End of Parliamentary Socialism: From Benn to Blair

 This is an account of the Labour Party between 1972 and 1997. It criticizes Tony Blair's "new Labour" orthodoxy as not only abandoning a commitment to social reform, but also as having rewritten Labour history. The authors argue that this period spawned a "new Labour Left", a viable radical alternative which was deteated only by an over-dependency on parliamentary channels. Both the "Old Labour" centre-right and the Labour Left have been derided as "dinosaurs" and "has-beens", while the period from the early 1970s to Blair's ascendancy has been dismissed as one of division, incompetence and failure. Leo Panitch is the author of "Working-Class Politics in Crisis". Colin Ley is the author of "The Rise and Fall of Development Theory" and "Politics in Britain".