most powerful local authority in Britain, the LCC. Under the leadership of Herbert Morrison, the Labour-run LCC implemented a wide range of progressive social democratic reforms which transformed London into a model of responsible and progressive local Labour government. A year after taking office, Morrison took steps to raised the rates of London householders to 31% (seven shillings in the pound), and had run through what was termed a "nest egg" of £2,000,000 he had found upon taking office, salted away in London County Council’s treasury by Conservatives. This money was used in treating London’s poor more humanely, providing more homes for the aged poor, more free education, and modernising hospitals, improving their dietary and increasing their numbers of staff.

As leader of the LCC, Morrison presided over the development of London's housing, health, education and transport services, together with the unification of the transport system and creating a 'green belt' around London's suburbs. In addition, new schools were constructed, measures to combat corruption and inefficiency were carried out, a major programme of slum clearance and council house construction was carried out, and a municipal health service was set up, which became a model for the NHS. Led by Morrison and his presidium of Charles Latham, Isaac Hayward, and Lewis Silkin, the LCC provided to be a successful local Labour administration. An offensive was carried out against London’s slums, with new homes built, repairs carried out, and rents reduced for those moving to new municipal accommodation from slum areas. Spending on welfare services, education, and health care was increased from 1934 onwards, with more staff employed in hospitals and enjoying better pay and conditions. More free places in secondary education were offered, improvements were made in patient care, new schools were constructed, and more amenities were provided, with the initiation of more milk, playing fields, and health visits. The LCC also made efforts to ensure that reforms were carried out to reduce the harshness of public assistance. Morrison’s plans for a "green belt" surrounding London also came to fruition, which provided the relevant local authorities with funds to purchase and maintain land.

One Labour council that acquired great notoriety during the inter-war period was that of Poplar. Dedicated to improving the lives of poor working-class people, the Labour Poor Law Guardians paid generous scales of relief to the poor that led them to fall into debt. The Labour Guardians refused to hand over payments to London County Council that they were supposed to make, and were imprisoned in 1921.

The Poplar Guardians justified the generous scales of relief they paid out, together with their abandonment of principles of less eligibility in terms of a politics of redistribution of the financial burden of unemployment, stating that

If society cannot organize its economic affairs so as to provide work for all its able-bodied members, then society as a whole should provide them with adequate maintenance from national funds, obtained under existing conditions by increased taxation upon the large and superfluous incomes of those whose social position is maintained only as a result of ‘preying on the poor

— Metropolis, London: histories and representations since 1800 by David Feldman

The actions of the Labour Guardians were arguably justified on the grounds that Poplar carried a heavier burden than many other boroughs in carrying the costs of poor relief. In 1921, for instance, Poplar had a rateable value of £4m and 86,500 unemployed persons to support, while other, richer councils could call on a rateable value of £15 to support only 4,800 unemployed. George Lansbury, the new mayor of Poplar, proposed that the Council stop collecting the rates for outside, cross-London bodies. This was agreed and on 31st March 1921, Poplar Council set a rate of 4s 4d instead of 6s 10d.

Despite their imprisonment, the Labour Guardians refused to give way, and were released six weeks after their imprisoned. In addition,the actions of the Poplar councillors in demanding that the burden of the rates be shared more equitably between poorer and richer boroughs led to the passage of legislation which provided for the greater equality between boroughs that they had demanded. Poplar no longer had to carry an unduly heavy burden as all London areas now shared the costs of poor relief in the future. Poplar continued to provide relatively generous scales of relief, paying £2 19s 6d to a family of seven instead of the agreed London rate of London rate of £2 14s.

Labour councils not only brought relief to the poorest sections of the community, they provided opportunities for employment and, through the funding of education and library facilities, self-improvement.

 – Labour Inside the Gate: A History of the British Labour Party between the Wars by Matthew Worsley

Labour councils also endeavoured to present themselves as model employers. By the Thirties, for instance, most Labour councils had set up municipal works departments, carrying out repair work and construction without having to use a private contractor. Labour council employees also tended to be paid at (or above) trade union wage rates and were subject to union-recognised conditions. In Poplar, the Labour council that was elected in 1919 immediately agreed to, and increased, a minimum wage for all employees. Labour councils sought to employ direct labour to embark on their municipal building schemes, such as in Wigan, where people who were employed to build the town’s municipal houses were subject to trade union pay, conditions, and holidays.

Wartime coalition (1940–1945)

The party returned to government in 1940 as part of the wartime coalition. When Neville Chamberlain resigned in the spring of 1940, incoming-Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to bring the other main parties into a coalition similar to that of the First World War. Clement Attlee was appointed Lord Privy Seal and a member of the war cabinet, eventually becoming the United Kingdom's first Deputy Prime Minister.

A number of other senior Labour figures also took up senior positions; the trade union leader Ernest Bevin, as Minister of Labour and National Service, directed Britain's wartime economy and allocation of manpower, the veteran Labour statesman Herbert Morrison became Home Secretary, Hugh Dalton was Minister of Economic Warfare and later President of the Board of Trade, while A. V. Alexander resumed the role he had held in the previous Labour Government as First Lord of the Admiralty. Labour also filled eight junior posts, a number which rose to seventeen by 1945. According to G.D.H. Cole, the basis of the Wartime Coalition was that the labour ministers would look after the Home Front (including the maintenance of important social services and the mobilisation of manpower). Although the Exchequer remained in the hands of the Conservative Party, a firm understanding was made with Labour regarding the equitable distribution of tax burdens.

While serving in coalition with the Conservatives, the Labour members of Churchill's cabinet were able put their democratic socialist ideals into practice, implementing a wide range of progressive social and economic reforms which did much to improve the living standards and working conditions of working-class Britons. According to Maurice Bruce,

“for their influence on the shaping of events this might almost be called the third, as it was certainly the most constructive to date, of Britain’s labour governments.”

As observed by Kenneth O. Morgan, "Labour ministers were uniquely associated with the triumphs on the home front." Herbert Morrison at the Home Office, assisted by his friend Ellen Wilkinson, was noted for his effective involvement in home defence and presiding over the repairs carried out on major cities affected by the Blitz. Arthur Greenwood, in his capacity as minister without portfolio, commissioned the Beveridge Report which would lay the foundations for the post-war British welfare state.

During the war years, the Labour Party was continuously active (with some success) in pushing for better arrangements of housing and billeting both of evacuees and of workers transferred for war services to already congested industrial areas, for fair systems of food rationing and distribution, for more effective control of prices, and for improvements in service pay and allowances. Labour also pressed hard for better provisions for the victims of air warfare, for more and better civic and industrial restaurants and canteens, and for war-time nurseries for the children of female workers.

In a manifesto on "The Peace," adopted by the 1941 Labour Party Annual Conference, it was claimed that Labour’s participation in the Wartime coalition Government had been effective in that, a year after Labour had joined the government, the war was now being fought not only with much greater efficiency, but with a higher regard for social equity as well:

The area of the social services has been increased. Largely through the care and determination of the Trade unions, the standard of life has been well safeguarded. The health of the workers has been protected by the maintenance of the factory codes, and by the institution of factory doctors, canteens, and nurseries. Labour, national and local, has taken its share in civil defence; and in every sphere its activities have done much to improve the provision for the safety and comfort of citizens. The social protection of our people has been facilitated by the alert and continuous watch which has been kept over financial policy. Interest rates have been kept down. The Treasury has assumed powers over the Banks which assure their full co-operation in the policy upon which Parliament decides. The dangers of inflation, ever present in war-time, have been kept to a minimum.

According to the historian G.D.H. Cole, Labour’s claims were arguably justified: profiteering was kept down, and there was greater equity both in the allocation of supplies and in taxation. In addition, social services were not merely kept up, but also expanded to meet wartime needs.

Tom Johnston used his position as Secretary of State for Scotland to push through a range of important developmental initiatives, such as the development of hydroelectricity in the Highlands, while Hugh Dalton’s regional policies directly assisted some of the Labour Party’s strongest cores of support. The Distribution of Industry Act 1945, pushed through by Hugh Dalton before the end of the wartime coalition, launched a vigorous policy of regenerating "depressed areas" such as industrial Scotland, the North-East of England, Cumbria, and South Wales, while diversifying the economic base of these regions. This foundation of this vigorous regional policy were actually laid during the Second World War, with the extension of the role of the trading estates and the linking of the industrial base of areas like the Welsh mining areas with the operations of government ordinance and armaments plants. James Chuter Ede, a Labour politician who served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, worked together with the conservative politician Rab Butler in drafting the 1944 Education Act, while also playing a major role in its passage.

Labour’s influence on wartime policy was also evident in the first general statement of peace aims, the Atlantic Charter of August 1941. This included a reference to “improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security” which had been inserted by the War Cabinet into a draft prepared by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and had actually been insisted on by Bevin.

At the end of 1940, Arthur Greenwood was given the task of planning, in Churchill’s words, “a number of practical steps which it is indispensable to take if our society is to move forward.” In June 1941, in response to arguments by the Trades Union Congress that there existed inadequacies with the country’s system of social insurance, Greenwood set up an Interdepartmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services to look into the state of Britain’s social welfare programmes, and see where improvements may be made. Greenwood appointed a Liberal, William Beveridge, chairman of the committee.

Co-operators, in common with the trade unions and labour, pressed hard from the outset of the war for the extension of the food rationing system to cover all essential supplies, arguing that the existence of an unrationed sector would create class injustices and result in time wasted on seeking supplies from shop to shop. Labour responded to Co-operative demands on these issues in March 1941 by establishing a Food Deputation Committee to work for more effective control and rationing of food supplies, together with the creation of an effective Consumers’ Council.

As Minister of Labour and National Service, Ernest Bevin did much to improve working conditions, raising the wages of the lowest paid male workers, such as miners, railwaymen, and agricultural labourers, while also persuading and forcing employers, under threat of removal of their Essential Works Order, to improve company medical and welfare provision, together with sanitary and safety provisions. This was important both for improving working conditions and for cementing worker consent to the war effort, and as a result of Bevin’s efforts, doctors, nurses, and welfare officers multiplied on the shop floor while there was a threefold increase in the provision of works canteens. Almost 5,000 canteens were directly created by Bevin in controlled establishments, while a further 6,800 were set up by private employers by 1944. During the course of the war, the number of works doctors increased from 60 to about 1,000. This provision, however, was much more extensive within larger factories, with smaller employers continuing "to barely comply with the minimum provision of a first aid box." Accident rates did, however, decline after 1942.

The Second World War also saw significant improvements in the position of trade unions, which were encouraged by Bevin. Trade unions were integrated into joint consultation at all levels of government and industry, with the TUC drawn in to represent labour on the National Joint Advisory Council (1939) and the joint Consultative Committee (1940). A similar status was bestowed upon employers’ organisations, which led Middlemass to argue that capital and organised labour had become "governing institutions" within a tripartite industrial relations system "with the state at the fulcrum." The elevation of the status of organised labour to one of parity with capital in Whitehall was effectively summed up by Bevin’s biographer as such:

The organised working class represented by the trade unions was for the first time brought into a position of partnership in the national enterprise of war – a partnership on equal not inferior terms, as in the First World War.

Collective bargaining was further extended by Bevin, who radically extended both the Wages Boards (the renamed Trades Boards) and the Whitley Committees, 46 of the latter were formed during the Second World War, and by the end of the war 15.5 million workers were covered by the minimum wage provisions by the Wages Boards. On the shop floor, Bevin directly encouraged the formation of joint production committees to extend worker’s participation in industry. By June 1944, almost 4,500 such committees were in existence, covering 3.5 million workers. By the end of the war, the joint production committees were intervening in areas once considered to be the sacrosanct domain of employers, such as health, welfare, transfers of labour, machine staffing, technology, piece rate fixing, and wage payment systems. These developments brought about significant improvements to conditions in the workplace, with a Mass Observation survey carried out in 1942 noting that "the quick sack and the unexplained instability" of the 1930s had practically vanished. During the 1940s, significant improvements in occupational health and safety standards were brought about both by the rising bargaining power of workers within the older "staple" sectors of the economy and the rise of "the pro-active wartime and post-war state."

Also in the 1940s, trade union power and authority was extended further than in British history up until that point, with labour’s ability to regulate and control work significantly enhanced during this period. This was assisted by developments such as full employment, the growth of union membership, rising from 32% to 45% of the workforce from 1939 to 1950 and increasing workplace representation, as characterised by the large increase in the number of shop stewards. The progressive social changes were continued in the initial post-war period, with the creation of the Welfare State (which placed a floor under wages) and the extension of the legal rights of unions through the repeal of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act (1927) in 1946, while the 1948 Industrial Injuries Act provided compensation for accidents in the workplace.

The war years also witnessed a significant extension of collective bargaining, which was directly encouraged by Bevin. By 1950, between nine and ten million workers were covered by collective voluntary bargaining. Bevin also established 46 new Joint Industrial Councils and extended the coverage of the Wages Boards between 1943 and 1945. By 1950, as a result of these changes, virtually all of the poorly organised and low-paid categories of workers were subject to state sponsored wage regulation and collective bargaining. This transformation in worker’s protection and bargaining power had the definitive effect of reducing long-established local and regional wage differences.

Bevin was also responsible for the passage of the Determination of Needs Act in 1941, which finally abolished the long-detested household means test. After the passage of the Determination of Needs Act, the Labour Movement continued to press for improvements, particularly for the extension of the principles of the new legislation to cover Public Assistance and other services as well (at that time, it only covered the Assistance Board). In 1943, this was achieved by further legislation, which also improved conditions relating to supplementary pensions. Throughout the war period, the Labour movement (both in and out of Parliament) pressed successfully for a number of changes liberalising the administration of the social services.

The Catering Wages Act (1943), another initiative by Bevin, established a Catering Wages Commission to oversee wages and working conditions in restaurants and hotels. Inspectors were also appointed to ensure that employers complied with Bevin’s insistence on the provision of canteens, welfare officers, and personnel officers in factories. Bevin also did much to improve conditions for those with disabilities, of which little had been done for before the outbreak of the war. In 1941, Bevin introduced an interim retraining scheme, which was followed by the interdepartmental Tomlinson Committee of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of the Disabled. According to the historian Pat Thane, the Committee served as "a mouthpiece for Bevin’s own aspirations," and its proposals for improving the lives of the disabled culminated in the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944.

Bevin and the other Labour ministers were also able to ensure that, compared with the First World War, there was greater equality of sacrifice within society. Profiteering was effectively controlled, while rent controls and food subsidies helped to keep down wartime inflation. Wartime wages were allowed to increase in line with, and earnings to surpass, the rate of price inflation, while the tax system became more progressive, with taxation becoming heavier on the very rich (this movement towards greater progressivity was maintained under the Attlee government, with the top rate of income tax reaching 98% in 1949). These policies led to a narrowing of wealth inequalities, with the real value of wage incomes increasing by some 18% between 1938 and 1947, while the real value of property income fell by 15% and salaries by some 21% over that same period.

Post-War victory under Attlee

Clement Attlee: Labour Prime Minister, 1945–51

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and withdrew from the government to contest the 1945 general election (July 5) in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers, Labour won a landslide victory, winning just under 50% of the vote with a majority of 145 seats.

Although the exact reasons for the victory are still debated. During the war, public opinion surveys showed public opinion moving to the left and in favour of radical social reform. There was little public appetite for a return to the poverty and mass unemployment of the interwar years which had become associated with the Conservatives.

Attlee's government proved itself to be one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century, implementing the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, presiding over a policy of nationalising major industries and utilities including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, telephones and inland transport including railways, road haulage and canals. It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" welfare state conceived by the economist William Beveridge. To this day the party considers the 1948 creation of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement. Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire when it granted independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) the following year. At a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

Labour won the 1950 general election but with a much reduced majority of five seats. Soon after the 1950 election, things started to go badly wrong for the Labour government. Defence became one of the divisive issues for Labour itself, especially defence spending (which reached 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War). These costs put enormous strain on public finances, forcing savings to be found elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell introduced prescription charges for NHS dentures and spectacles, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (President of the Board of Trade) to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment.

Soon after this, another election was called. Labour narrowly lost the October 1951 election to the Conservatives, despite their receiving a larger share of the popular vote and, in fact, their highest vote ever numerically.

Most of the changes introduced by the 1945-51 Labour government however were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post war consensus", which lasted until the 1970s.

The "Thirteen Wasted Years"

Following the defeat in 1951, the party became split over the future direction of socialism. The "Gaitskellite" right of the party led by Hugh Gaitskell and associated with thinkers such as Anthony Crosland wanted the party to adopt a moderate social democratic position. Whereas the "Bevanite" left, led by Aneurin Bevan wanted the party to adopt a more radical socialist position. This split, and the fact that the 1950s saw economic recovery and general public contentment with the Conservative governments of the time, helped keep the party out of power for thirteen years

After being defeated at the 1955 general election, Attlee resigned as leader and was replaced by Gaitskell. The trade union block vote, which generally voted with the leadership, ensured that the bevanites were eventually defeated.

In the decade following the Second World War, Labour councils stood as important players in the reconstruction of housing and city centres. In Newcastle, under the leadership of the visionary but corrupt T. Dan Smith, an accelerated "modernisation" of the city took place, as characterised by an ambitious programme of road construction and public building and the replacement of slum terraces with new innovative estates such as the Byker “wall.”

The three key divisive issues that were to split the Labour party in successive decades emerged first during this period; nuclear disarmament, the famous Clause IV of the party's constitution, which called for the ultimate nationalisation of all means of production in the British economy, and Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC). Tensions between the two opposing sides were exacerbated after Attlee resigned as leader in 1955 and Gaitskell defeated Bevan in the leadership election that followed. The party was briefly revived and unified during the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Conservative party was badly damaged by the incident while Labour was rejuvenated by its opposition to the policy of prime minister Anthony Eden. But Eden was replaced by Harold Macmillan, while the economy continued to improve.

In the 1959 election the Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and the result saw the government majority increase. Following the election bitter internecine disputes resumed. Gaitskell blamed the Left for the defeat and attempted unsuccessfully to amend Clause IV. At a hostile party conference in 1960 he failed to prevent a vote adopting unilateral nuclear disarmament as a party policy, declaring in response that he would "fight, fight and fight again to save the party I love". The decision was reversed the following year, but it remained a divisive issue, and many in the left continued to call for a change of leadership.

When the Conservative government attempted to take Britain into the EEC in 1962, Gaitskell alienated some of his supporters by his opposition to British membership. In a speech to the party conference in October 1962 Gaitskell claimed that EEC membership would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history".

Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963 from a rare disease. His death made way for Harold Wilson to lead the party. The term "thirteen wasted years" was coined by Wilson as a slogan for the 1964 general election, in reference to what he claimed were thirteen wasted years of Conservative government.

The Wilson Years

Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister 1964–1970 and 1974-1976

A downturn in the economy, along with a series of scandals in the early 1960s (the most notorious being the Profumo affair), engulfed the Conservative government by 1963. The Labour party returned to government with a wafer-thin 4 seat majority under Wilson in the 1964 election, and increased their majority to 96 in 1966 election remaining in power until the 1970 election which, contrary to expectations during the campaign, they lost.

Economic policies

The 1960s Labour government had a different emphasis from its 1940s predecessor. Harold Wilson put faith in economic planning as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. Wilson famously referred to the "white heat of technology", referring to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through the swift adoption of new technology, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements and the creation of large high-tech public sector corporations guided by a Ministry of Technology. Economic planning through the new Department of Economic Affairs was to improve the trade balance, whilst Labour carefully targeted taxation aimed at "luxury" goods and services.

In practice however, Labour had difficulty managing the economy under the "Keynesian consensus" and the international markets instinctively mistrusted the party. Events derailed much of the initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that the trade deficit was far worse than expected. This soon led to a currency crisis; despite enormous efforts to shore up the value of sterling, in November 1967 the government was forced into devaluation of the pound from $2.80 to $2.40, which damaged the government's credibility.

For much of the remaining Parliament the government followed stricter controls in public spending and the necessary austerity measures caused consternation amongst the Party membership and the trade unions, unions which by this time were gaining ever greater political power.

In the event, the devaluation, and austerity measures successfully restored the balance of payments into a surplus by 1969. However, they unexpectedly turned into a small deficit again in 1970. The bad figures were announced just before polling in the 1970 general election, and are often cited as one of the reasons for Labour's defeat.

As a gesture towards Labour's left wing supporters. Wilson's government renationalised the steel industry in 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating British Steel.

Social and educational reforms

The 1960s Labour government is probably most remembered for the liberal social reforms introduced or supported by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins. Notable amongst these was the legalisation of male homosexuality and abortion, reform of divorce laws, the abolition of theatre censorship and capital punishment (except for a small number of offences - notably high treason) and various legislation addressing race relations and racial discrimination.

In Wilson's defence, his supporters also emphasise the easing of means testing for non-contributory welfare benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of industrial-injury benefits. Wilson's government also made significant reforms to education, most notably the expansion of comprehensive education and the creation of the Open University.

In spite of the economic difficulties faced by Wilson's government, it was therefore able to achieve important advances in a number of domestic policy areas. As reflected by Harold Wilson in 1971,

"It was a government which faced disappointment after disappointment and none greater than the economic restraints in our ability to carry through the social revolution to which we were committed at the speed we would have wished. Yet, despite those restraints and the need to transfer resources from domestic expenditure, private and public, to the needs of our export markets, we carried through an expansion in the social services, health, welfare and housing, unparallelled in our history".

As noted by one historian, in summing up the reform record of Wilson's government, "In spite of the economic problems encountered by the First Wilson Government and in spite of (and to some degree in response to) the criticisms of its own supporters, Labour presided over a notable expansion of state welfare during its time in office."

In Place of Strife

Wilson's government in 1969 proposed a series of reforms to the legal basis for industrial relations (labour law) in the UK, which were outlined in a White Paper entitled "In Place of Strife", which proposed to give trade unions statutory rights, but also to limit their power. The White Paper was championed by Wilson and Barbara Castle. The proposals however faced stiff opposition from the Trades Union Congress, and some key cabinet ministers such as James Callaghan.

The opponents won the day and the proposals were shelved. This episode proved politically damaging for Wilson, whose approval ratings fell to 26%; the lowest for any Prime Minister since polling began.

In hindsight, many have argued that the failure of the unions to adopt the proposals of In Place of Strife, led to the far more drastic curbs on trade union power under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The 1970s

In the 1970 general election, Edward Heath's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government reflecting some disillusionment amongst many who had voted Labour in 1966. The Conservatives quickly ran into difficulties, alienating Ulster Unionists and many Unionists in their own party after signing the Sunningdale Agreement in Ulster. Heath's government also faced the 1973 miners strike which forced the government to adopt a "Three-Day Week". The 1970s proved to be a very difficult time for the Heath, Wilson and Callaghan administrations. Faced with a mishandled oil crisis, a consequent worldwide economic downturn, and a badly suffering British economy.

The 1970s saw tensions re-emerge between Labour's left and right wings, which eventually caused a catastrophic split in the party in the 1980s and the formation of the Social Democratic Party. Following the perceived disappointments of the 1960s Labour government and the failiures of the 'revisionist' right. The left of the party under Tony Benn and Michael Foot became increasingly influential during the early 1970s

The left drew up a radical programme; Labour's Programme 1973, which pledged to bring about a "fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families". This programme referred to a "far reaching Social Contract between workers and the Government" and called for a major extension of public ownership and state planning. The programme was accepted by that year's party conference. Wilson publicly accepted many of the policies of the Programme with some reservations, but the condition of the economy allowed little room for manoeuvre. In practice many of the proposals of the programme were heavily watered down when Labour returned to government.

Return to power in 1974

Labour returned to power again under Wilson a few weeks after the February 1974 general election, forming a minority government with Ulster Unionist support. The Conservatives were unable to form a government as they had fewer seats, even though they had received more votes. It was the first General Election since 1924 in which both main parties received less than 40% of the popular vote, and was the first of six successive General Elections in which Labour failed to reach 40% of the popular vote. In a bid for Labour to gain a majority, a second election was soon called for October 1974 in which Labour, still with Harold Wilson as leader, scraped a majority of three, gaining just 18 seats and taking their total to 319.

European referendum

Britain had entered the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 while Edward Heath was Prime Minister. Although Harold Wilson and the Labour party had opposed this, in government Wilson switched to backing membership, but was defeated in a special one day Labour conference on the issue leading to a national referendum on which the yes and no campaigns were both cross-party - the referendum voted in 1975 to continue Britain's membership by two thirds to one third. This issue later caused catastrophic splits in the Labour Party in the 1980s, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party.

In the initial legislation during the Heath Government, the Bill affirming Britain's entry was only passed because of a rebellion of 72 Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins and including future leader John Smith, who voted against the Labour whip and along with Liberal MPs more than countered the effects of Conservative rebels who had voted against the Conservative Whip.

James Callaghan: Labour Prime Minister 1976-79

Wilson steps down

In April 1976 Wilson surprisingly stood down as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister claiming a long-standing desire to retire on his sixtieth birthday. There was immense suspicion of his reason for his resignation but it is now known that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He feared following his mother's path: she had been a towering, impressive personality but did not accept her failing abilities and carried on for too long spoiling her reputation. He was replaced by James Callaghan who immediately removed a number of left-wingers (such as Barbara Castle) from the cabinet.

In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that the issue of Scottish devolution was becoming increasingly contentious, especially after the discovery of North Sea Oil.

Economic and political troubles

The 1970s Labour government faced enormous economic problems and a precarious political situation. Faced with a global recession and spiralling inflation. Many of Britain's traditional manufacturing industries were collapsing in the face of foreign competition. Unemployment, and industrial unrest were rising.

In the autumn of 1976 the Labour Government under Chancellor Denis Healey was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan to ease the economy through its financial troubles. The conditions attached to the loan included harsh austerity measures such as sharp cuts in public spending, which were highly unpopular with party supporters. This forced the government to abandon much of the radical program which it had adopted in the early 1970s, much to the anger of left wingers such as Tony Benn. It later turned out however that the loan had not been necessary. The error had been caused by incorrect financial estimates by the Treasury which overestimated public borrowing requirements. The government only drew on half of the loan and was able to pay it back in full by 1979.

The 1970s Labour government adopted an interventionist approach to the economy, setting up the National Enterprise Board to channel public investment into industry, and giving state support to ailing industries. Several large nationalisations were carried out during this era: The struggling motor manufacturer British Leyland was partly nationalised in 1975. In 1977 British Aerospace as well as what remained of the shipbuilding industry were nationalised, as well as the British National Oil Corporation. The Government also succeeded in replacing the Family Allowance with the more generous child benefit.

The Wilson and Callaghan governments were hampered by their lack of a workable majority in the commons. At the October 1974 election, Labour won a majority of only three seats. Several by-election losses meant that by 1977, Callaghan was heading a minority government, and was forced to do deals with other parties to survive. An arrangement was negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab pact, but this ended after one year. After this, deals were made with the Scottish National Party and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru, which prolonged the life of the government slightly longer.

The nationalist parties demanded devolution to their respective countries in return for their support for the government. When referendums for Scottish and Welsh devolution were held in March 1979, the Welsh referendum was rejected outright, and the Scottish referendum had a narrow majority in favour but did not reach the threshold of 40% support, invalidating the result. This led to the SNP withdrawing support for the government, which finally brought it down.

The "Winter of Discontent" and defeat by Margaret Thatcher

The 1973 oil crisis had caused a legacy of high inflation in the British economy which peaked at 26.9% in 1975. The Wilson and Callaghan governments attempted to combat this by entering into a social contract with the trade unions, which introduced wage restraint and limited pay rises to limits set by the government. This policy was initially fairly successful at controlling inflation, which had been reduced to 7.4% by 1978.

Callaghan had been widely expected to call a general election in the autumn of 1978, when most opinion polls showed Labour to have a narrow lead. However instead, he decided to extend the wage restraint policy for another year in the hope that the economy would be in a better shape in time for a 1979 election. This proved to be a big mistake. The extension of wage restraint was unpopular with the trade unions, and the government's attempt to impose a "5% limit" on pay rises caused resentment amongst workers and trade unions, with whom relations broke down.

During the winter of 1978-79 there were widespread strikes in favour of higher pay rises which caused significant disruption to everyday life. The strikes affected lorry drivers, railway workers, car workers and local government and hospital workers. These came to be dubbed as the "Winter of Discontent".

The perceived relaxed attitude of Callaghan to the crisis reflected badly upon public opinion of the government's ability to run the country. After the withdrawal of SNP support for the government, the Conservatives put down a vote of no confidence, which was held and passed by one vote on 28 March 1979, forcing a general election.

In the 1979 general election, Labour suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher. The numbers voting Labour hardly changed between February 1974 and 1979, but in 1979 the Conservative Party achieved big increases in support in the Midlands and South of England, mainly from the ailing Liberals, and benefited from a surge in turnout.

The actions of the trade unions during the Winter of Discontent were used by Margaret Thatcher's government to justify anti-trade union legislation during the 1980s.

The Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 1970s tried to control inflation (which reached 23.7% in 1975) by a policy of wage restraint. This was fairly successful, reducing inflation to 7.4% by 1978, but led to increasingly strained relations between the government and the trade unions. The Labour governments of the 1970s did, however, manage to protect many people from the economic storm, with pensions increasing by 20% in real terms between 1974 and 1979, while measures such as rent controls and food and transport subsidies prevented the incomes of other people from deteriorating further.

Legislation was introduced which guaranteed annual uprating of benefits in line with increases in prices or average earnings, whichever was the highest. In addition, new benefits for the disabled and infirm were introduced whilst pensioners benefited from the largest ever increase in pensions up until that period. New employment legislation strengthened equal pay provisions, guaranteed payments for workers on short-time and temporarily laid-off and introduced job security and maternity leave for pregnant women. Housing rehabilitation was encouraged via the establishment of Housing Action Areas and better improvement grants, whilst public sector housing completions rose 40,000 from the 111,500 achieved in 1974, before falling to barely 95,000 by 1979. In addition, furnished tenants were finally provided with security of tenure.

A more effective system of workplace inspection was set up, together with the Health and Safety Executive, in response to the plight of many workers who suffered accidents or ill-health as a result of poor working conditions (whose plight which had long been ignored by the media). Industrial tribunals also provided protection through compensation for unfair dismissal, while the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service performed an effective function in the management of industrial disputes.

Although the Wilson and Callaghan governments were accused by many socialists of failing to put the Labour Party's socialist ideals into practice, it did much to bring about a greater deal of social justice in British society, as characterised by a significant reduction in poverty during the course of the 1970s, and arguably played as much as a role as the Attlee Government in advancing the cause of social democracy and reducing social and economic inequalities in the United Kingdom. As noted by the historian Eric Shaw,

“In the seventeen years that it occupied office, Labour accomplished much in alleviating poverty and misery, and in giving help and sustenance to groups – the old, the sick, the disabled – least capable of protecting themselves in a market economy.”

The "Wilderness Years" (1979–1997)

Foot years

The aftermath of the 1979 election defeat saw a period of bitter internal rivalry in the Labour Party which had become increasingly divided between the ever more dominant left wingers under Michael Foot and Tony Benn (whose supporters dominated the party organisation at the grassroots level), and the right under Denis Healey. It was widely considered that Healey would win the 1980 leadership election, but he was narrowly defeated by Foot.

The Thatcher government was determined not to be deflected from its agenda as the Heath government had been. A deflationary budget in 1980 led to substantial cuts in welfare spending and an initial short-term sharp rise in unemployment. The Conservatives reduced or eliminated state assistance for struggling private industries, leading to large redundancies in many regions of the country, notably in Labour's heartlands. However, Conservative legislation extending the right for residents to buy council houses from the state proved very attractive to many Labour voters. (Labour had previously suggested this idea in their 1970 election manifesto, but had never acted on it.)

The election of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) veteran Michael Foot to the leadership disturbed many Atlanticists in the Party. Other changes increased their concern; the constituencies were given the ability to easily deselect sitting MPs, and a new voting system in leadership elections was introduced that gave party activists and affiliated trade unions a vote in different parts of an electoral college.

The party's move to the left in the early 80s led to the decision by a number of centrist party members led by the Gang of Four of former cabinet ministers (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, and David Owen. ) to issue the "Limehouse Declaration" on January 26, 1981, and to form the breakaway Social Democratic Party. The departure of even more members from the centre and right further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference.

Under Foot's leadership, the party's agenda became increasingly dominated by the politics of the hard left. Accordingly, the party went into the 1983 general election with the most left wing manifesto that Labour ever stood upon. The manifesto contained pledges for abolition of the House of Lords, unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Community, withdrawal from NATO and a radical and extensive extension of state control over the economy.

This alienated many of the party's more right-wing supporters. The Bennites were in the ascendency and there was very little that the right could do to resist or water down the manifesto, many also hoped that a landslide defeat would discredit Michael Foot and the hard left of the party moving Labour away from explicit Socialism and towards weaker social-democracy. Labour MP and former minister Gerald Kaufman famously described the 1983 election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history". Michael Foot has countered, with typical wit, that it is telling about Gerald Kaufman that it is likely that his one oft quoted remark will be all that he is remembered for.

Much of the press attacked both the Labour party's manifesto and its style of campaigning, which tended to rely upon public meetings and canvassing rather than media. By contrast, the Conservatives ran a professional campaign which played on the voters' fears of a repeat of the Winter of Discontent. To add to this, the Thatcher government's popularity rose sharply on a wave of patriotic feeling following victory in the Falklands War, allowing it to recover from it initial unpopularity over unemployment and economic difficulty.

At the 1983 election, Labour suffered a landslide defeat, winning only 27.6% of the vote, their lowest share since 1918. Labour won only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance which had attracted the votes of many moderate Labour supporters.

Kinnock years

Neil Kinnock, leader of the party in opposition.

Michael Foot resigned and was replaced as leader by Neil Kinnock who was elected on 2 October 1983 and progressively moved the party towards the centre. Labour improved its performance in 1987, gaining 20 seats and so reducing the Conservative majority from 143 to 102. They were now firmly established as the second political party in Britain as the Alliance had once again failed to make a breakthrough with seats and it subsequently collapsed, prompting a merger of the SDP and Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats.

The Seventies and Eighties were significant for Labour in the rise of left-wing Labour councils (derided by the political right as the “loony left,” which emphasised participation and rights for women and minorities, workers’ control, decentralisation, and opposition to neoliberalism. The left regarded local councils as part of an extra-parliamentary mode of opposition, alongside community groups and town halls. David Blunkett, once a member of labour’s left-wing, described Labour town halls as “a rudimentary opposition movement against the ruling party in Westminster.” The left councils greatly advanced the cause of blacks, women, and homosexuals within the political system, while also opening up council-decision making.

The Greater London Council, under the leadership of Ken Livingstone from 1981 to 1986, carried out a number of progressive policies such as a programme of grants to voluntary groups (which cost £47 million in 1984–85: £100 million in 1999 prices) and a “Fares Fair” policy, which cut London Transport fares by 25%. Although this policy was controversially ruled out by a House of Lords judgement, it was replaced by a more subtle cheap fares policy before London Transport was removed from GLC control by the government in 1984.

In 1983, The Liverpool Labour party (then under the effective control of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency group) embarked upon an ambitious programme of municipal reform. Apart from promoting propaganda for class conflict, as characterised by continual protests and “days of action” in which council workers and even school pupils were encouraged to participate, the Militant Labour council devoted much time and effort to improving the quality of the inner-city environment. New houses were constructed, while new parks, sports centres, and other leisure facilities were created. In addition, within a short space of time, 8,000 housing units were refurbished and 4,000 units had been built. Altogether, the results were an improvement on previous councils run by all parties.

Following the 1987 election, Kinnock began expelling Militant Tendency members from the party. They would later form the Socialist Party of England and Wales and the Scottish Socialist Party although a remnant of Militant continues to operate within the Labour Party through the newspaper Socialist Appeal.

During the course of the 1980s, the GLC and several other Labour councils attempted to promote local economic recovery by setting up a network of enterprise boards and agencies. In addition, the GLC, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, and smaller London councils like Lambeth, Camden, and Islington adopted policies that challenged the Thatcher Government’s insistence on budgetary cuts and privatisation.

The Labour councils in old metropolitan counties of West Midlands, South Yorkshire, Greater London, and Greater Manchester led the way in developing interventionist economic policies. In the met county areas, Inward Investment Agencies, Enterprise Boards, Low Pay Units, and Co-operative Development Agencies proliferated, while parts of the country such as Salford Quays and Cardiff Bay were redeveloped. The Labour council in Birmingham in the 1980s worked to diversify the business visitor economy, as characterised by the decision to build a new, purpose-built convention centre in a decaying, inner-city district around Broad Street. By the mid-1990s, the success of this strategy was evident by the success of the International convention centre leading to wider redevelopment, as characterised by the building of a Sea Life Centre, the National Indoor Arena, bars, hotels, and thousands of newly constructed and refurbished flats and houses. This helped to revitalise the city centre and brought in people and money to both and the city and the West Midlands region as a whole.

During the Eighties and Nineties, Labour councils vied to attract inward investment and build themselves up as tourist and retail centres. The relatively left-wing Labour council in Southampton was popular among property developers for its ambitious city centre plans, while the labour council in Sheffield set up a partnership with business to redevelop a large part of Sheffield that had been abandoned by steel closures. Some labour councils also remedied the neglect of management and service delivery during the mid-Eighties under the Thatcher Government and introduced charters and guaranteed standards of service for local residents before a similar “Citizen’s Charter” was launched by the Major Government.

In November 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by John Major. Most opinion polls had shown Labour comfortably ahead of the Tories for more than a year before Mrs Thatcher's resignation, with the fall in Tory support blamed largely on the introduction of the unpopular poll tax, combined with the fact that the economy was sliding into recession at the time. One of the reasons Mrs Thatcher gave for her resignation was that she felt the Tories would stand a better chance of re-election with a new leader at the helm.

Labour Party logo under Kinnock, Smith and Blair's leaderships

The change of leader in the Tory government saw a turnaround in support for the Tories, who regularly topped the opinion polls throughout 1991 although Labour regained the lead more than once.

The "yo yo" in the opinion polls continued into 1992, though after November 1990 any Labour lead in the polls was rarely sufficient for a majority. Major resisted Kinnock's calls for a general election throughout 1991. Kinnock campaigned on the theme "It's Time for a Change", urging voters to elect a new government after more than a decade of unbroken Conservative rule. However, the Conservatives themselves had undergone a dramatic change in the change of leader from Margaret Thatcher to John Major, at least in terms of style if not substance, whereas Kinnock was now the longest serving leader of any of the major political parties at the time and was now the longest-serving opposition leader in British political history.

From the outset, it was clearly a well-received change, as Labour's 14-point lead in the November 1990 "Poll of Polls" was replaced by an 8% Tory lead a month later.

The election on 9 April 1992 was widely tipped to result in a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority, but in the event the Conservatives were returned to power, though with a much reduced majority of 21 in 1992. Despite the increased number of seats and votes, it was still an incredibly disappointing result for members and supporters of the Labour party, and for the first time in over 30 years there was serious doubt among the public and the media as to whether Labour could ever return to government.

Even before the country went to the polls, it seemed doubtful as to whether Labour could form a majority as an 8% electoral swing was needed across the country for this to be achieved.When Labour lost the election, there was widespread public and media debate as to whether the party could ever return to government, as had happened in 1959, not least due to the fact that it had failed to beat an incumbent Conservative government during a time of recession and high unemployment.

Smith years

In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the "Shadow Budget" announced by John Smith had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition, a triumphalist party rally held in Sheffield eight days before the election, was generally considered to have backfired. The party had also suffered from a powerfully co-ordinated campaign from the right-wing press, particularly Rupert Murdoch's The Sun. Kinnock, who in particular had been vilified by The Sun, resigned after the defeat, blaming the Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure and John Smith, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was elected to succeed him in July that year.

Smith's leadership once again saw the re-emergence of tension between those on the party's left and those identified as "modernisers", both of whom advocated radical revisions of the party's stance albeit in different ways. At the 1993 conference, Smith successfully changed the party rules and lessened the influence of the trade unions on the selection of candidates to stand for Parliament by introducing a one member, one vote system called OMOV — but only barely, after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott which required Smith to compromise on other individual negotiations.

The Black Wednesday economic disaster in September 1992 left the Conservative government's reputation for monetary excellence in tatters, and by the end of that year Labour had a comfortable lead over the Tories in the opinion polls. Although the recession was declared over in April 1993 and a period of strong and sustained economic growth followed, coupled with a relatively swift fall in unemployment, the Labour lead in the opinion polls remained strong.

The growing strength of the Labour Party during the Nineties was demonstrated by its success in preventing the passage of two major policy initiatives of the Major Government. Plans to privatise the post office were abandoned as a result of pressure from Labour, the Communications Workers Union and voters in conservative rural heartlands who sought to protect post office services. Another major policy abandonment came as a result of Norman Lamont’s 1993 announcement that VAT on domestic fuel and lighting would be introduced, starting at a rate of 8% in April 1994 and reaching the full rate the following April. The Labour Party launched a massive public campaign against the controversial tax, collecting 1.5 million signatures on a petition. An important House of Commons vote on introducing the second stage of the tax took place in December 1994. Concerted pressure was put on Conservative backbenchers from marginal seats to vote against the controversial tax, and in the end the Major Government was narrowly defeated, with 319 voting against the tax compared to 311 for. This not only represented a victory for the Labour party’s campaign, but it further demonstrated Labour's social democratic credentials and its growing political strength. During this period party membership increased dramatically, rising from 305,000 in 1994 to a high point of 405,000 in 1998.

John Smith died suddenly on 11 May 1994 of a massive heart attack, prompting a leadership election for his successor, likely to be the next Prime Minister. With 57% of the vote, Tony Blair won a resounding victory in a three-way contest with John Prescott and Margaret Beckett. Prescott became deputy leader, coming second in the poll whose results were announced on 21 July 1994.

New Labour

Main article: New Labour

Origins

"New Labour" was an alternative branding for the Labour Party, used primarily during the period under Tony Blair's leadership. Being used first as a slogan, its first appearance in party literature was the 1996 draft manifesto, New Labour, New Life For Britain. The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Anthony Giddens and Alastair Campbell are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of "New Labour". Blair proposed a rewrite of Clause IV of the party constitution, abandoning the party's commitements and what Blair referred to as "state socialism" (as opposed to ethical socialism). The party became an advocate of the shift in European social democracy during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way". Although this policy was advantageous to the Labour Party in the eyes of the British electorate, it alienated many grass roots members by distancing itself from the ideals of socialism in favour of free market policy decisions.

The "modernisation" of Labour party policy and the unpopularity of John Major's Conservative government, along with a well co-ordinated use of PR, greatly increased Labour's appeal to "middle England". The party was concerned not to put off potential voters who had previously supported the Conservatives, and pledged to keep to the spending plans of the previous government, and not to increase the basic rate of income tax. The party won the 1997 election with a landslide majority of 179. Following a second and third election victory in the 2001 election and the 2005 election, the name has diminished in significance. "New Labour" as a name has no official status but remains in common use to distinguish modernisers from those holding to more traditional positions who normally are referred to as "Old Labour".

Many of the traditional grassroots working-class members of the Labour Party who have become upset and disillusioned with "New" Labour, have left the Party and gone on to join political parties such as the Socialist Party (England and Wales), the Socialist Labour Party and even the Communist Party of Great Britain - all parties claiming to never neglect the "ordinary British people". David Osler, the journalist and author of "Labour Party plc" seems to hint in his book that Labour's supposed steady shift from Socialism and its neglect of support for the working-class people of Britain began to show during the Party's years under Harold Wilson. In the book, Osler claims that the Party is now only a socialist party and indeed a "Labour" party in name only and is a full-capitalist embracing Party which differs little from the Tory Party. Other historians have also argued that Old Labour’s record in putting its social democratic ideals into practice was less successful than comparable northern European sister parties.

In government

Main articles: Premiership of Tony Blair and Premiership of Gordon Brown

The Labour Party won the 1997 general election with a landslide majority of 179; it was the largest Labour majority ever, and the largest swing to a political party achieved since 1945. Over the next decade, a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted, with millions lifted out of poverty during Labour's time in office largely as a result of various tax and benefit reforms.

Among the early acts of Tony Blair's government were the establishment of the national minimum wage, the devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the re-creation of a city-wide government body for London, the Greater London Authority, with its own elected-Mayor. Combined with a Conservative opposition that had yet to organise effectively under William Hague, and the continuing popularity of Blair, Labour went on to win the 2001 election with a similar majority, dubbed the "quiet landslide" by the media.

A perceived turning point was when Tony Blair controversially allied himself with US President George W. Bush in supporting the Iraq War, which caused him to lose much of his political support. The UN Secretary-General, among many, considered the war illegal. The Iraq War was deeply unpopular in most western countries, with Western governments divided in their support and under pressure from worldwide popular protests. At the 2005 election, Labour was re-elected for a third term, but with a reduced majority of 66. The decisions that led up to the Iraq war and its subsequent conduct are currently the subject of Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry.

Tony Blair announced in September 2006 that he would quit as leader within the year, though he had been under pressure to quit earlier than May 2007 in order to get a new leader in place before the May elections which were expected to be disastrous for Labour. In the event, the party did lose power in Scotland to a minority Scottish National Party government at the 2007 elections and, shortly after this, Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Although the party experienced a brief rise in the polls after this, its popularity soon slumped to its lowest level since the days of Michael Foot. During May 2008, Labour suffered heavy defeats in the London mayoral election, local elections and the loss in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, culminating in the party registering its worst ever opinion poll result since records began in 1943, of 23%, with many citing Brown's leadership as a key factor. Membership of the party also reached a low ebb, falling to 156,205 by the end of 2009: over 40 per cent of the 405,000 peak reached in 1997 and thought to be the lowest total since the party was founded.

Finance proved a major problem for the Labour Party during this period; a "cash for peerages" scandal under Tony Blair resulted in the drying up of many major sources of donations. Declining party membership, partially due to the reduction of activists' influence upon policy-making under the reforms of Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair, also contributed to financial problems. Between January and March 2008, the Labour Party received just over £3 million in donations and were £17 million in debt; compared to the Conservatives' £6 million in donations and £12 million in debt.

In the 2010 general election on 6 May that year, Labour with 29.0% of the vote won the second largest number of seats (258). The Conservatives with 36.5% of the vote won the largest number of seats (307), but no party had an overall majority, meaning that Labour could still remain in power if they managed to form a coalition with at least one smaller party. However, the Labour Party would have had to form a coalition with more than one other smaller party to gain an overall majority; anything less would result in a minority government. On 10 May 2010, after talks to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats broke down, Gordon Brown announced his intention to stand down as Leader before the Labour Party Conference but a day later resigned as both Prime Minister and party leader.

In opposition (2010–present)

Harriet Harman became the Leader of the Opposition and acting Leader of the Labour Party following the resignation of Gordon Brown on 11 May 2010, pending a leadership election subsequently won by Ed Miliband. This period has to date witnessed a revival in Labour's opinion poll fortunes, with the first Labour lead recorded since the commencement of Gordon Brown's premiership in 2007 being reported in a YouGov poll for The Sun on 27 September 2010 during the 2010 Labour Party Conference. This phenomenon has been speculatively attributed to the sharp decline in Liberal Democrat support since May 2010, with disillusioned Liberal Democrat supporters defecting their support to Labour. Such poll leads, up to 6% above the Conservatives in a 20 December 2010 opinion poll, are in contrast to Ed Miliband's low public satisfaction ratings; +1% in an Ipsos MORI poll, interpreted by a spokesperson for the said pollster as "...bad news for Ed Miliband. We have to go back to Michael Foot who led the party to a crushing defeat in 1983 to find a lower satisfaction rating at this stage". Foot, in fact, had actually enjoyed a lead in the opinion polls over the Tories wide enough to win an election with a majority of up to 130 seats immediately after becoming leader in 1980, although that lead was wiped out in 1981 following the advent of the Social Democratic Party. In September 2010 the party reported a surge of 32,000 new members since the general election; at the end of 2011 this figure had reached 65,000 new members.

The new leadership of the party has been seeking a coherent ideological position to answer Cameron's 'Big Society' rhetoric, and also mark a seachange from the neoliberal ideology of Blair and 'New Labour'.

Blue Labour was a recent ideological tendency in the party that advocates the belief that working class voters will be won back to Labour through more conservative policies on certain social and international issues, such as immigration and crime, a rejection of neoliberal economics in favour of ideas from guild socialism and continental corporatism, and a switch to local and democratic community management and provision of services, rather than relying on a traditional welfare state that is seen as excessively 'bureaucratic'. These ideas have been given an endorsement by Ed Miliband who in 2011 wrote the preface to a book expounding Blue Labour's positions. However, it lost its influence after comments by Maurice Glasman in the Telegraph newspaper.

See also

• History of socialism in Great Britain
• History of the British Conservative Party
• Liberal Democrat History Group

References

• Davies, A.J. (1996) To Build A New Jerusalem: The British Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair, Abacus, ISBN 0-349-10809-9

• Thorpe, Andrew. (2001) A History Of The British Labour Party, Palgrave, ISBN 0-333-92908-X

External links

• Labour History Group
• History of the Labour Party from spartacus schoolnet