| Book Review | Labour History, 95 | The History Cooperative

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BOOK REVIEW

Ben Jackson, Equality and the British Left: A Study in Progressive Social Thought, 1900–64, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007. pp. x + 259. £60.00 cloth.

Ben Jackson concludes this timely study with an affirmation: that the egalitarian tradition which it describes 'remains the most important we have for understanding what it means to be on the Left in British politics' – and, one might add, in many other countries than Britain too. Though his account ends with the advent of the Wilson governments in the early 1960s, such a claim is a measure of its topicality. In protracted discussions over the relationship of New Labour to an older Labour tradition, much has hinged on the character and strength of its commitment to equality. Anthony Crosland, a key figure in Jackson's later chapters, called it 'the strongest ethical inspiration of virtually every socialist doctrine'. To many observers, its displacement by a language of fairness or social inclusion is a measure of the shallowness of New Labour's radicalism. In claiming to return Labour to its ethical roots, Blair in reality played down what was arguably the most tenacious, distinctive and indispensable of the claims on which Labour established itself as a party of government. As Labour in post-Blair times struggles to regain a sense of momentum, even direction, Jackson's account is a reminder of how much equality mattered, and for how wide a spread of opinion on the Left.

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