Speak for Britain!

Appearing at a critical juncture in the history of the Labour Party, "Speak for Britain!" provides an original and challenging interpretation of Labour's evolution from its sectional trade union origins to its present status as a national governing party. Making use of a wide range of primary sources as well as constituency party records that reveal the dynamics of membership recruitment and the adoption of candidates, Martin Pugh challenges many traditional accounts written from the perspective of the national leadership. Controversially, he argues that Labour never entirely succeeded in becoming 'the party of the working class'. Rather than converting the whole working class to Socialism, it skilfully adapted itself to the variations in local and regional political cultures by making use of Victorian Liberal-Radical traditions in some areas and employing a populist Tory brand of politics in others. Moreover, the character of the party was shaped by the recruitment of many of its influential leaders from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds. "Speak for Britain!" charts Labour's rise to power by re-examining the importance 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. Finally, in a fresh assessment of Labour in government since 1997 Martin Pugh shows how the party became marginalized and emasculated by Tony Blair's presidential style of government. He also reveals one of the party's enduring weaknesses: the tendency to choose the wrong leaders - and then to hang on to them for too long.

ISBN 184792008X   Pages 480 ISBN13 9781847920089 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 769 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint The Bodley Head Ltd   Height (mm) 240 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 162 Publication date 04 Mar 2010   Spine width (mm) 41 DEWEY 324.24107   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

		Author's Note
1		'The votes of the football crowds': Explaining the Rise of the Labour Party		1
2		'Lily-livered Methodists': The Origins of the Labour Party		14
3		'No bigger than a man's hand': The Foundation of the Labour Party		37
4		'Not a single Socialist speech': Labour's Edwardian Breakthrough		60
5		'Come to your country's aid': Labour and the Great War		100
6		'Dollar Princess': The Emergence of a National Party in the 1920s		128
7		'Aristocratic embrace': Labour in Power		164
8		'Further from Socialism': The General Strike and Mass Unemployment, 1925-1931		184
9		'Reversal of Parts': From Crisis to Popular Front, 1932-1939		217
10		'Speak for England': Labour and the Second World War		257
11		'We are the masters now': Labour, Consensus and Affluence, 1945-1959		286
12		'A grand conception': Labour in the Wilson Era, 1960-1976		319
13		'Forward march halted': Labour in Decline, 1976-1994		353
14		'She's changed it all': Tony Blair, Lady Thatcher and New Labour, 1994-2007		387
		Notes		415
		Bibliography		437
		Index		453

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