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Words: | Submitted: Sat Aug 30 2003
... But is it still socialist at all? In order to find this out I will explore the context of old labour and socialism, the ideological debate, organisation and structural changes, changes in policy and policy-making, and Blair's 'New Labour' government. Traditionally Labour had won less electoral campaigns than the Conservatives but it had secured a large amount of the working-class vote and become the second force in British politics. Because of labour's origins it paid more attention to internal democracy in its organisational structure than the other parties. To do this it divided policy formulation between the Annual party conference and the leadership, the variety of interpretations of socialism which labour were committed to made the party seem more divided than the Conservatives. This is one of the reasons the party changed so dramatically. Geoghegan illustrates this problem succinctly saying, "the key problem in defining socialism, as with all ideologies, is ...
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