boom that kept them in power until 1964. During this period Labour went
through a period of fierce internal debate over how socialist they should be,
culminating in victory for the moderates under Hugh Gaitskell, and then
Harold Wilson, who became prime minister from 1964–70. This period of
Labour administration was very different from the post-war government, and
introduced Labour as a technocratic party sharing a wide consensus with the
Conservatives and committed to managing a mixed economy alongside a
welfare state. Labour returned to power again after two general elections held
in 1974, at first as a minority and then with a small majority; James Callaghan
succeeded Wilson as prime minister in 1976, and after by-election losses and
parliamentary defections Labour again found itself as a minority government,
and was forced to rely on theLiberal Partyfor support through the ‘Lib-Lab
pact’, which lasted from March 1977 to May 1978. During this period the
behaviour of the trade unions, in contributing to inflation by demanding large
wage increases and through frequent damagingstrikes(including those in the
‘winter of discontent’ of 1978/79), and their dominant role in Labour Party
policy and administrative affairs, may have contributed to the onset of a long-
term decline in the party’s popularity. Its defeat in 1979, and replacement by a
more determinedly right-wing Conservative government under Margaret
Thatcher, renewed the party debate over ideological principles. In 1981 several
prominent moderates left the party to form the Social Democratic Party
(SDP), and the Labour Party manifesto for the 1983 general election, while
the left was temporarily dominant under the leadership of Michael Foot, has
been described as ‘the longest suicide note in history’. The Conservatives duly
won a landslide victory, with Labour only just holding on to second place, in
terms of votes cast, from the new SDP which campaigned in alliance with the
Liberal Party. For the next eight years Neil Kinnock, who had himself come to
prominence in the party as a left-winger, fought a lengthy battle to return the
party to a more managerial, ‘Wilsonite’, mixed-economy position. Although
the Conservatives won another large majority at the 1987 general election,
Labour did appear to be well on the way towards assuming a position in the
centre of the political spectrum. At the 1992 general election, however, despite
opinion pollpredictions of a Labour victory, the Conservatives were returned
to office for a fourth consecutive term, even though with a much reduced
majority. Kinnock promptly announced his resignation as party leader and was
succeeded by John Smith. After Smith’s early death in 1994 the party was taken
over by Tony Blair, leader along with several others (of whom the future
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, was pre-eminent) of a reformist
group. This group succeeded in remaking the party, indeed in effectively
(though unofficially) renaming it as ‘New Labour’. The new party, which
dropped even its symbolic Clause IV commitment to nationalization, became a
purely centrist party, committed to most free-market principles and to mon-
Labour Party