Labour Party (UK)

Encyclopedia : L : LA : LAB : Labour Party (UK)

Labour Party




Leader	Tony Blair

Founded	February 27, 1900
Headquarters	16 Old Queen Street London, SW1H 9HP

Political Ideology	Social Democracy, Democratic socialism (Charter)
Political Position	Centre-left
International Affiliation	Socialist International
European Affiliation	Party of European Socialists
European Parliament Group	PES
Colours	Red

Website	[www.labour.org.uk]

See also	Politics of the U.K. Political parties Elections

The Labour Party has, since the early twentieth century, been the principal left wing political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently the party of government in the UK as a whole, and also in national and regional parliaments or assemblies in Scotland, Wales and London. It won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, and formed its first government since 1979 under the Premiership of Tony Blair. It retained its position with another large victory in the 2001 general election, and a smaller one (taking 35.3% of the popular vote) in 2005.

Labour grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century. The party describes itself as "a democratic socialist party" [link]; however, under Tony Blair's leadership, the party has adopted a number of neo-liberal policies in the wake of the electoral successes of Margaret Thatcher. Furthermore, party electoral manifestos have not contained the term 'socialism' since 1992. Thus, there has been some argument over recent years as to the party's present ideological status; social democracy, radical centrism, authoritarianism, and conservatism have all been suggested.

Contents

Structure

Tony Blair, Leader of the Labour Party since 1994

The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions, socialist societies, and the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making bodies, on a national level, formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference, and National Policy Forum (NPF) - although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say. Questions of internal party democracy have frequently provoked disputes in the party.

For many years Labour has had a policy of Irish unity by consent, and did not allow residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining, but the National Executive has decided not to organise or contest elections there.

The party had 201,374 members on 31 December, 2004 according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission. In that year it had an income of about £29,000,000 (of which £3,500,000 from membership fees) and expenditure of about £32,000,000. [link]

History

Early years

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century, when it became apparent that there was an increasing need for a political party to represent the interests and needs of the large working-class population. (See for instance, the 1899 Lyons vs. Wilkins judgement that limited certain types of picketing.) Some members of the trade union movement were interested in moving into the political field and after the extension of the franchise to working class men in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party had endorsed some trade union-sponsored candidates. In addition several small socialist groups had been formed which wanted to link to the movement and give it a wider policy. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society (an intellectual group whose members were mainly middle-class), the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

James Keir Hardie, one of Labour's first MPs

In 1899 a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all the left-wing organisations and form them into a single body which would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages including by the TUC and this special conference was held at the International Hall, Farringdon Street, London on February 27-28, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing about one-third of the membership of the TUC sent delegates.

The Conference created an association called the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), and it was to have acted as a body coordinating attempts to elect to Parliament members who had been sponsored by trade unions as representing the working-class population. It had no single leader. In default of any other candidate, the Independent Labour Party's nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 'Khaki election' came too soon for the new party to effectively campaign. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.

Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case - a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared uninterested in the problems of working people. In the 1902-03 period the LRC won two by-elections.

In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats - helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay Macdonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone which aimed at avoiding Labour/Liberal contests in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.

In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to take the name "The Labour Party" (February 15, 1906). James Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have an individual membership until 1918 and operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies until that date. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement.

In the two elections in 1910, Labour gained 40 seats and 42 seats respectively. And support grew further for Labour during the 1910-1914 period as a result of an unprecedented scale of strike action. Seamen, rail workers, cotton workers, coal miners, dockers and many other groups all organised strikes, with many sympathy strikes also occurring. This increase in action can partly be explained by the recession of 1908-09 and subsequent rise in unemployment, as well as the growing support for radical change among the working-class (such as support for syndicalism). This was no doubt helped by the sometimes heavy-handed measures of the Liberal government; Winston Churchill sent in troops to the Rhondda valley in 1910 to deal with coal miners, resulting in some fatalities.

The first Labour government (1923)

During the First World War the Labour Party split between supporters and opponents of the conflict. Ramsay MacDonald, a notable anti-war campaigner, resigned as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Arthur Henderson became the main figure of authority within the Party and was soon accepted into H. H. Asquith's War Cabinet. Despite the mainstream Labour Party's support for the Coalition, the Independent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing mobilisation through organisations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship.

The unease within the Party grew as the First World War went on, and this was reflected in a number of wildcat unofficial strikes organised by a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party. Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917, reflecting a desire for peace which united the Party. The growth in Labour's local activist base and organisation was reflected in the elections following the War, with the co-operative movement now providing its own resources to the Co-operative Party following the end of hostilities. The Co-operative Party later reached an electoral agreement with the Labour Party.

The Liberal Party split - between factions supporting leader David Lloyd George and former leader H. H. Asquith - allowed the Labour Party to co-opt some of the Liberals' support, and by the 1922 general election Labour had supplanted the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives.

Labour's main electoral bases were in the industrial areas of Northern England, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales. Because of the concentrated geographical nature of Labour's support, industrial downturns tended to hit Labour voters directly. Anecdotal evidence suggests that party membership was often working-class, but also included many middle-class radicals, former liberals and socialists. Accordingly, branches in London and the South of England displayed a general tendency to be more left-wing or radical than those in the primary industrial areas.

Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister, 1924, 1929–1935

Labour formed its first government with Liberal support in January 1924, with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister; the government collapsed after only nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry which MacDonald had declared an issue of confidence. The ensuing general election saw the publication four days before polling day of the infamous Zinoviev Letter implicating Labour in a plot for a Communist revolution, and the Conservatives returned to power. The Zinoviev letter is now generally believed to have been a forgery.

The split under MacDonald

the original 'liberty' logo, in use until 1983

In the election of May 1929, Labour was returned for the first time as the largest party. Ramsay MacDonald's second stint as Prime Minister involved the great depression and as a result MacDonald inherited many of the troubles of the previous Conservative government. After consultation with King George V, MacDonald sought re-election in 1931, on a cross-party platform. Although MacDonald accepted the apparent need for this, many of his Labour party colleagues were horrified and refused to enter a coaltion with the Conservatives. As a result MacDonald sought re-election as Prime Minister without his party's backing and created a new party - the new National Labour party - which was made up of those ministers from the Labour party who accepted the coalition.

Post-War victory to the 1960s

Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister 1964-1970 and 1974-1976

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and withdrew from the government to contest the subsequent general election (July 5) in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers (especially overseas), Labour won a landslide majority, reflecting voters' perception of it as the party most likely to carry through wartime promises of reform.

Clement Attlee's government was one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century. It presided over a policy of selective nationalisation (the Bank of England, coal, electricity, gas, the railways and iron & steel). It developed the "cradle to grave" welfare state under health minister Aneurin Bevan. And to this day the party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's tax-funded National Health Service its proudest achievement.

However, deepening divisions which led to the Cold War prompted Attlee's government to make a secret decision to proceed with Britain's nuclear deterrent. Defence became one of the divisive issues for Labour itself, especially the amount of money Britain was spending on defence (which reached 10% of GDP in 1950 as a result of the Korean War). Aneurin Bevan eventually left the government over this issue. The government also faced a fuel crisis and a balance of payments crisis in 1947. Labour narrowly lost power to the Conservatives in October 1951, despite actually winning more votes.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the party became split between moderate modernisers led by Hugh Gaitskell, which were associated with the main trade unions, and more traditional socialist elements within the party. This split, and the fact that the public was broadly content with the Conservative governments of the period, which had preserved most of the changes made by the Attlee government, kept the party out of power for thirteen years.

However, in the early 1960s, a series of scandals such as the Profumo affair engulfed the Conservative government, and damaged its popularity. The Conservative party was also seen as being out of touch with the changing country, and the economy began to turn down. Thus the Labour party returned to government under Harold Wilson in the 1964 election, and remained in power until the 1970 election.

The 1960s Labour government had a different emphasis from its 1940s predecessor. Harold Wilson famously referred to the "white heat of technology", referring to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through the swift adoption of new technology, aided by government infrastructure and the creation of large high-tech public sector corporations guided by a Ministry of Technology. The general direction of economic policy tended to support a mixed economy. There were no plans for further significant nationalisation. Economic planning, through the new Department for Economic Affairs, was to improve the trade balance, whilst carefully targeted taxation was aimed at "luxury" services.

The Conservatives had themselves had difficulty managing the British economy in accordance with the Keynesian consensus, but the position was worse for Labour, which the international markets instinctively mistrusted. Events de-railed much of the initial optimism, especially in a currency crisis which mounted until 1967 when the government was forced into devaluation of the pound. The pressure on sterling was intensified by disagreements over US foreign policy. Harold Wilson's refusal to provide British troops for the Vietnam War infuriated President Johnson and as a result of this, the US government felt little obligation to support the pound. For much of the remaining Parliament, the government followed strict controls in public spending, including some austerity measures which caused consternation amongst the Party membership and trades unions.

But Labour did introduce several key new laws which both reflected and encouraged social change, such as the partial legalisation of homosexuality and abortion, the abolition of the death penalty and action to improve race relations and reduce racial discrimination. Another significant achievement was the Open University. In Wilson's defence, his supporters could also point to the ending of means testing for supplementary social benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of benefits relating to industrial injury.

The 1970s

In the 1970 general election, Edward Heath's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government, reflecting some disillusionment amongst many who had voted Labour in 1966. Wilson's party won power again in February 1974. After a period of minority government, they achieved a small majority in a second general election in October 1974, also under Harold Wilson.

However the 1970s proved to be a disastrous time for any party to be in government. Faced with a mishandled oil crisis, a consequent world-wide economic downturn, and a badly suffering British economy, Governments were forced to take an interventionist approach, and companies such as British Leyland were nationalised to prevent their collapse. Pressure on sterling compounded these problems, and by the middle of the decade 1½ million people were unemployed in the UK - a previously unthinkable figure.

The Labour Party itself had adopted a left-wing agenda, 'Labour's Programme 1973', a document which pledged to bring about a 'fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.' This programme referred to a 'far reaching Social Contract between workers and the Government.' Wilson publicly accepted many of the left-wing implications of the Programme but the condition of the economy allowed little room for manouevre. Despite the economic difficulties faced, however, the 1970s Labour governments did succeed in introducing enduring social democratic reforms such as the introduction of child benefit and redundancy pay.

In 1976, citing his desire to retire on his sixtieth birthday, Wilson stood down as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, and was replaced by James Callaghan. The latter immediately removed a number of left-wingers such as Barbara Castle from the Ministerial team. In the autumn of 1976, the Labour Government felt obliged to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan to ease the economy through its financial troubles. Conditions attached to the loan meant the adoption of a more liberal economic programme by the Labour Government, meaning a move away from the party's traditional policy base. In the end, the Labour Government did not take out the IMF loan, causing some to dispute whether it was actually needed in the first place.

In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that the issue of Scottish devolution was becoming increasingly fraught - especially after the discovery and exploitation of North Sea Oil which signalled the turning point of the UK economy after 1978.

Ultimately, the economic problems facing the Labour Government of the 1970s, and the political difficulties of Scottish and Welsh devolution, proved too great for it to surmount despite an arrangement negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab Pact. In 1979, they faced the disastrous "Winter of Discontent", and in the 1979 general election, they suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher.

The Thatcher years

The aftermath of the election defeat in 1979 provoked a period of bitter internal rivalry in Labour. From the mid 1970s, the party had become divided between left wingers under Michael Foot and Tony Benn, whose supporters dominated the party organisation at grassroots level, and right wingers under Denis Healey. After the defeat, the left had the upper hand when it asserted that the government had become unpopular because it had alienated its base by compromising and needed to regain it by moving to a more left-wing policy.

The Thatcher government followed an uncompromising approach, and the deflationary budget of 1980 led to substantial cuts in welfare spending and a massive rise in unemployment. State assistance for struggling industries was dropped, leading to recession and massive redundancies in many Labour-supporting regions of the country. However, legislation extending the right to buy council houses was attractive to many Labour voters, having previously been referred to in Labour's own 1970 election manifesto.

The election of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) veteran Michael Foot to the leadership disturbed many on the Atlanticist right of the Party. Other changes increased their concern; the constituencies were given the ability to easily deselect sitting MPs and a new voting system in leadership elections was introduced. This gave party activists and affiliated trade unions a vote. It led to the decision by the Gang of Four (former Labour cabinet ministers) on January 26, 1981, to issue the 'Limehouse Declaration', and then to form the Social Democratic Party. The departure of even more right-wingers further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference.

Logo introduced in 1983 after Labour's disastrous election campaign

Led by Michael Foot, who was increasingly unpopular with the public, the party went into the 1983 general election with a manifesto dominated by the politics of the party's left-wing. The manifesto contained pledges for unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Community (EC), and mass nationalisation of industry. Leaders of the right wing had not resisted the manifesto, because they hoped that a landslide defeat would discredit the policies. The 1983 manifesto was famously described by the Labour politician Gerald Kaufman as being 'the longest suicide note in history'.

The right-wing press wasted no time in attacking the party's manifesto and the style of campaigning which the Party adopted, which tended to rely upon public meetings and canvassing rather than media. By contrast, the Conservatives ran a slick campaign which played on fears of a repeat of the Winter of Discontent. Labour's chances of electoral success were further damaged by the fact that the Thatcher government's popularity was on the rise after successfully guiding the country to victory in the Falklands War. This bolstered Thatcher, who had previously been low in the polls because of the severe economic downturn.

After a landslide defeat at the 1983 election, Michael Foot immediately resigned. He was replaced by Neil Kinnock, who though initially a firebrand left-winger had generally supported Foot and was seen as more pragmatic. Through his leadership Kinnock progressively moved the party to the centre; he vastly intensified moves to expel left-wing groups such as the Militant Tendency which represented views no longer supported by the party leadership, and further changed party policy to support EC membership. And from 1985, Peter Mandelson as Director of Communications helped to modernise the party's image.

At the 1987 general election, the party was again defeated in a landslide, but had established itself as the clear challengers to the Conservatives and had fought an effective campaign. Kinnock easily retained the party leadership when challenged from the left in 1988, and continued his reform of the party. Re-organisation resulted in the dissolution of the Labour Party Young Socialists, which was thought to be harbouring entryist Militant groups. It also resulted in a more centralised communication structure, enabling a greater degree of flexibility for the leadership to determine policy, react to events and direct resources.

During this time the Labour Party emphasised the abandonment of its links to high taxation and old style nationalisation, which aimed to show that the party was moving away from the left wing of the political spectrum and moving towards the centre. It also became actively pro-European, supporting further moves to European integration.

By the time of the 1992 general election, the party had reformed to such an extent that it was perceived as a credible government. Most opinion polls showed the party with a slight lead over the Conservatives, although rarely sufficient for a majority. However, the party ended up 8% behind the Conservatives in the popular vote, a result which was considered one of the biggest surprises in British electoral history. In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the 'Shadow Budget' announced by John Smith had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition, Neil Kinnock's seeming triumphalism at a party rally in Sheffield eight days before polling day had appeared presumptuous.

Kinnock resigned after the defeat, blaming the overwhelming preponderance of Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure. John Smith, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was elected to succeed him.

Smith's leadership saw a degree of tension between those who preferred progressive change and others who identified as 'modernisers' and advocated a further wholesale revision of the party's stance. At the 1993 conference, Smith successfully changed the party rules so that trade unions had less say in the selection of candidates to stand for Parliament, by introducing a one member, one vote system but only just carried the day after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott and compromising on other matters in individual negotiations. However in May 1994, Smith died suddenly from a heart attack.

New Labour

Origins

The infamous "New Labour, New Danger" poster, which backfired on the Conservatives

"New Labour" is an alternative branding for the Labour Party that originated in 1994. The name is primarily used by the party itself in its literature but is also sometimes used by political commentators and the wider media; it was also the basis of a Conservative Party poster campaign of 1997, headlined "New Labour, New Danger". The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections.

The name "New Labour" originates from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994, which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. However the term was intended to incorporate a wider rebranding of the party in the eyes of the electorate. The new name coincided with the re-writing of Clause IV of the party's constitution in 1995. Peter Mandelson was a senior figure in this process, and exercised a great deal of authority in the party following the death of John Smith and the subsequent election of Tony Blair as party leader.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of New Labour. They were among the most prominent advocates of the right-wing shift in European social democracy during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way". The use of "New" echoes slogans in American politics, particularly those of the Democratic Party, such as Roosevelt's New Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier and Clinton's New Covenant.

The name change coincided with a dramatic revival of the party's fortunes. The "modernisation" of Labour party policy, and the unpopularity of the Conservative government, greatly increased Labour's appeal to "middle England". The party was concerned not to put off potential voters who had previously supported the Conservatives, and pledged to keep to the spending plans of the previous government, and not to increase the basic rate of income tax. After being unexpectedly defeated for a fourth consecutive time in the 1992 election, the party won the 1997 election with a majority of 179. Following a period of government and in particular after a second and third election victory in the 2001 election and the 2005 election, the name has diminished in significance in British political life. The Labour Party is generally referred to in the media as 'the Government' rather than 'New Labour'. However, the name is still used in party literature.

In government

right

One of the first acts of the 1997 Labour government was to give the Bank of England operational independence in setting interest rates, a move that had not been foreshadowed in the manifesto or during the election campaign. Labour also held to its pledges to keep to the spending plans set by the Conservatives, causing strain with those members of the party who had hoped that the landslide would lead to more radical policies.

Since 1997 Labour's economic policy has sought to balance the laissez-faire capitalism of the Thatcherite era with measures that would lessen or reverse their negative impact on society. Consequently one of the most popular policies introduced was Britain's first National Minimum Wage Act, a policy negotiated by Labour's affiliated trade unions in return for accepting the change to Clause IV of the party constitution. There have also been various programs which have been targeted at specific groups of the population: the target for reducing the level of homelessness was achieved by 2000. Chancellor Gordon Brown oversaw the SureStart scheme intended for young families, a new system of tax credits for those working with below-average incomes and an energy allowance provided to pensioners during the winter. By most statistical measures, unemployment has fallen from just over 1.5 million in 1997 to around or just below the one million mark.

Other moves appear in contradiction to the above; for example in December 1997, 47 left-wing Labour MPs rebelled when the government carried through the previous administration's plans to cut the benefits paid to new lone parents. Tuition fees for university students were introduced, without a debate within the Labour Party itself. The government also promoted wider use of Public Private Partnerships and the Private Finance Initiative, which were opposed particularly by trade unions as a form of privatisation.

In practice, the New Labour government has also been far closer to large corporations and rich businessmen than any previous Labour government. This could have influenced the range and type of policies pursued as many of the Policy Taskforces instigated in 1997 and 1998 found a place for large numbers of industrialists, including Lord Simon, a former chairman of BP, Lord Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, and Alec Reed of Reed Employment. There have been various reports regarding the effect of such close links and policies such as Public-Private Partnership schemes, deregulation of utilities, privatisation and the tendency to outsource government services. And the policy role of the Labour Party itself in the New Labour government could arguably be described as fairly minor.

Labour's second term saw substantial increases in public spending, especially on the National Health Service, which the government insisted must be linked to the reforms it was proposing. Spending on education was likewise increased, with schools encouraged to adopt "specialisms". The Prime Minister's spokesman Alastair Campbell was much criticised however by education professionals and teachers' trade unions when he stated that this policy meant the end of "the bog-standard comprehensive".

In terms of foreign policy Labour aspired to put Britain "at the heart of Europe" whilst attempting to maintain military and diplomatic links to the United States. Initially, Robin Cook, as Foreign Secretary of the first Blair Cabinet, attempted to instigate an "ethical foreign policy". Whilst the next Foreign Secretary Jack Straw somewhat downplayed this, in theoretical policy terms, the Party has sought to put the promotion of human rights and democracy at the core of British foreign and security policy. This led to a new emphasis on the Department for International Development, with ministers Clare Short and Hilary Benn holding some influence within the administration. Tony Blair managed to persuade Bill Clinton to take a more active role in Kosovo in 1999, and UK forces assisted in the international coalition which attacked the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.

The UK was also one of the allies of the United States that actually participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The decision to engage in the conflict was met with much public disapproval, and many called Tony Blair's credibility into question when doubts emerged as to whether intelligence concerning Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was at all reliable. This loss of support contributed to the substantial reduction of Labour's majority in the 2005 general election. The Blair governments have also cracked down on the perceived terrorist threat since 9/11], leading to some claims that they are undermining civil liberties and the rule of law.

New Labour in the media

New Labour (as a series of values) is often characterised as a belief in 'no rights without responsibilities', i.e., that a citizen should recognise that s/he possesses responsibilities linked with any legal rights they hold. The concept of a 'stakeholder society' is quite prominent in New Labour thinking. As noted above, New Labour thought also embraces the notion of the "Third Way", although critics pointed to the lack of any concise statement of its meaning, and the term later fell from use.

The name "New Labour" has also been widely satirised. Critics associate the new name with an unprecedented use of 'spin doctoring' in the party's relationship with media. The Conservative Party attempted to tarnish the new Labour tag during the 1997 election campaign using the slogan 'New Labour, New Danger'. After Gordon Brown's budgets became more and more Keynesian, Private Eye began to call the party 'New' Labour. Oddly, it continues to do so even in articles relating an example of privatisation or free-market initiatives by Labour (a frequent theme, especially in Doing the Rounds, the medical column, and In the Back, the investigative section), or other right-wing or authoritarian policies, in which context the ironic inverted commas would be more appropriate around "Labour" than around "New".

In left-wing circles, the name "New Labour" or Neo Labour is used pejoratively to refer to the perceived domination of the Labour Party by its right-wing. Indeed, some socialists argue that Labour has become so fond of neo-liberal policies it is Thatcherite rather than democratic socialist. Whilst in theory the Labour Party has remained a social democratic organisation, there remain unresolved questions regarding the centralised and highly personalised style of leadership and a tendency to create policy "on the hoof", to co-incide with opinions expressed in the media and newspapers. Former Shadow Cabinet member Bryan Gould characterised the resulting policy confusion as a "soufflé of good intentions."

The Labour Party today

Labour, the incumbent party displayed campaign posters, even prior to the 2005 election being called. This one is seen in Brighton in mid-January, 2005.

The party's popularity has declined since 2001 with a sharp drop in membership reported. Nevertheless, Labour won the 2005 general election with a majority of 66 (now 64 following a by-election loss to the Liberal Democrats). This was despite taking only 35.3% of the popular vote.

However a recent poll from 'The Populus poll' in The Times suggested support for Labour was at its lowest level since 1992 at just 30%. It put the Conservatives on 38% and the Liberal Democrats on 20%. It also suggests Conservative leader David Cameron, is preferred to both the prime minister and his likely successor, Gordon Brown.

Tony Blair originally said that he would serve a full third term, which implied that he would retire in 2010 at the very latest. However, he has recently faced defeat in the House of Commons over controversial policies, and his authority is increasingly coming under question in the media and on the Labour back-benches. After Labour endured further defeat in the 2006 local elections, Blair announced that he would give "ample" time for his successor to settle in to Downing Street before the next general election, which suggests his resignation may be imminent.

If the pattern of recent elections is followed, the next election will be held around June 2009. This would suggest the announcement of Blair's resignation by Summer 2008 to allow for the leadership election and a "coronation" at the party conference in the autumn. Following the alleged Granita agreement, Gordon Brown, the long serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been widely expected to succeed Blair and become Labour Leader and Prime Minister.

Ex-Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has said recently he expects there to be a leadership contest when Tony Blair steps down. A potential competitor to Gordon Brown could be current Home Secretary, John Reid. Also many tip Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Miliband, to be Blair's real preference to succeed him.

The May 2006 council elections

On 4th May 2006, the Labour Party lost over 300 councillors across England. The main gainers on the night were the Conservative party, who had their best results since 1992. Elsewhere, the British National Party and the Green Party increased their numbers of councillors by 26 and 20 respectively.[link] The election followed the release of 1,043 foreign prisoners by the Home Office without being considered for deportation; nursing redundancies sparked by deficits within the National Health Service, resulting in the Health Secretary being heckled at the annual conference of the Royal College of Nursing; and the two-year extra-marital affair that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had with his assistant private secretary Tracey Temple.

Following the poor election results, Tony Blair has been forced into an earlier than planned cabinet reshuffle, and there is renewed speculation about the date of his planned exit as Prime Minister.

Other current issues

Scotland Yard is currently (April 2006) investigating claims that people were offered seats in the unelected House of Lords in return for donations and loans to the party (see cash for peerages scandal).

Accusations of a small number of Labour activists attempting to rig the elections in some council wards in the recent local elections have been put forward. This all centres around the controversial postal voting system.

The government faces continued controversy over the Education Reform Bill. This provides for greater financial autonomy for state schools, whilst reducing local government control, and has provoked a large parliamentary rebellion, forcing the leadership to depend on support from the opposition Conservative Party. The Bill has also resulted in outspoken criticism from those in the mainstream of the Party, such as former leader Neil Kinnock.

The introduction of identity cards promises to be a process fraught with difficulty, as civil liberties groups increasingly aim to sabotage and undermine the creation of a biometric identity database. However, despite opposition from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour MPs, the Bill has passed through all of its readings in the Commons so far.

Leaders of the Labour Party since 1906

From 1906 until 1922 the leader was formally "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party".

Keir Hardie 1906–1908
Arthur Henderson 1908–1910
George Nicoll Barnes 1910–1911
Ramsay MacDonald 1911–1914
Arthur Henderson 1914–1917
William Adamson 1917–1921
John Robert Clynes 1921–1922

From 1922 until 1970, the leader was formally "Leader of the Labour Party" and "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party". However these two posts were occasionally split, usually when the party was in government or when the leader of the party did not sit in the House of Commons.

Ramsay MacDonald 1922–1931
Arthur Henderson 1931–1932

Arthur Henderson lost his seat in the Commons a couple of months after becoming leader. For the remainder of his leadership, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party was George Lansbury.

George Lansbury 1932–1935
Clement Attlee 1935–1955
Hugh Gaitskell 1955–1963 (died in office)
George Brown 18 January 1963 to 14 February 1963 (interim leader pending a new election)
Harold Wilson 1963–1976

In 1970, the posts of "Leader of the Labour Party" and "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party" were split, with the latter having no policy role.

James Callaghan 1976–1980
Michael Foot 1980–1983
Neil Kinnock 1983–1992
John Smith 1992–1994 (died in office)
Margaret Beckett 12 May 1994 to 21 July 1994 (interim leader pending a new election)
Tony Blair 1994–present

Deputy leaders of the Labour Party since 1922

John Robert Clynes 1922–1931
Jointly John Robert Clynes 1931–1932 and William Graham 1931–1932 (died in office)
Clement Attlee 1932–1935
Arthur Greenwood 1935–1945
Herbert Morrison 1945–1955
James Griffiths 1955–1959
Aneurin Bevan 1959–1960 (died in office)
George Brown 1960–1970
Roy Jenkins 1970–1972
Edward Short 1972–1976
Michael Foot 1976–1980
Denis Healey 1980–1983
Roy Hattersley 1983–1992
Margaret Beckett 1992–1994
John Prescott 1994–present.

References

External links

Political parties in the United Kingdom
Represented in the British House of Commons>House of Commons (646) :	Labour (356) \| Conservatives (197) \| Liberal Democrats (63) \| DUP (9) \| SNP (6) \| Sinn Féin (abstentionist) (5) \| Plaid Cymru (3) \| SDLP (3) \| Ind KHHC (1) \| Independent (1) \| Respect (1) \| UUP (1)
Represented in the Scottish Parliament (129):	Labour (50) \| SNP (27) \| Conservative and Unionists (17) \| Liberal Democrats (17) \| Scottish Green Party (7) \| Scottish Socialist Party (6) \| Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party (1) \| Independent (5)
Represented in the National Assembly for Wales>Welsh Assembly (60):	Labour (29) \| Plaid Cymru (12) \| Conservatives (11) \| Liberal Democrats (6) \| Forward Wales (1) \| Vacant (1)
Represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly (108)	DUP (32) \| UUP (25) \| Sinn Féin (24) \| SDLP (18) \| Alliance (6) \| UKUP (1) \| Independent (2)
Represented in the London Assembly (25):	Conservatives (9) \| Labour (7) \| Liberal Democrats (5) \| Greens (E&W) (2) \| One London (2)
Represented in the European Parliament (72 out of 732):	Conservatives (ED, 26) \| Labour (PES, 19) \| Liberal Democrats (ELDR, 12) \| UKIP (ID, 10) \| Greens (E&W) (EGP, 2) \| SNP (EFA, 2) \| DUP (EUD¹, 1) \| Plaid Cymru (EFA, 1) \| Sinn Féin (EUL, 1) \| UUP (ED, 1) \| Independent (NA, 2)
Minor parties:	British National Party \| Socialist Labour \| Liberal \| English Democrats
1. DUP MEP Jim Allister is a member of the EUD, whilst the DUP itself remains non-affiliated.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.