Paving the Third Way: The critique of parliamentary socialism

A Socialist Register Anthology, edited by David Coates. Merlin Press 330 pages, paperback, £16.95

Just before the end of the second world war, the Labour Party put forward its Let us face the future programme, which said Labour was "a socialist party and proud of it."

The 1945 election resulted in a massive Labour majority for the first time. The rail, coal, electricity and gas industries were nationalised and the National Health Service created. The post-war consensus saw Tories agreeing with Labour leaders on an extended but clearly delimited public sector.

Ralph Miliband's 1961 book Parliamentary socialism was a pioneering critique of this consensus. This new anthology reproduces work by Miliband and contains articles by other writers who build on Miliband's criticism of Old Labour to analyse New Labour.