Pretty good book that gives a good summary of the Labour Party's history. It gives a lot of space to the party's early history, which is probably for the best because it's an area that's given very little attention elsewhere. Sometimes, especially earlier on, I'd have appreciated more wider political context to explain things like the working-class appeal of the Conservatives, although I totally understand that there's only limited space and in general I think the author did a good job, although there are still some questions I'm really curious about - why trade union connection to the Liberals lasted so long even after Labour party affiliation and the true extent of working class conservatism. The book emphasises the long running conservative aspect of the Labour party, including the trade unions and much of the ILP - which makes the Bennite/Militant era seem more of a blip, and it's sometimes pro- a more right wing Labour (he tends to speak pretty highly of Kinnock for example). However, it's almost always sympathetic to the left, for example pointing out the threat of "left entryism" was overstated and the "hard left" was a reaction to the PLP being completely out of touch and CLPs being moribund and tiny enough that small groups could easily dominate them. It's also absolutely scathing of New Labour, suggesting that its successes masked a complete hollowing out of the party - pointing to a massive reduction in individual membership, the disaffection of unions, the reliance on a consensus with the Conservatives, the destruction of any distinctive program or intellectual tradition and the reliance on the whims of high finance and media barons. He ends by predicting a long stormy period for Labour comparable to the Edwardian Liberals, which seems pretty accurate in the time since the book was written in 2010. Worth pointing out the coverage of the later era is somewhat rushed compared to the earlier stuff, although IMO it's still covered in enough detail to get a good feel of things - eg 1960-2010 is 100 pages out of a ~400 page book. Overall it's recommended as long as you have at least a bit of political/political history background and can understand the context of the things he mentions but doesn't always explain.

It talks a little about the General Strike and it suggests that it was much less of a failure than generally assumed, at least for the Labour party - the expected large general fall in wages didn't really take place, parts of the strike that extended past the general one (like the miners) were very popular locally and the Conservative crackdown on unions after it moved a lot of previous working class Tories/Liberals over to Labour specifically out of anger at it. Which is an interesting perspective. Although also points out that the union and labour leaders' reluctance to go on strike led to a long build-up allowing the government to build up alternative systems in preparation and made their defeat much more likely when their bluff was called.

one of the things that crops up a bunch is mentions of official Labour party candidates talking about the decline of capitalism and the inevitable rise of socialism but nobody seems to have had any clue how it would take place. even Ramsay McDonald blamed his 1929-1930 failures on capitalism as a whole, yet his policies in power were incredibly moderate and based on very non socialist economics. The other consistent theme is the strong conservatism of most of the top figures in the Labour party, so the two just don't match up at all. it's hard to get a picture of what "socialism" really meant to these people, although there are some examples- maybe their views were just fundamentally incoherent. in general most of the top figures of the first few decades come off badly, Snowden being a rigid, conservative chancellor who fell out with other figures and ultimately condemned them publicly, Ramsey McDonald not willing to take any major actions which could help workers or even the economy in general, most of the early MPs either slotting into the establishment all too neatly or not knowing what to do past speeches. the sexism of the Labour party that meant there were very few women members compared to the conservatives, whose female membership was quite significant and had like 38% of the delegates at their 1931 conference female, is very notable too. also it's interesting how popular Moseley was before he left the Labour party and how he could have conceivably have been in a very powerful position after the expelling of MacDonald (because he was the only minister to put forward an alternative solution to the crisis). his founding his own party and later decline into fascism seems strange from that perspective. also interesting how the liberals were proposing a more radical policy than Labour in 1929. The MacDonald split was totally crippling for a time because he carried a decent chunk of MPs, Philip Snowden who'd been the chancellor left politics totally, and Labour were totally unable to mount a defence of their government's actions (acting very much in continuity with the Conservatives and doing things like means-tested unemployment pay).

Clement Atlee comes off very poorly here (the author clearly prefers Herbert Morrison among the possible leaders). He's presented as totally mediocre and chosen exactly because of that mediocrity and inoffensiveness. He also showed incredible deference to the governmental system and crown and almost boasted of how many public school boys he brought into his ministerial team. His 1945-1950 government success is presented as more that he had a great team and his willingness to let them get on with it worked ok. But he went into the 1945 election thinking he was bound to lose and then at the 1950 and 51 elections thought a thumping majority was certain - calling both the latter elections at poor and unnecessary times, even choosing to call the 1950 one at a time when the party had organised 50th anniversary of the party's founding celebrations. He promoted Gaitskell to chancellor even though he was relatively new and preferencing him over Bevan, who was sidelined even though he had an excellent record and seniority. Gaitskell himself pushed the totally unnecessary health charges almost purely to spite Bevan, causing a split with multiple shadow cabinet resignations. The complete attachment to the US led to massive military budgets. Because nationalisation was on a technocratic basis, with no worker involvement, it had little popularity among the workers, while the lack of any central planning between the various nationalised bodies meant the possible advantages were never realised.
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a fairly intersting book about the labour party however i must admit i did dip in and out of the book in some parts ( )