ABSTRACT
The end of a book is not the best place to embark upon a serious examination of new ideas. However, it is worth ending this discussion by assessing current prospects for a much-needed revitalization of the Party’s egalitarian character. The need is there for two reasons. First, pragmatically, Labour must have a distinctive ‘creed’—not because it is important to possess some transcendental agreement about the future, but because the absence of tangible ideas on which to base policy proposals limits its scope for movement. In the aftermath of the 1931 crisis Tawney wrote the following:
the Labour Party is hesitant in action because divided in mind. It does not achieve what it could, because it does not know what it wants. It frets out of office and fumbles in it, because it lacks the assurance either to wait or to strike. Being without clear convictions as to its own meaning and purpose, it is deprived of the dynamic which only convictions can supply.1
