ABSTRACT
In order to open up the ideology of the party to a more satisfactory analysis it is necessary to distinguish between two elements in that ideology: its doctrine and its ethos. In the case of the Labour Party the doctrines have been derived from diverse sources: from K. Marx, Morris, Blatchford, B. Shaw, the Webbs, G. Orwell, R. Tawney and Herbert Morrison amongst others. Labour’s ideology is an expression of the ethos of the dominant group in the party. It incorporates sets of values which spring from the experience of the British working class. Those who think of Labour’s ideology mainly in terms of doctrinal commitment have a number of advantages over in arguing their thesis. The Labour party has not only been a parliamentary party, it has been a party deeply imbued with parliamentarianism. Professor E. J. Hobsbawm locates a strong, more or less self-conscious and powerful labour aristocracy in Britain in the period between 1840 and 1890.
