ABSTRACT
The Trade Unions were presenting points of view to the Labour Government as we did to the Heath Government. An institutionalised political exchange is, therefore, not easy to achieve or maintain. Such an exchange is, however, central to the Labour Party’s political-economic approach as well as to the TUC's political theory. Despite the Labour Party's dependence on the trade unions for cash, organisation and members the chief characteristic of their long involvement has been its reticence. Even after the ignominious collapse of the Social Contract and Labour’s defeat the unions as a whole were relatively passive, being drawn into reform in the wake of the CLPs. The unions’ reluctance to either use Labour as a party-political battering-ram for their influence or use their numerical weight to transform it into a trade union party reflects their commitment to constitutionality.
