Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party - Martin Pugh

Since the Labour Representation Committee came into existence in February 1900, the party in Britain which it spawned has had a chequered and often contrary existence. Ironically, as Pugh demonstrates, while it may have been formed to represent the workers, it never became a fully working class party. Founding leader James Keir Hardie may have been a genuine socialist, but some of the senior figures who followed were recruited from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds. It was not just class which caused divisions in the early years. A Puritan strain, opposed to alcohol, tried to ... more