How Labour Wins: (And Why It Loses) From 1900 to 2024
By: Douglas Beattie
“A timely and brilliantly illuminating book that offers much needed context to the 2024 general election. A must read.” Steve Richards, BBC Radio 4 Week in Westminster and host of Rock and Roll Politics
A fascinating history of how the unfolding drama of each election from 1900 to 2024 has shaped the Labour Party and modern Britain.
This is an essential guide to how left-wing politics succeeds or fails through an accessible, highly readable and timely history of Labour’s performance in the 33 British General Elections since 1900. There have been 8 hung parliaments resulting in coalitions. Labour has won power 12 times; the Conservatives outright on 14 occasions. The final chapter of the book analyses the landslide result of the General Election on 4th July 2024.
HOW LABOUR WINS is a book about the pursuit of power for working people. In assessing the fortunes of the Labour Party at the ballot box, it asks a simple overarching question – how and why does Labour win and lose?
When Rishi Sunak announced the 4 July 2024 General Election, the Labour Party had been out of power for almost fifteen years and lost four consecutive elections since 2010. These were turbulent times defined by austerity, a Scottish independence referendum, Brexit, and the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. Now, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Labour Party is back in government. How do the lessons of the past show us how Starmer can maximise his victory and deliver the change promised in Labour’s manifesto?
With exclusive insights from former leaders and Prime Ministers – including Gordon Brown and Neil Kinnock – How Labour Wins delves deep into the secrets of long-forgotten campaigns, traces the Party’s roots, examines the strategies, leaders, transformative moments and missteps which have defined Labour’s success at the ballot box and shaped modern Britain.
Each chapter assesses the state of the nation going into a general election, the issues that shaped that election agenda and the dominant leaders and personalities of the day. This includes analysis of the election result statistics from landslides to hung parliaments, starting with the Labour Party’s first election with only 15 candidates in 1900, Labour first calling for the abolition of the House of Lords in 1910 and the first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald. It includes party manifestos, such as ‘The nation wants food, work and homes’ (Labour, 1945), party political broadcasts (first televised in 1951) and the historical context for all the major political movements of 20th and 21st century Britain. At the end of every chapter there is an election recap such as the following example:
1923 General Election Result
Date of Election: 6 December 1923
Turnout: 71.1%
Labour candidates: 427
MPs: 191
Votes: 4,439,780
Labour % share of vote: 30.5%
Result: Labour minority
Highlight: James Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister
“If Labour is to flourish in power, it needs to know much more about its history. Reading this book would be an excellent starting point for its leaders and followers.” Anthony Seldon
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“A timely and brilliantly illuminating book that offers much needed context to the 2024 general election. It takes us back to Labour’s early elections and up to modern times, challenging orthodoxies about why Labour loses and how it wins. A must read.”
- Steve Richards, BBC Radio 4 Week in Westminster and host of Rock and Roll Politics -
“If Labour is to flourish in power, it needs to know much more about its history. Reading this book would be an excellent starting point for its leaders and followers.”
- Anthony Seldon