Labours old and new

This is the first in-depth academic study of the ideologial and political character, role and problems of Labour Party revisionism and Labour's 'governing elite' in the social democratic 'lean' years of the 1970s. It provides a major contribution to the understanding of the evolution of the post-war Labour Party and the origins of New Labour.

This is the first in-depth academic study of the ideologial and political character, role and problems of Labour Party revisionism and Labour's 'governing elite' in the social democratic 'lean' years of the 1970s. It provides a major contribution to the understanding of the evolution of the post-war Labour Party and the origins of New Labour.

This study is concerned with the ‘Old’ Labour right at a critical juncture of social democratic and Labour politics. It attempts to understand the complex transition from so-called ‘Old Right’ to ‘New Right’ or ‘New Labour’, and locates at least some of the roots of the latter in the complexity, tensions and fragmentation of the former during the ‘lean’ years of social democracy in the 1970s. The analysis addresses both the short and long-term implications of the emerging ideological, organisational and political complexity and divisions of the parliamentary Labour right and Labour revisionism, previously concealed within the loosely adhesive post-war framework of Keynesian reformist social democracy. It establishes the extent to which ‘New’ Labour is a legatee of at least some elements of the disparate and discordant Labour right and tensions of social democratic revisionism in the 1970s. In so doing, it advances our understanding of a key moment in the development of social democracy and the making of the contemporary British Labour Party.

Series Editors' ForewordAcknowledgements1. Introduction2. The parliamentary Labour Right: views and perspectives3. Parliamentary Labour Right factionalism and organisational fragmentation in the 1970s4. A prelude to secession? The parliamentary Labour Right and Europe5. In place of strife? The parliamentary Labour Right and the 'Trade Union Question'6. The 'Frontiers of Social Democracy': Public Expenditure, redistribution and divisions of social democratic political economy7. The parliamentary Labour Right, Labour Party revisionism(s) and the roots of New LabourConclusionBibliographyIndex