‘Working class’ versus ‘ordinary people’

In 1985 John Gyford produced a slim volume which crystallized discussion about recent changes in local socialism, or at least, the kind of society the Labour Party was trying to create through local government in England. He set up a contrast between ‘Labourism’ and ‘the New Urban Left’. This distinction hinged on the ways in which the old guard and the New Left conceptualized the relationship between ‘council’ and ‘people’. I will argue that, more than this, the New Left tried to construct ‘people’ differently. They rejected Labourism’s certainty that they were working for the ‘working class’ and introduced a confusing array of alternative constructions.