Monday, May 21, 2007

The Labour Party and the Bomb - Part One

The following You Tube video is part one of four clips from a Socialist Party talk that dates from June 2005, and which took place in Central London.

The subject of the talk is 'Double-Dealing Defence: Labour and the Atom Bomb', and was part of a Day School entitled, 'The Post-War Labour Government: Hope and Deception'.

Even today, Labour Party supporters on both the left and the right of the Party will insist that Clement Attlee's administration of 1945-51 was the radical force for good that more than any Government before or since pushed forward British society in a socialist direction.

From the famous old Herbert Morrison quote of "Socialism is what a Labour Government does when it is office" to John McDonnell recent pronouncement that the Labour Party is historically the "Party of Peace", it is a myth that refuses to lie down.






This talk by Richard Headicar, and a further talk, 'How Labour Governed: 1945-51', by Steve Trott, from the same day school, that I will post later in the week, will go some way in stripping away the myth that the Labour Party was ever historically a party of socialism, peace and the working class.

Further Reading:
SPGB pamphlet dating from 1946 Is A Labour Government The Way To Socialism?


No comments: