LABOURING THE POINT

Abstract

The Lancashire working classes, c. 1880–1930. By Trevor Griffiths. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. viii+390. ISBN 0-19-924738-2. £55.00.Labour in crisis: the second Labour government, 1929–1931. By Neil Riddell. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. xi+267. ISBN 0-7190-5084-7. £45.00.Classes and cultures: England, 1918–1951. By Ross McKibbin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+324. ISBN 0-19-820853-3. £18.99.The Labour party in Wales, 1900–2000. Edited by Duncan Tanner, Chris Williams, and Deian Hopkin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+324. ISBN 0-7083-1586-0. £35.00.Labour's first century. Edited by Duncan Tanner, Pat Thane, and Nick Tiratsoo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. x+418. ISBN 0-521-65184-0. £25.00.Red Flag and Union Jack: Englishness, patriotism and the British Left, 1881–1924. By Paul Ward. Woodbridge: Royal Historical Society/Boydell Press, 1998. Pp. viii+232. ISBN 0-86193-239-0. £35.00.Austerity in Britain: rationing, controls and consumption, 1939–1955. By Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+286. ISBN 0-19-820453-1. £40.00.Publishers and historians have been unable to resist the opportunity provided by one hundred years of ‘Labour’ to subject the history of the party to fresh scrutiny. Centenary history, however, must rest upon an assumption of continuity. In this case, it is assumed that there is a clear line of descent from the Labour Representation Committee formed in February 1900 to the ‘New Labour’ of the present. There is nothing improper about writing the history of a political party on this basis. Yet, as with other social movements, it is no vast discovery to observe that parties change through time as circumstances and conditions change. The accompanying rhetoric, however, has often skated over such disconcerting realities. When Labour celebrated its half-century, for example, its rise was presented by its chroniclers as a ‘forward march’ in which were enrolled ‘those of all ages and all classes’ who were not afraid to fight for the progress of mankind. Mr Attlee, in his foreword to the volume by Francis Williams, put the matter somewhat differently. Labour's story, he claimed, was very characteristic of Britain. It recorded ‘the triumph of reasonableness and practicality over doctrinaire impossibilism’. It was to be only a decade later, however, that various contemporary observers asked themselves whether the ‘tide of history’ had turned against the party. In the 1970s and 1980s, indeed, commentators and academic writers almost invariably reached for words like ‘crisis’ or ‘decay’ as they contemplated its fate. It looked, indeed, as though the ‘forward march’ might be going nowhere.