ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on the makeup, philosophy and functions of the Trade Union Group of the Parliamentary Labour Party (TUG), the official organization of sponsored trade unionists in the House of Commons, which has accounted for about one-third of the Labour total in recent years. Group activists have been predominantly manual union leaders; they tend to use such terms as ‘authentic’ and ‘real working class’ to designate colleagues who spent their lives prior to being elected to public office on hourly rated, blue-collar work. Having achieved a Labour Government, the existence of a Trade Union Group in the Parliamentary Labour Party would suggest that the group is needed to help formulate union policy and to serve as a prod to the leadership of a Party which has come to embrace a broader constituency than trade union membership.
