ABSTRACT
The period of opposition from 1970 to early 1974 witnessed a severe ideological reaction within the Labour Party against revisionist social democracy and the policies and strategy which it had engendered in the 1960s. This development occurred against the economic background of a deepening international recession, marked by rising unemployment and surging inflation, that arose in the wake of the oil price crisis of 1973–4. Such a climate eroded the optimism that had characterized revisionist thought concerning both the possibility of achieving sustained growth through state economic management and the effectiveness of social and fiscal policy measures in reducing inequalities and promoting social welfare.
