By J.C.
“LABOUR is a crusade or it is nothing.” So said Harold Wilson of the party that he led into government. His words were not just partisan bombast. The Conservative Party is rooted in the vision of a settled society set out by the likes of Michael Oakeshott and Edmund Burke. Its ideological calling card is thus a gentle scepticism of grand ideas and visions of change. The Labour Party, by contrast, is supposed to be the party of gradual but stubborn transformation. Its founding idea was that revolutions were only one way of striving for a better society—and that incremental change could be just as idealistic and hopeful. Support for Labour, one might conclude, therefore presumes an above-average faith in the potential of politics.
