Overview

This book comprises tales of the Labour Party in the hundred years since the first Labour government. It includes many dramatic episodes, not least the seething anger of the Glasgow rent strikes during the Great War, the looming danger of Hitler in the 1930s, and walkouts over equal pay in the 1960s. The book conjures up lost worlds which have profoundly influenced modern Britain. Above all, this book describes the ways in which the Labour Party has impacted on the lives of ordinary people. How does Labour measure up after a century of government and opposition? The book is accessible and challenges established narratives. It is also original. No-one else, for example, has written so specifically about the Labour Party and Nazi rearmament or about the Wilson government's response to the Beeching cuts. The text draws on a wide variety of sources, including the testimony of public figures such as John Betjeman, Richard Hoggart, Friedrich Engels, and George Orwell. Researched with scholarly rigour, this book will appeal to a wide audience.

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9781036407186

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Reviews

""In the 1930s, R. H. Tawney declared that Labour had to prove that its idealism wasn't lunacy nor its realism mere torpor. 'Taken as Red' authoritatively illuminates the politics, people and times when it has succeeded - and failed - to achieve the appealing combination of principle and pragmatism needed to earn power.""Lord Kinnock,Leader of the Labour Party, 1983-1992 'This book is a welcome addition to the literature on the British Labour Party, especially in the centenary year of the first Labour government. Its real strength, however, is how Government policies on health, education, housing and transport played out in the lives of families, communities and individuals. By marrying social history with high politics, this book promises to be a valuable contribution to our understanding of modern Britain. The writing is engaging, clever and colourful. Temple has the much-needed ability to convey complex arguments and dry debates with a lightness of touch that would make Orwell smile.'Dr Janette MartinUniversity of Manchester

"""In the 1930s, R. H. Tawney declared that Labour had to prove that its idealism wasn't lunacy nor its realism mere torpor. 'Taken as Red' authoritatively illuminates the politics, people and times when it has succeeded - and failed - to achieve the appealing combination of principle and pragmatism needed to earn power.""Lord Kinnock,Leader of the Labour Party, 1983-1992 'This book is a welcome addition to the literature on the British Labour Party, especially in the centenary year of the first Labour government. Its real strength, however, is how Government policies on health, education, housing and transport played out in the lives of families, communities and individuals. By marrying social history with high politics, this book promises to be a valuable contribution to our understanding of modern Britain. The writing is engaging, clever and colourful. Temple has the much-needed ability to convey complex arguments and dry debates with a lightness of touch that would make Orwell smile.'Dr Janette MartinUniversity of Manchester"

Author Information

Richard Temple is the University Archivist at Senate House Library, University of London, the UK. He has also worked for the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (UK), in West Africa, and at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. His published career includes articles for the Labour History Review, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, the Dictionary of Labour Biography, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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