ABSTRACT
Amidst sophisticated arguments about the sources of its power, it is easy to forget that the greatest advantages enjoyed by the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) over the other parts of the Labour Party are logistical. The internal debate on prescription charges in March 1968 is remembered well by many former Labour Member of Parliaments as a particularly pointed illustration of the role that Party meetings played both in helping to structure policy and parliamentary strategy and in reproducing and transmitting the political culture of the PLP. The original intention was to use the favourable vote of the March PLP meeting to force backbenchers into line when the Statutory Instrument bringing in charges was voted on in the Commons. Concern about the closeness of the vote had led to a skirmish about the right of Labour Peers to vote on the issue, a right to which Foot and his colleagues objected, but which was upheld by Douglas Houghton as Chairman of the PLP.
