Maybe a better title would have been The Whipping Boys? Isn’t that what those pioneers were? Fall guys, detested by the monarch and right wing press. I read the introduction and the first two chapters in which I felt bombarded by loosely linked names and quotations before succumbing to a sense of weariness. Is there going to be anything in this book that is not already condensed in the Wikipedia entry about the first Labour government? Hopefully yes – but the ponderous dry academic nature of the author’s prose put me off wanting to look for it. The book has the feel of a Ph.D thesis authored by an over-earnest student desperately trying to impress his peers. Look at me, lads, how well have I mastered all the source material, he seems to plead, and thereby earnt my place in the great pantheon of historians of 20th century British politics! 

I side with those who argue that the best writers of history combine rigorously detailed research with a compelling narrative that makes the reader keep turning the pages, desperate to know what happens next. Even when the story is well known you have to find a way to make it fresh and interesting. You get this, for instance, in AJP Taylor’s history of World War Two and in Isaac Deutscher’s trilogy about Trotski and in David Grann’s book The Wager which is about an abortive 18th century British naval expedition. You do not get it here, however. What you get instead lacks narrative panache, nuance, and humour. Above all it lacks an original focus. Torrance is not really a writer. He’s an organiser of facts and filtered opinions. High-minded and a virtuous lefty, no doubt, but essentially a pedant.

Ultimately Torrance’s conclusions about the first Labour government (it lasted for just 10 months in 1924) are hardly any different from Taylor’s. Notably that it was a cautious, necessary, and surprisingly responsible, though ultimately powerless administration. Taylor noted that the government had moderate objectives, focusing on proving its competence to manage the British Empire and not alienating middle-class voters. And please note working class women could not vote as only propertied women aged thirty plus had suffrage. The real left wing wild men were kept safely locked up in their boxes by MacDonald or left well outside the tent ineffectually trying to piss in. Did he have any alternative? Not really. This was a minority government used cynically and pragmatically by the establishment during a period of electoral instability. It could easily be quashed at any time. Is that still the case with the Labour Party a century later? Probably not quite as quashable in the same way – but Jeremy Corbyn may have a different opinion on that. We don’t use forgeries like the Zinoviev letter to discredit the party any more. We use antisemitic smears and the venal fifth columnist lackeys of paedophile billionaires.

TWO STARS