Labours old and new

This study is concerned with the 'Old' Labor right at a critical juncture of social democratic and Labor politics. It attempts to understand the complex transition from so-called 'Old Right' to 'New Right' or 'New Labor', and locates at least some of the roots of the latter in the complexity, tensions and fragmentation of the former during the 'lean' years of social democracy in the 1970s. The analysis addresses both the short and long-term implications of the emerging ideological, organizational and political complexity and divisions of the parliamentary Labor right and Labor revisionism, previously concealed within the loosely adhesive post-war framework of Keynesian reformist social democracy. It establishes the extent to which 'New' Labor is a legatee of at least some elements of the disparate and discordant Labor right and tensions of social democratic revisionism in the 1970s. In so doing, it advances our understanding of a key moment in the development of social democracy and the making of the contemporary British Labor Party.