Labour Party Politics and the Working Class

By the late 1960s the shift of the Labour party away from its traditional base among the urban working class appeared to be gaining momentum. The opinion polls showed a marked swing of working-class sentiment away from the party, and the policies advanced during the period, especially with regard to prices and incomes and industrial relations, hardly seemed designed to satisfy the redistributive concerns traditionally imputed to the working class. Indeed the government's overriding concern with the problem of the economy during a period in which the Labour party had a large majority over all other parties in the House of Commons was seen by one commentator as the final act of a tragic farce entitled ‘The Decline and Fall of Social Democracy’. Clearly this conclusion was drawn somewhat prematurely: in the 1970s there is fragmented evidence to suggest that the Labour party has regained the votes of a number of its traditional supporters who had previously defected, just as there is evidence that the ‘left’ of the party is asserting itself. However, the events of the early 1970s are not sufficient to refute the proposition that some kind of fundamental change either has occurred, or is occurring, in the relationship between the Labour party and its traditional supporters. Even if the curtain has yet to fall, there is no reason to believe that the play has not begun.