The British Labour Party ended the twentieth century as it began it, at its formation in 1900 – as a non-socialist party, albeit with many socialists among it numbers. Between 1918 and 1995, however, Labour was formally committed to the common ownership of the means of production. Yet whether, during this period, Labour was at any point a truly socialist party has been the subject of intense dispute and, indeed, remains a matter of current political significance. Within this debate, the record of Clement Attlee's 1945–51 government – the Labour government which had, perhaps, the most to show for its time in office – has been crucial. Unsurprisingly, Tony Blair, the party leader responsible for finally jettisoning the common ownership commitment, has been keen to downplay the socialist aspect of the Attlee government's ideology, whilst still taking pride in that government's achievements. In a speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1945 general election he said: ‘It was a government that was willing to draw on the resources of the whole progressive tradition. The ideas of Keynes and Beveridge were the cornerstone of reform.’

Blair's remarks represented a subtle attempt to secure an ‘old Labour’ lineage for his political modernisation project, of which many party members were instinctively deeply suspicious. But to what degree was his assessment correct? To the extent that Labour in the Attlee years had drawn on the ideas of Beveridge and Keynes – and in the latter case, in particular, this was not a simple or straightforward process – it had done so in support of a project the traces of which Blair himself was now attempting to erase.