Download or read book A History of the British Labour Party written by Andrew Thorpe and published by Palgrave MacMillan. This book was released on 2001 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Thorpe's book rapidly established itself as the leading single-volume history of the Labour Party. This second edition takes the story to 2000 with a new chapter on the development of "New Labour" and the Blair government. The reasons for the party's formation, its aims and achievements, its failure to achieve office more often, and its remarkable recovery since its problems in the 1980s, as well as key events and leading personalities, are all discussed.

Download or read book Speak for Britain written by Martin Pugh and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-03-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written at a critical juncture in the history of the Labour Party, Speak for Britain! is a thought-provoking and highly original interpretation of the party's evolution, from its trade union origins to its status as a national governing party. It charts Labour's rise to power by re-examining the impact of the First World War, the general strike of 1926, Labour's breakthrough at the 1945 general election, the influence of post-war affluence and consumerism on the fortunes and character of the party, and its revival after the defeats of the Thatcher era. Controversially, Pugh argues that Labour never entirely succeeded in becoming 'the party of the working class'; many of its influential recruits - from Oswald Mosley to Hugh Gaitskell to Tony Blair - were from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds and rather than converting the working class to socialism, Labour adapted itself to local and regional political cultures.

Download or read book The Foundations of the British Labour Party written by Matthew Worley and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Senior and up-and-coming scholars present the myriad elements that influenced the early development and political identity of the Labour Party, from the party's connections with powerful unions to the impact of socialism, religion, and other political and social movements on the new party.

Download or read book The British Labour Party in Opposition and Power 1979 2019 written by Patrick Diamond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a novel account of the Labour Party’s years in opposition and power since 1979, examining how New Labour fought to reinvent post-war social democracy, reshaping its core political ideas. It charts Labour’s sporadic recovery from political disaster in the 1980s, successfully making the arduous journey from opposition to power with the rise (and ultimately fall) of the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Forty years on from the 1979 debacle, Labour has found itself on the edge of oblivion once again. Defeated in 2010, it entered a further cycle of degeneration and decline. Like social democratic parties across Europe, Labour failed to identify a fresh ideological rationale in the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Drawing on a wealth of sources including interviews and unpublished papers, the book focuses on decisive points of transformational change in the party’s development raising a perennial concern of present-day debate – namely whether Labour is a party capable of transforming the ideological weather, shaping a new paradigm in British politics, or whether it is a party that should be content to govern within parameters established by its Conservative opponents. This text will be of interest to the general reader as well as scholars and students of British politics, British political party history, and the history of the British Labour Party since 1918.

Download or read book Your Britain written by Laura Beers and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Labour's electoral success of the late 20th century was due in no small part to its grasp of media communication. This book reminds us that the importance of the mass media to Labour's political fortunes is by no means a modern phenomenon.

Download or read book British Labour Leaders written by Charles Clarke and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the party that championed trade union rights, the creation of the NHS and the establishment of a national minimum wage, Labour has played an undoubtedly crucial role in the shaping of contemporary British society. And yet, the leaders who have stood at its helm - from Keir Hardie to Ed Miliband, via Ramsay MacDonald, Clement Attlee and Tony Blair - have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success. With the widening of the franchise, revolutionary changes to social values and the growing ubiquity of the media, the requirements, techniques and goals of Labour leadership since the party's turn-of-the twentieth- century inception have been forced to evolve almost beyond recognition - and not all its leaders have managed to keep up. This comprehensive and enlightening book considers the attributes and achievements of each leader in the context of their respective time and diplomatic landscape, offering a compelling analytical framework by which they may be judged, detailed personal biographies from some of the country's foremost political critics, and exclusive interviews with former leaders themselves. An indispensable contribution to the study of party leadership, British Labour Leaders is the essential guide to understanding British political history and governance through the prism of those who created it.

Download or read book The British Labour Party and the Wider World written by Paul Corthorn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-10-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legacy of Blair and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan continue to loom large for the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in government, giving rise to fierce debates over Labour's attitude and posture towards the wider world. This book considers the idea of Labour's international identity, examining how world events and Labour's response to them have helped to shape ideology, political culture and domestic agendas from the 1920s until the Iraq War. It provides a fascinating and original exploration of Labour both on the world stage and at home - from the influence of the Soviet Union on political thought in the interwar years to the international student revolts of the 1960s, and from media in the 1990s to Kosovo and New Labour Interventionism. This is essential reading for scholars of modern British politics, as well as anyone interested in the motivations and influences behind the Labour Party's actions on the world stage.

Download or read book The Labour Party Nationalism and Internationalism 1939 1951 written by R. M. Douglas and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War was a watershed moment in foreign policy for the Labour Party in Britain. Before the war, British socialists had held that nationalism was becoming obsolete and that humanity was steadily evolving towards the ideal of a single world government. The collapse of the League of Nations destroyed this optimistic vision, compelling Labour to undertake a fundamental review of its entire approach to foreign affairs during a period of unprecedented global crisis. This book traces the controversy that ensued, as the British democratic left set about the task of defining the principles of a radically new international system for the postwar world. The schemes proposed by Labour policymakers during these years encompassed a wide variety of political institutions aiming at the restraint or supersession of the sovereign nation-state. What they shared in common, however, was a reconceptualization of British identity, in which the hyper-patriotism of the wartime period blended with the left's traditional internationalism. This new 'muscular' internationalism was to have a major impact upon the evolution of entities as diverse as the United Nations Organizations, the British Commonwealth and the accelerating campaign in favor of European unity after Labour assumed the reins of government in 1945. Breaking with the traditional accounts that place Cold War tensions at the centre of the Attlee government's activities in the immediate postwar years, R.M. Douglas's book provides an entirely new framework for reassessing British foreign policy and left-wing concepts of national identity during the most turbulent moment of Britain's modern history. This book will be essential reading for all students and researchers of British foreign policy, the Labour Party and international relations.

Download or read book The Labour Party and the World Volume 1 written by Rhiannon Vickers and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of a set tracing the evolution of the Labour Party's foreign policy during the 20th century, this text assesses the development and evolution of Labour's world-view and follows its foreign policy during World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Cold War.

Download or read book The People s Flag and the Union Jack written by Gerry Hassan and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British Labour Party has at times been a force for radical change in the UK, but one critical aspect of its makeup has been consistently misunderstood and underplayed: its Britishness. Throughout the party's history, its Britishness has been an integral part of how it has done politics, acted in government and opposition, and understood the UK and its nations and regions. The People's Flag and the Union Jack is the first comprehensive account of how Labour has tried to understand Britain and Britishness and to compete in a political landscape defined by conservative notions of nation, patriotism and tradition. At a time when many of the party faithful regard national identity as a toxic subject, academics Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw argue that Labour's Britishness and its ambiguous relationship with issues of nationalism matter more today than ever before, and will continue to matter for the foreseeable future, when the UK is in fundamental crisis. As debate rages about Brexit, and the prospect of Scottish independence remains live, this timely intervention, featuring contributions from a wealth of pioneering thinkers, offers an illuminating and perceptive insight into Labour's past, present and future.

Download or read book Labour Inside the Gate written by Matthew Worley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1906, a confident Labour Party felt that it was already rattling the governing classes. Its campaigning cartoon, which gives this book its title, showed the party wielding an axe towards the gates of Parliament, cutting through the special interests protecting the old system to aid the working classes. What followed was the remarkable transformation of a parliamentary pressure group into a credible governing force. The inter-war years were a crucial stage in the development of the Labour Party as it grew from pressure group status, to national opposition, to party of government. At the end of the Great War (1914-1918) Labour had a developing national organisation and a fledgling constitution. By 1922, it rivalled the war-ravaged Liberals as the party of opposition; a fact that was affirmed with the formation of the first minority Labour government in January 1924. The second Labour administration of 1929 collapsed amidst the whirlwind of the 'great depression' but the organisational basis of the party remained solid allowing Labour to reinvent itself over the 1930s. By the Second World War, the foundations had been laid for the landslide victory that brought in the Attlee government of 1945. Matthew Worley has written the first study dedicated solely to this crucial period in Labour's development. In an accessible style, he provides a comprehensive account of all aspects of the movement. Using a wide range of sources, he explores this often-marginalised period in Labour's history both looking at the parliamentary party and the growing network of constituency parties. Worley's approach unites high politics and issues that cross local and national boundaries. He combines policy, social history and economics with broader themes such as gender and culture. Labour inside the Gate will appeal to students and scholars as well as all those interested in Labour's history. Its new insights into the 1945 landslide victory illuminate this important period in the growth of the Labour Party as it continues to redefine and realign itself as the new “party of government”

Download or read book Popular Newspapers the Labour Party and British Politics written by James Thomas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-05-07 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the relationship between the popular press and the Labour Party from the early twentieth century through the Second World War and up to the current day.

Download or read book Labour Party A Marxist History written by Tony Cliff and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party has given hope to millions of Labour supporters who were deeply disillusioned by Blair's New Labour. Corbyn stands for opposition to war and neo-liberalism but the Labour Party itself is deeply divided, with many in its parliamentary leadership openly opposed to the hopes of its new mass membership. Can the Labour Party become the vehicle for socialism in Britain? This path breaking Marxist history of the British Labour Party was first published in 1988. This new and updated third edition contains additional chapters on New Labour and Labour Under Corbyn.

Download or read book Labour And The Gulag written by Giles Udy and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Labour Party welcomed the Russian Revolution in 1917: it paved the way for the birth of a socialist superpower and ushered in a new era in Soviet governance. Labour excused the Bolshevik excesses and prepared for its own revolution in Britain. In 1929, Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to work in labour camps. Subjected to appalling treatment, thousands died. When news of the camps leaked out in Britain, there were protests demanding the government ban imports of timber cut by slave labourers. The Labour government of the day dismissed mistreatment claims as Tory propaganda and blocked appeals for an inquiry. Despite the Cabinet privately acknowledging the harsh realities of the work camps, Soviet denials were publicly repeated as fact. One Labour minister even defended them as part of 'a remarkable economic experiment'. Labour and the Gulag explains how Britain's Labour Party was seduced by the promise of a socialist utopia and enamoured of a Russian Communist system it sought to emulate. It reveals the moral compromises Labour made, and how it turned its back on the people in order to further its own political agenda.

Download or read book The Labour Party and Foreign Policy written by John Callaghan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-04-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a penetrating new study of the Labour Party’s thinking on international relations, which probes the past, present and future of the party’s approach to the international stage. The foreign policy of the Labour Party is not only neglected in most histories of the party, it is also often considered in isolation from the party’s origins, evolution and major domestic preoccupations. Yet nothing has been more divisive and more controversial in Labour’s history than the party’s foreign and defence policies and their relationship to its domestic programme. Much more has turned on this than the generation of tempestuous conference debates. Labour’s credentials as a credible prospect for Governmental office were thought to depend on a responsible approach to foreign and defence policy. Its exclusion from office was often said to stem from a failure to meet this test, as in the 1950s. The composition of Labour Cabinets was powerfully influenced by foreign and defence considerations, as was the centralization of power and decision-making within Labour Governments. The domestic achievements and failures of these periods in office were inextricably connected to international questions. The Labour Party and Foreign Policy is recommended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in British politics and European history.

Download or read book Interpreting the Labour Party written by John Callaghan and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book begins with an in-depth analysis of how to study the Labour Party, and goes on to examine key periods in the development of the ideologies to which the party has subscribed. This includes the ideology on inter-war Labourism, the rival post-war perspectives on Labourism, the New Left, and the "contentious alliance" of unions with Labour. Key thinkers analysed include: Henry Pelling; Ross McKibbin; Ralph Miliband; Lewis Minkin; David Marquand; Perry Anderson; and Tom Nairn. Each chapter situates its subject matter in the context of a broader intellectual legacy, including the works of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Theodore Rothstein, Stuart Hall and Samuel Beer, among others. This book should be of interest to undergraduate students of British politics and political theory and to academics concerned with Labour politics and history, trade union history and politics, research methodology and political analysis.

Download or read book The Irish Labour Party 1922 73 written by Niamh Puirséil and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first fifty years of the state saw Ireland change dramatically, and the Irish Labour Party changed with it. Using a wealth of new material, Niamh Puirseil traces the party's fortunes through its first fifty years in the Dail, from its perceived role as the 'political wing of the St Vincent de Paul' to its promise that the 1970s would be socialist. As well as examining the competing currents in the party itself, she also looks at Labour's relationship with different organisations and movements, including trade unions, republicans, the far left, the Catholic Church, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, as well as with other Social Democratic parties in Britain and Northern Ireland. "The Irish Labour Party, 1922-1973" is an outstanding contribution to the political history of twentieth-century Ireland. Over the course of the book, Niamh Puirseil charts the ever-depressing fortunes of the Labour party. Her exhaustive research provides a penetrating analysis of the myriad personalities and structures of the Labour Party, and shows a new picture of a party that seemed throughout the period to be hell bent on pressing the self-destruct button.This book offers a fresh and insightful look at a party riven by factions throughout its existence, and one that never reached its potential for a variety of reasons all outlined here. This book marks a major contribution to our understanding, not simply of the Labour Party, but of twentieth-century Ireland itself.