ABSTRACT
The inner driving force which impelled Keir Hardie in Labour politics was the personal experience of class oppression. It affected him at a tender age, when he was dismissed without a hearing by the Glasgow baker who employed him. It was built into the fibre of his family life while he worked for the iron companies in Lanarkshire in the 1860s and 1870s. Hardie’ sensitive nature was fostered by the intense pride of the traditional Scots colliers. Hardie imbibed the myth through a trade unionism which it had helped to sustain, the trade unionism of which Alexander McDonald was the head and symbol. The inner driving force which impelled Hardie in Labour politics was the personal experience of class oppression. Hardie’s belief in the disinterested concern of middle-class, and especially intellectual middle-class people towards the poor, was lifelong.
