Conclusion
The modern Labour Party (also known as New Labour) has come a long way from its Socialist roots in the last two decades particularly since Tony Blair became its leader in 1994 and repositioned the Party as a centrist rather than a leftist Party. There is no doubt that the move was a success as the Labour Party won the historic 1997 elections by a landslide and has not lost an election since. The electoral success has come at the expense of the Party's socialist credentials though.
References
Hills, J, 1998, Thatcherism, New Labour and the Welfare State, CASEpaper Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion: London School of Economics. Available from http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cp/Paper13.pdf[April27, 2008]
History of the Labour Party, 2008, New Labour for Britain, Available from http://www.labour.org.uk/history_of_the_labour_party[April27, 2008]
King, a., Denver, D., McLean, I., Norris, P., Norton, P., Sanders, D., et al. (1998). New Labour Triumphs: Britain at the Polls. Chatham,...
(1961). A Short History of the Labour Party. London: Macmillan.
Wheatcroft, G., 1996, June, Paradoxical Case of Tony Blair: "The Great Passion of His Life Is His Hatred of the Labour Party." The Atlantic Monthly, 277.
Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893 with the object of sending working men to Parliament, independent of both the Liberal and Conservative Parties (Pelling, 1961, p. 4).
The Manifesto was famously described by Labour MP Geralf Kaufman as "the longest suicide note in history" after the Labour Party's crushing defeat in the 1983 elections (quoted by Wheatcroft, 1996)
The quote has been taken from Geoffre Wheatcroft's article, "The Great Passion of His Life Is His Hatred of the Labour Party" in the Atlantic Monthly (June 1996).
Labour Party
