Whither the Labour movement?
One is struck by the heroic energy and fortitude of the working classes – working long and arduous hours, they found time and resources to educate themselves, to organise trades unions, to make brass bands and male voice choirs, time for political activism, time to tend allotments, and not to mention the indispensable business of courting, marrying and raising families. No wonder, as John Lennon put it, Capitalism needed to keep them “doped with religion and sex and tv”.
But has that spirit run out of steam? What is the role of the working class in the present circumstances of fractured politics and populist bromides? And when did the rot set in? Geoff Andrews has taken a fresh and illuminating look at the contribution the working classes (plural very much intended) have made to the fabric and culture of the nation over the past hundred and fifty years. His purpose is to place the working classes squarely at the heart of its history. He presents a history of the British Left as a story of radical ideas and a passion for culture and education rather than revolutionary politics.
Geoff Andrews – Yale University Press – £25
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
