Labour Party (Uk)#Timelines

1834-1929[edit]

1834: The Tolpuddle martyrs[1] - 5 trade unionists are sentenced to 7 years transportation to Australia
1838: The People's Charter[2] We demand universal suffrage
1871: The Paris Commune[3] - Paris workers seize power and form the world's first socialist government
1881: Democratic Federation formed[4]
1884: The Democratic Federation was renamed the Social Democratic Foundation

Fabian Society formed[5] - a socialist pressure group that wanted to create a "society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities".

1891: The Condition of the Working Class in England by Frederick Engels - depicting overcrowded housing, abject poverty, child labour, sexual exploitation, dirt and drunkenness.
1892: Keir Hardie, a Scottish trade union leader, elected Member of Parliament as "Independent Labour"
1893: Independent Labour Party[6] formed by Keir Hardie "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange".
1900: Labour Representation Committee[7] - brought socialist groups togethe for the purpose of increasing working class representation in Parliament.

Keir Hardy elected as the first "Labour" Member of Parliament

1901: Taff Vale judgement[8] - upheld the right of a company to sue a trade union for the recovery of losses due to a strike
1906: The Labour Repesentation Committee renamed "The Labour Party"
1916: Sidney Webb joined the Labour Party Executive and helped to draft its constitution[9]

1924: 1st Labour Government[10]. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald a short-lived minority government that passed laws on housing, education, unemployment and social insurance.
1929: 2nd Labour Government[11]. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald - a second minority government that struggle unsuccessfully with the problems of deflation and unemployment arising from the Great Recession.

1931 Recession raises the budget deficit and Ramsay Macdonald's proposed unemployment benefit leads to a cabinet split.

1931: National Government (coalition). Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
1934: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) replaced Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister
1935: Clement Attlee became leader of the Labour Party
1940: Wartime coalition. Neville Chamberlain (Conservative) Prime Minister
1941: Winston Churchill (Conservative) became Prime Minister and Clement Attlee became Deputy Prime Minister
1942: The Beveridge Report[12] - prposal to set up a "welfare atate
1944: Bretton Woods Agreement - to maintain a fixed rate of exchange with the US $.

1945: General Election Labour victory- voting: Labour 49.7%, Conservative 36.2%, Liberal 9.0%; - seats won: Labour 393, Conservative 197, Liberal 12

1st and 2nd Attlee Governments[13]. Prime Minister Clement Atlee - nationalisation of the coal mining, railways, road haulage, electricity and gas and steel industries.

1946: Anglo-American Loan[14] - $3.75 billion dollars at two per cent repayable over fifty years starting in 1951.
1949: Devaluation - the £ is devalued by 30%, from $4.03 to $2.80[15]
1950: General Election: Labour victory - voting: Labour 46.1%, Conservative 43.5%, Liberal 9.1%; - seats won: Labour 315, Conservative 298, Liberal 6

1951: General Election: Conservative victory - Labour (48.8%) Conservative (48.0%) Liberal (2.5%); - seats won: Labour 295, Conservative 321, Liberal 9
1955 Hugh Gaitskell[17] elected party leader and made an unsuccessful attempt to remove the party's clause IV commitment to nationalisation.
1957: The Future of Socialism"[18](Questia members) - book by Anthony Crossland that questioned the case for further nationalisation.
1960: Campaign for Democratic Socialism

1964: General Election: narrow Labour victory - voting: Labour 44.1%, Conservative 43.4%, Liberal 11.0%; - seats won: Labour 317, Conservative 314, Liberal 9
1965: The National Plan[19] an unsuccessful attempt at "indicative planning".
1966: General Election: Labour victory - voting: Labour 48.0%, Conservative 41.9%, Liberal 8.5%; - seats won: Labour 364, Conservative 253, Liberal 12
1967: Devaluation of the £[20].
1968: Basle Agreement - 12 central banks and the Bank for International Settlementsprovide a $2 billion loan facility, for the UK to guarantee the $ value of the £

January White Paper: In Place of Strife[21] - an unsuccessful attempt at legal control of the trades unions.

1970: General Election: Conservative victory - voting: Labour 43.1%, Conservative 46.4%, Liberal 7.5%; - seats won: Labour 288, Conservative 330, Liberal 12
1972: The floating £[22] - the Bretton Woods regime of a fixed exchange rate between the £ and the $ was abandoned in favour of a regime in which market forces are allowed to determine the exchange rate.
1973: Oil price crisis[23] - the OPEC oil producers quadruple their prices: from $3 to $12 a barrel, triggering an international recession
1974: General Elections:

February: Lib/Lab victory - voting: Labour 37.2%, Conservative 37.9%, Liberal 19.3%; - seats won: Labour 301, Conservative 297, Liberal 6
October: narrow Labour victory - voting: Labour 39.2%, Conservative 35.8%, Liberal 9.0%; - seats won: Labour 393, Conservative 197, Liberal 12, others 26

1975: Common Market referendum[24][25] - a 2-1 majority in favour of continued membership.
1976: Sterling crisis - international concern about the budget deficit and growth of the money supply leads to a rapid fall in the exchange rate.

March: Harold Wilson resigned[26], James Callaghan [27] became Prime Minister.
July: Money supply target of 12 per cent annual growth rate of Sterling M3 set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
September: IMF loan - application to the International Monetary Fund for a loan of $3.9 million in order to replenish the UK's forein eschange reserves
December: Letter of Intent to the International Monetary Fund accepts an annual domestic credit expansion limit of 9 per cent.

1978: Winter of Discontent [28] - widespread industrial disruption in defiance of the Government's planned 5 per cent limit on pay increases.
1979: General Election - voting: Labour 36.9%, Conservative 43.9%, Liberal 18.3%; - seats won: Labour 319, Conservative 277, Liberal 13
1980: Labour Party leadership election - 2nd Ballot voting Michael Foot[29] 52%, Dennis Healey 48%.
1981: The Limehouse Declaration[30] by Shirley Williams, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Roy Jenkins, setting up a Council for Social Democracy - later to become the breakaway Social Democratic Party[31].
1983 General Election voting: Labour 27,6%, Conservative 42.4%, SDP/Lib 25.4%; - seats won: Labour 209, Conservative 397, SDP/Lib 23

1987 General Election voting: Labour 30.8%, Conservative 42,2%, SDP/Lib 22.6%; - seats won: Labour 229, Conservative 376, SDP/Lib 22
1988 Labour Party leadership election - voting: Kinnock 89%, Benn 11%
1992 General Election voting: Labour 34.4%, Conservative 41.9%, Lib Dem 17.8%; - seats won: Labour 271, Conservative 336, Lib Dem 20

1997: General Election - voting: Labour 43.2%, Conservative 30.7%, Liberal 16.8%; - seats won: Labour 418, Conservative 165, Liberal 46

Labour Governments. Prime Minister Tony Blair - see Tony Blair timeline

2007: Tony Blair retired. Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister - see Gordon Brown timeline
2010: General Election - voting: Labour 29.0%, Conservative 36.1%, Liberal Democrat 23.0%; - seats won: Labour 258, Conservative 306, Liberal Democrat 57.