Labour Party Members Research Articles

Local Party Campaigning and Electoral Mobilization in Britain

Research on the effects of local election campaigning by party activists on electoral behavior has been confined almost entirely to the United States, where most findings suggest that there are significant effects. This note discusses reasons why such effects are also likely to exist, and may even be stronger, in Britain than in the United States. It then goes on to estimate models of the turnout and vote share for the Labour party in the 1987 general election in Britain. The results show that local campaigning by Labour party members had a significant influence on the Labour vote share in the 1987 election, but not on turnout. A model is developed using data from a national survey of Labour party members, together with a number of control variables to test relationships. The findings are similar to those by Huckfeldt and Sprague for gubernatorial and Senate elections in the United States.

Being wise after the event: an investigation of hindsight bias

Two experiments are reported which invesigate hindsight bias (the tendency to overestimate the probability of an event when one knows it has occurred and is asked to ignore the fact). Experiment I focuses upon the influence of commitments and desires upon subjective probability assessments in hindsight and foresight. Using the British General Election of May 1979 and Conservative and Labour Party members as subjects, only weak support for hindsight bias was found. However, party affiliation did exert a strong influence over likelihood assessments; outcomes favourable to the preferred party were perceived as more likely, in both foresight and hindsight, than outcomes favourable to the other party, and vice versa. Experiment 11 required subjects to make estimates in foresight and hindsight concerning the numbers of percentages of women in various roles in society. Strong evidence for hindsight bias was found. The paper concludes by considering the judgemental strategies subjects might have used in the two experiments. This is done by drawing on the heuristics of thinking proposed by Tversky and Kahneman.

Managing the Mixed Economy

Socialism and the mixed economy are entirely compatible. That belief is shared by almost every Labour voter in Britain and a vast majority of Labour Party members. Support for the mixed economy has been embodied—directly or by implication—in every decision that any Labour Government has ever made. Since Labour and the New Social Order—the manifesto of 1918 which first committed the Party to a programme of public ownership—we have invariably adopted the Tawney technique for determining the merits of additional nationalisation:

Henry S. Salt, the Late Victorian Socialists, and Thoreau

IT is now a commonplace that the late Victorian radicals and Socialists in England were much influenced by the writings of Henry Thoreau. few key statements to this effect have been quoted and requoted iind are now accepted without serious question. For example, Henry Canby, in his 1939 biography of Thoreau, wrote: It seems probable that the first recognition of his [Thoreau's] modest but certain place in world literature came from abroad, and in England, where the nascent British Labor Party, offspring of William Morris and Marx, used Walden as a pocket-piece and travelling Bible of their faith. And rightly, for this movement, truly Fabian in character, was social rather than narrowly economic, its purpose being to restore and create and distribute true values in everyday living. Robert Blatchford's Merrie England (1895), one of the background books of English socialism, and much influenced by Thoreau, sold two million copies.' William Condry went over the same material in his essay, A Hundred Years of Walden, originally published in Dublin Magazine in 1955 and recently reprinted in Thoreau broad: It was the early socialists who took up Walden in the days when they revered Shelley and Carlyle far more than Marx and Engels.2 Walter Harding in Thoreau Handbook restated what his predecessors had been saying: It was.., .the Fabians and early Labour party members who really popularized Thoreau in England. Robert Blatchford, whose Merrie England, with a

Population and Politics

In the recent British elections only 3 subjects aroused audience response: strikes inflation and population. Although it is popular to agree that Britain is overcrowded suggestions to limit population by direct action provoke violent objections from within each party. Both Labour and Conservative party members are to be found on both sides of the population policy fence. Various arguments are then given in detail. There really is little the government can do about population. It can arrange a severe slump perhaps the best limitation on population yet devised. It could allow more old people to die off offer free lottery tickets to the sterilized or withdraw tax advantages to large families. Most of these turn out to be policies for or against the poor. Sometimes the demands for a population policy express a genuine compassion. They also express defeatism concealed racialism envy and mean-mindedness. Sadly this seems to fit the mood of Britain.

THE CASE FOR WORKERS' TAKE‐OVER G.E.C. AND U.C.S.

The Political QuarterlyVolume 43, Issue 4 p. 425-436 THE CASE FOR WORKERS' TAKE-OVER G.E.C. AND U.C.S. BRUCE SPENCER, BRUCE SPENCER *Bruce Spencer has a degree in Economics and teaches in Further Education. He began his study of “Workers' Takeover” before the events of U.C.S. and says he has received much help and information from the Labour Party members who also were past members of the Merseyside G.E.C. Action Committee.Search for more papers by this author BRUCE SPENCER, BRUCE SPENCER *Bruce Spencer has a degree in Economics and teaches in Further Education. He began his study of “Workers' Takeover” before the events of U.C.S. and says he has received much help and information from the Labour Party members who also were past members of the Merseyside G.E.C. Action Committee.Search for more papers by this author First published: October 1972 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-923X.1972.tb02062.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume43, Issue4October 1972Pages 425-436 RelatedInformation