What was clause iv

The Labour government went at least part of the way to acting on it, extending state ownership to encompass rail, iron and steel, electricity, gas and other leading utilities. For the revisionists, there was no particular need to extend public ownership any further, as all that was needed to obtain social justice was for capitalist surpluses to be distributed more equally.

Those left-wingers in Labour who insisted on cleaving to the opposite view were considered borderline fetishists. It would take more than 30 years for a new generation of revisionists to succeed where their Gaitskellite forebears had fallen short. The final abandonment of Webb's Clause IV in , though resisted by what remained of the Labour left, merely made the de facto into the de jure. It had already long been apparent that the Labour Party had no intention of reversing all of the Thatcherite privatisations, let alone securing for workers the full fruits of their labour.

The actual commitment of Labour governments to public ownership had always been patchy in any case, with the partial exception of Log in.

Will Cop26 negotiators get a last-minute deal over the line? Between the lines. Quiz of The Week: 6 - 12 November.

Quizzes and puzzles. The VP, GPs and refugees. What was clause IV? For the first time, the party officially stated its socialist element in an official document. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

Press at the time wrote of how significant the new constitution of the post-war political party was. Yet the belief in this core principle began to be challenged within the party. But whereas Johnson sees this as a bad thing, we think it is a very good thing This clause is our socialist birthright. The letter goes on to say: "Privatisation and outsourcing have been a disaster for the public.

The foundations of the NHS have been eroded. Wages have stagnated. And prices for rail, energy, and water have risen astronomically". It concludes: " We say: it is time to bring back Clause 4.