Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party Book

Labour Party began its life as an attempt to provide representation to its namesake, the labour. However, from its inception, Labour Party consisted of various elements of society, from religious revivalists (the most shocking), the workers and unions, fabian societies, socialist societies, even to right-wing working class. In its early life, Labour had to be content being Liberal's junior partner. However, Labour was consistently able to outmaneuvre and profit from the steady decline of the Liberals, managing to present itself as the new alternative for government against the Conservative Party.

Throughout the book we follow the journey of Labour Party, from its humble beginning, its first time of governing Great Britain under Ramsay MacDonald's leadership (who subsequently wrecked Labour Party beyond recognition, expelled and branded traitor), its efforts to present itself as patriotic party as opposed to appeasement-tainted Conservatives during interwar years, and its unexpected snatching of election from Churchill's led Conservatives, in which under Attlee's leadership the Labour came closest to realising its vision of Keynesian, welfare-state society, as exemplified by the creation of NHS, providing a template for situation known as the Great Consensus, that even Conservatives did not dare to alter radically, at least before Thatcher.

During that time, successive governments from Tories and Labour consistently failed to maintain their commitment to Keynesian economics, meanwhile, Labour was wrecked by intense power-grabbing between the left, personified by its most famous boogeyman, Anthony 'Tony' Wedgewood Benn, and the right, led by figures such as Hugh Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins. After Thatcher arrived it fell to a left-winger, Michael Foot to lead what's left of Labour Party, to its most severe election defeat (before Corbyn), faced with this shamble, Neil Kinnock took up the task of modernising and reforming the party, which was shockingly defeated by John Major's Conservatives and led to Kinnock's resignation as leader in short term but paving the way for monstrosity known as the New Labour.

More influenced by Margaret Thatcher rather than the whole boatloads of past Labour Party leadership, Tony Blair set up to remake Labour Party wholly in his image, the New Labour which was in fact Tory-lite. Abandoning commitment to socialism, Blairites fully embraced free market capitalism, while at the same time being tough on crime, a platform that would make Maggie proud. Even after governing for three terms, Blair achieved so little, apart from Iraq War fiasco. He in turn, was succeeded by Gordon Brown, who promised being a fresh face from ubiquitous Blair but ended up continuing Blair's policies anyway, which caught him in a snag when Great Recession Crisis of 2008 struck. And that's where the book ended.

While I have been a supporter of the Tory Party, I felt the need to learn about its modern opposition, The Labour Party. This is the first book I read on the subject, and in making my choice, I am not disappointed by it. The author managed to explain the dynamics within Labour Party in most critical, yet objective way. I can see it in his explanation of Labour's postwar victories, in which he pointed out Attlee's administration flaws, and his rather condemning appraisal of Blair and his New Labourites. Over all, I highly recommend this book to everyone who is interested in history of Labour Party.