Labour Party

   The Labour Party has been the main leftwing British political party since the late 1920s. In its constitution, it describes itself as a democratic socialist party. Its socialism was originally defined in terms of support for the old Clause IV but was later interpreted by many members as a commitment to greater economic and social equality. It remains a member of the Socialist International but the policies pursued by Labour governments in office have been more social democratic than distinctively socialist. The British road to socialism, as pursued by the Labour Party, was always based on a gradualist, evolutionary approach, not a revolutionary one. Marxism never made a great impact on many of its supporters.

   The first minority Labour administrations were formed in the 1920s under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald. The first majority Labour government was that led by Clement Attlee and formed in 1945. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, Labour won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election and formed its first government since the 1979 general election. It retained its position with a further large victory in the 2001 general election and a smaller victory (based on only 35.2 per cent of the popular vote) in the 2005 general election. Since June 2007, it has been led by Gordon Brown, the current Prime Minister. Now that New Labour has been tested in office, it is easier to see how far the party has travelled over recent years. It was and remains a coalition whose members possess differing shades of opinion, but there are discernible differences between old and new Labour. Old Labour was a working-class party with limited appeal to the middle classes, close to trades unions, willing to raise taxes to finance high levels of public expenditure and committed to generous universal welfare benefits, full employment and equality of outcome. It used the language of caring, compassion, social justice and equality. By comparison, New Labour is more detached from the unions, keen to keep public spending under control and direct taxation down, committed to equality of opportunity, more pro-European and less appealing to its traditional supporters as it maintains its bid for support from Middle England. It pursues a ‘big tent’ approach and is concerned about image, having an interest in presentation and spin. laissez-faire Literally translated as ‘leave to do’, the French term refers to the principle that there should be maximum freedom for the economic forces of the market place and minimum interference from the state in economic life.