ABSTRACT
Morgan Phillips told a meeting of the Socialist International in Amsterdam: ‘The British Labour Party is Methodist, not Marxist.’ The remark was true, in the sense that there has always been a strong streak of nonconformity in the Labour movement, particularly in the Welsh valleys, where loyalty to the party burns fiercely. In 1969 the nec adopted a propaganda campaign under the title ‘Labour’s got life and soul’, designed to emphasise the party’s compassion and humanity. The job of actually drawing up the manifesto falls to the nec, jointly with the Parliamentary Labour Party, on the basis of the programme agreed by the party conference passed by a two-thirds majority. Many people believe that Labour would be ill-advised to tie itself up too closely to a specific programme or introduce a ‘shopping list’. This is the view of Anthony Crosland, one of the party’s intellectuals.
