Revision notes
The past can serve as a guide for our future, but Labour’s latest
bout of revisionism must engage with society as it evolves, writes
Gregg McClymont
A S the Labour party begins renewing itself in opposition,
attention inevitably turns to Labour’s history – and,
specifically, previous episodes of Labour renewal. Of particular
interest is ‘revisionism’, associated with the Gaitskellites of the
1950s and frequently cited by the New Labour modernisers of
the 1980s and 1990s as an inspiration.
Revisionism’s influence lies less in any particular policy
prescriptions (policies right for the society of the 1950s or even the
1990s are unlikely to be right for the society of the 2010s) than in
its method. Tony Crosland’s Future of Socialism is the classic text,
from which two relevant lessons emerge. The first is the danger
of conflating ‘means and ends’ or, as we might put it, policies and
principles. This trap is best avoided by beginning any period of
renewal with a simple question: what is the ‘end’ – the fundamental
objective – of the Labour party? Answering this question is not
straightforward: though Crosland and New Labour both saw the
party’s fundamental objective as ‘equality of opportunity’, what
those original revisionists and New Labour understood by this
concept was in reality very different. Yet only by defining the ends
of Labour circa 2011, can we begin to will the means.
The second revisionist lesson is the importance of studying
the society in which we live. Revisionists saw the world as
complex and rapidly changing; as such, they understood
What lessons
can we learn from
the revisionism of
Tony Crosland,
Hugh Gaitskell and
Tony Blair?
24 Progress March 2011
that politicians were always running to stand still in
identifying social change. The revisionist answer to this
perennial problem was a deep and continuing engagement
with Britain’s leading economists, sociologists, and social
scientists. To absorb the latest social science, and reflect
on its implications for politics, was to equip Labour with an
analysis of social change – one against which to measure the
instincts and intuitions that politicians inevitably bring to
policy development.
The policy review announced by Ed Miliband and headed by
Liam Byrne is therefore welcome. It offers a vehicle for analysing
how Britain’s economy and society have changed since 1997; it
offers a chance to engage with the electorate and assess what
we got right in government, what we got wrong, and how the
tectonic plates of social change shifted under our feet during
Labour’s 13 years in government.
Support ebbed away after the superb 2001 election result.
But it was the further erosion of support after 2005 which was
decisive. Political scientists suggest that after 2005 the collapse
of Labour’s vote was above all else a collapse in support among
the skilled working class C1s and C2s. This collapse began in
2006 and was driven by rising unemployment and a
squeeze in living standards.
 essay: revisionism

If, as this evidence indicates, Labour’s support fell away quickly
after 2005 because of economic changes working against the
interests of the skilled working classes, two observations follow.
First, the New Labour programme which proved so popular in 1997
and 2001 was no longer calibrated to the requirements of the broad
electoral coalition which elected it. The New Labour coalition was
being undermined by economic developments which worked against
the skilled working-class voters who were at its heart. Understanding
the nature of these economic changes therefore becomes critical.
Is stagnation in skilled working-class living standards a short-term
product of a cyclical downturn? Or is there a structural tendency in
the British or global economy depressing working-class wages? In
other words, if the primary concern of the ‘squeezed middle’ is the
‘squeeze’, a swift reversion to a
The lessons we 1997-2005 ‘business as usual’
is not likely to be particularly
draw from previous successful. The conservative
periods of Labour American writer David Frum
renewal involve noted the temptation: ‘When
a political party offer the voters
method rather ham and eggs and the voters say,
than specific policy “No, thanks”, its first instinct
proposals, which by is to say, “OK then, How about
double ham and double eggs?”.’
definition are likely Polling from 2010 found
to be outdated that economic issues were the
voters’ overwhelming concern.
Focus group polling by Deborah Mattinson also confirmed
that swing voters considered that none of the parties offered
anything they considered relevant to defending their economic
circumstances. Observations from two leading New Labour
figures are relevant in this respect. Lord Mandelson’s tenure at
the business department was characterised by an implicit and
explicit recognition that New Labour left too much to the market
in the sphere of industrial policy. Manufacturing matters, it must
be nurtured, and the state has a significant role to play in doing
so – this was the starting point for the more engaged industrial
policy Mandelson moved towards in New Labour’s final days.
In a recent Prospect article James Purnell observed that
Tony Blair’s reluctance to intervene in markets partly stemmed
from an awareness of the difficulties involved. But given the
strong belief among C1 and C2s that the social and economic
gains made during their working lives will not be matched, let
alone exceeded by their children, this nettle needs grasping. A
distinctive, credible growth strategy is
likely to be critical to any winning
Labour electoral programme.
also demand the commission’s attention. Lord Mandelson is
clearly well placed to contribute to such a commission given his
mixture of UK and European experience.
A sceptic could argue that this view of the political economy is
based on a particular set of short-term economic circumstances,
that as the economy picks up the Conservative party will be able to
reconstruct a tax-cutting politics to which Labour must be alert. No
doubt it will try. However, room to manoeuvre on that front will be
constrained by, likely, sluggish and unevenly distributed economic
growth, as well as by the distributional implications of the Tory-
Liberal Democrat welfare reforms. For these reforms promise to
redistribute the costs of previously taxpayer-funded services onto
the skilled working classes: a redistribution against the interests of
the skilled working classes which may limit or outweigh the impact
of income tax cuts for this critical electoral group.
To take one example, marketising higher education is an area
where the redistribution of costs will heavily penalise university-
educated workers in wage brackets between £21,000 and £41,000
per annum. The new student loans will impose a permanent 30-
year additional nine per cent charge on the income of people in
this wage category who have been to university. In other words,
regardless of what they call it, the coalition government has just
invented a graduate tax – it just happens to be a very regressive
one. It is hard to imagine a proposal that could be better described
as an attack on aspiration.
The lessons we draw from previous periods of Labour renewal
involve method rather than specific policy proposals, which by
definition are likely to be outdated. The revisionists of the 1950s
and the modernisers of the 1980s and 1990s both sought to
match policy proposals with popular needs. But the revisionists
emphasised that the priorities of the electorate are not fixed,
instead they are shaped by time and social change.
Thus Labour must investigate how the economy has changed
since 1997, and what this has meant for the skilled working-class
voters who deserted Labour, especially after 2005. My hunch
is that the incomes of the skilled working classes are under
long-term threat from structural economic change. But the
revisionists would be the first to repudiate hunches, or anecdotal
evidence, as a basis of policymaking. Revisionism in fact means
a commitment to examining and analysing social change using
all the means at our disposal – this is the first step to renewal.
Gregg McClymont is MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and
Kirkintilloch East and a former history fellow at St Hugh’s
College, Oxford
Images l-r: PA Archive/Press Association Images; Edward Webb/Alamy;

Labour might therefore want to

consider a party commission into the
future of British manufacturing,
along the lines of the John Smith-
era Social Justice Commission.
Such a body would have to Why don’t you get debating the issues in this piece?
consider British manufacturing’s It’s easy to form a Progress reading group. We’ve put
output and capacity limitations together a short flyer to show you how and give you
and the sheer lack of scale
some pointers for your discussion. Copies are on the
which inhibits the development
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reverse of the address sheet which came with this

of UK supply chains. The
absence of enough large British magazine or you can visit www.progressonline.org.
manufacturing companies to uk/readinggroup to download more copies.
drive these supply chains would

Progress March 2011 25