ABSTRACT
The leaders on the platform and the delegates in the emptying hall sang the words as if they meant them, as well as actually knowing them. During their four-day conference, which many believed could be the last before the general election, they had ‘raised the scarlet standard high’. Harold Wilson, in introducing Labour’s Programme 1973 had presented the most formidable agenda for public ownership for many years. Labour is committed to repealing such unpopular Tory measures as the Industrial Relations Act, and the Housing Finance Act, and to re-negotiating the terms of entry into the European Economic Community, followed by a vote of the British people. If Labour wins – and in the autumn of 1973 the unpopularity of the Tories led many people to believe that it would – then it has an unparallelled chance to show that it can be a party of protest and power.
