‘Wilsonism’ reconsidered: Labour party revisionism 1952–64

Favretto, Ilaria

doi:10.1080/13619460008581603

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The case for seeing structural reform as central to Harold Wilson's agenda in 1964 and1966 is well justified by Jacobs and Hindmoor, and has also been made by other scholars (e.g. Favretto, 2000), but it is not well supported by the Manifesto Project data. 7.…”

Section: Orcid Idmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour, more or less? Policy reasoning in a fiscal register

Sloman

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Michael Jacobs and Andrew Hindmoor’s analysis of ‘Labour, left and right’ is a salutary corrective to ‘electoral-ideological’ accounts of party strategy in Britain, and rightly urges scholars to pay more attention to substantive ‘policy reasoning’. Jacobs and Hindmoor’s account of Labour policy is only partly convincing, however, because it is based on a sharp distinction between left-wing ‘structural reform’ and moderate ‘redistributive’ strategies which is difficult to justify historically, and understates the importance of social policy commitments to Labour’s positioning. This article argues that Labour’s policy trajectory since the 1980s is better understood through a fiscal lens, which reflects the importance of costings debates in UK general election campaigns and of Shadow Chancellors in opposition policy-making. Shifts in Labour’s positioning can thus be explained by looking at the interplay between the party’s economic thought, the leadership’s perception of its electoral needs, and the changing budgetary context.

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Section: Orcid Idmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour, more or less? Policy reasoning in a fiscal register

Sloman

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…25 Ilaria Favretto has written of the 'hostility to planning displayed by centre-right revisionists' in the 1952-64 period. 26 But Jay, for one, at this time retained a firm belief in economic planning based partly on physical controls. 27 Nevertheless, he did adapt his thinking in response to the improved economic conditions that contributed to affluence.…”

Section: From Austerity To Affluencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The doubts of Jay and others about Tory economic policies were not, then, caused purely by cultural snobbery about the fruits of affluence, but were heightened by fears about relative British decline and the impact that this might have on East-West conflict. 38 Moreover, Cold War anxieties were a major contribution to the success in America of Galbraith's The Affluent Society. This was the book that crystallized the concept of affluence for many in Britain, including Jay, who had previously not had a specific word to describe the phenomenon with which they were confronted.…”

Section: From Austerity To Affluencementioning

confidence: 99%

The Forgotten Revisionist: Douglas Jay and Britain’s Transition to Affluence, 1951-1964

Toye¹

2017

An Affluent Society?

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In the aftermath of the Labour's 1959 general election defeat, Douglas Jay, one of its frontbench spokesmen, generated a furore by suggesting, in an article in Forward, that the party should rethink its nationalization proposals, and should consider changing the party name to 'Labour and Radical' or 'Labour and Reform'. 1 Responding to his critics in a further article the following month, he emphasized that he was by no means opposed to further public ownership, but that this should not take the form of the extension of public monopoly into manufacturing industry and the distributive trades. Rather, he argued, in a world of full employment and long-run capital gains, expanding ownership of industrial shares and other property by the community could supply the revenue for better pensions and public services without high rates of personal taxation. He declared: 'This is a form of socialism which the public will both understand and desire, in the more affluent society into which we are now movinga fairer sharing of the nation's growing wealth at home and abroad.' 2 Jay's explicit attempts to evolve a socialist response to the phenomenon of affluence marked him out as a key figure in Labour revisionism, albeit one whose contributions during the 'thirteen years of Tory misrule' have largely been forgotten. Admittedly, he is often mentioned in the same breath as Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Crosland and Evan Durbin, the group often being credited with providing (posthumously, in Durbin's case) an important intellectual influence on the party in between 1951 and 1964. 3 Jay is also invoked by supporters of Tony Blair as one of the 'first voices of modernizing dissent' within the Labour Party. 4 Yet, unlike his fellow revisionists, Jay has received little serious scholarly attentionperhaps partly because he did not have the glamorizing advantage of an early death! However, a detailed examination of his thinking during the long years of opposition suggests important lessons about Labour's ideological adjustment from the era of rationing to that of rock and roll.This chapter will draw on a range of Jay's speeches and writings in order to test the powerful argument that during these years Labour failed to come to terms with working-class affluence. According to Lawrence Black, the consumerist values of the 'affluent society' were seen as overwhelmingly negative by socialists, whom, he argues, 'can be seen to have to a large extent brought upon themselves their alienation from popular affluence.' 5 This argumentessentially that Labour was a victim of its own cultural snobberystill has a strong political relevance today.

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“…Under Hugh Gaitskell, Labour was trying to improve its public image and moderate its commitments in the area of social policy (Haseler 1969;Favretto 2000). The Trades Union Congress at its annual conference in 1956 passed a resolution calling for ROSLA to 16, but the Labour Party's study group on education preferred to concentrate on reducing class sizes, especially in the primary schools.…”

Section: Conservative Education Policy In the 1950smentioning

confidence: 99%