ABSTRACT
The name ‘Labour party’ was first used in 1906. It was a shortened form of ‘Labour Representation Committee’, which had been set up in 1900 to unite the various working-class and socialist groups within Britain. These included the handful of Labour MPs then within the Liberal party, the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society. The breakthrough for the Labour party came with the election of thirty MPs in 1906; these increased to forty and then forty-two during the two general elections of 1910. Although it was not until 1924 that Labour was able to form a government, this increase in electoral support was unparalleled in British political history.
