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The people's party: the history of the Labour Party
- GenresNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1997
About the author
Tony Wright
78 books9 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 26, 2025
I've had this book since it was published in 1997 and have been meaning to read it properly ever since! I've certainly dipped into it and have looked more than once at the lavish photographic and cartoon illustrations, but just never made time to read right through the historical detail. The introduction is by Tony Blair, who changed the party dramatically, but I don't think it was really that that put me off. I did take issue with one comment in it, but not seriously, and I very much like this observation:
"We were born as a people's party; other parties had to try to become one."
So why read it now, when I have a lengthy reading list and life is short? It must have been the current 'Brexit' crisis and the sudden departure of eight MP's (so far) from the Labour Party over that issue. One thing I've always appreciated about the UK's Labour Party is their arguments - I always thought that was a sign of a healthy party. This book does not shy from detailing the splits and divisions which have acted against the electability of the Labour Party but which have also enabled it to move with the times. And yet . . . Labour is honour-bound not to move too far. There is a carefully phrased venture in this book into the controversy within the party regarding the dearly-held ‘Clause IV’, which called for:
“the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.
The proposed alteration of Clause IV raised its head, amazingly, as early as 1959, but was stayed until Tony Blair’s second attempt at it (in 1995). The text quoted above was replaced by the following:
“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”
Whatever your political inclinations, this is seriously worded down from the original. A bit like the red rose they put in place of the red flag. Yes, it says what the party aims to do; it doesn’t say how they’ll go about it.
So, I found myself skim-reading when we got to that stage of Labour Party Policy, but it was the end of the book anyway. The authors appear to have been pro-Blair, but their history of the party seemed to me fair and comprehensive. I was very moved by some of the early history, which began in the coal-mining area of South Wales, where I was brought up as a young child, and also by later events such as the death of Labour leader John Smith, whose grave I have visited on the Isle of Iona, home of kings and saints.
My judgement would be that this is an excellent book for anyone remotely interested in Britain’s political history over the twentieth century, especially, as in my case, if there is a lot of sentimental value in re-acquainting oneself with the great figures of yore, such as ‘Nye’ Bevan, who gave us our National Health Service. I gave it four stars (probably unfairly) because the authors chose to end it with a whole page of embarrassing flim-flam from Tony Blair, viz., “Let us say what we mean and mean what we say . . . . Stop saying what we don’t mean. And start saying what we do mean, what we stand by, what we stand for . . . “ (not Clause IV, obviously!). I know I’m hard on him, so I just want to say I did appreciate his stunned reaction when the present leader of the Labour Party said he would not respond to an invitation to sit down with the Prime Minister about Brexit! So I’m not completely biased. Let’s just say that the way this book presents the history of the Labour Party seemed to me to be a lucid attempt to vindicate the changes Tony Blair introduced. Like he said, “Our job is to honour the past but not live in it. I agree with him there . . . to a point!
"We were born as a people's party; other parties had to try to become one."
So why read it now, when I have a lengthy reading list and life is short? It must have been the current 'Brexit' crisis and the sudden departure of eight MP's (so far) from the Labour Party over that issue. One thing I've always appreciated about the UK's Labour Party is their arguments - I always thought that was a sign of a healthy party. This book does not shy from detailing the splits and divisions which have acted against the electability of the Labour Party but which have also enabled it to move with the times. And yet . . . Labour is honour-bound not to move too far. There is a carefully phrased venture in this book into the controversy within the party regarding the dearly-held ‘Clause IV’, which called for:
“the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.
The proposed alteration of Clause IV raised its head, amazingly, as early as 1959, but was stayed until Tony Blair’s second attempt at it (in 1995). The text quoted above was replaced by the following:
“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”
Whatever your political inclinations, this is seriously worded down from the original. A bit like the red rose they put in place of the red flag. Yes, it says what the party aims to do; it doesn’t say how they’ll go about it.
So, I found myself skim-reading when we got to that stage of Labour Party Policy, but it was the end of the book anyway. The authors appear to have been pro-Blair, but their history of the party seemed to me fair and comprehensive. I was very moved by some of the early history, which began in the coal-mining area of South Wales, where I was brought up as a young child, and also by later events such as the death of Labour leader John Smith, whose grave I have visited on the Isle of Iona, home of kings and saints.
My judgement would be that this is an excellent book for anyone remotely interested in Britain’s political history over the twentieth century, especially, as in my case, if there is a lot of sentimental value in re-acquainting oneself with the great figures of yore, such as ‘Nye’ Bevan, who gave us our National Health Service. I gave it four stars (probably unfairly) because the authors chose to end it with a whole page of embarrassing flim-flam from Tony Blair, viz., “Let us say what we mean and mean what we say . . . . Stop saying what we don’t mean. And start saying what we do mean, what we stand by, what we stand for . . . “ (not Clause IV, obviously!). I know I’m hard on him, so I just want to say I did appreciate his stunned reaction when the present leader of the Labour Party said he would not respond to an invitation to sit down with the Prime Minister about Brexit! So I’m not completely biased. Let’s just say that the way this book presents the history of the Labour Party seemed to me to be a lucid attempt to vindicate the changes Tony Blair introduced. Like he said, “Our job is to honour the past but not live in it. I agree with him there . . . to a point!
Displaying 1 of 1 review