ABSTRACT
Conflict between left and right – between ‘those who cling to the basic principles of the creed and favour speedy advance toward the party’s goals, and those who are willing to trim the doctrine and to proceed at a slower, more cautious pace’1
– has been a perennial feature of the Labour Party, like all social democratic parties. Usually running parallel with this is the tension between activists and leaders. As Peter Shore observed, ‘it is in the nature of a democratic party of the Left that a majority of its most enthusiastic and active members will be antiauthoritarian, restless for change, distrustful of assertive leadership’.2 The latter, their eyes fixed both on the immediate burdens of government and on winning the next election, seek maximum flexibility in policy and strategy; the former fear that in the process party ideals may be sacrificed. But not only was the scale and intensity of conflict unparalleled in the years 1974-9 but it assumed an entrenched and institutionalised form in the clash between the Party and the Government – which was to explode into a veritable civil war after 1979. Why did this occur? What was the pattern of Party-Government relations in the five turbulent years of the Wilson and Callaghan administrations?
