Social Policy in the Theoretical and Programme Documents of the British Labour Party in the 1920s–1930s

This article covers the concepts of social policy in the official programme documents of the British Labour Party and in journalistic works of its leaders and key theorists of the interwar period. From the early twentieth century, Labourists put the focus not on social reforms, but on transformations in the management of the economy and property. They believed that a fair and effective organisation of economy could at the same time solve social problems. After World War I and in the first half of the 1920s, Labourists did not propose large-scale and high-priced social programmes for fear of alienating their potential electorate. However, the social and economic problems of the 1920s, the General Strike, and the Great Depression forced them to take a more left stand. From the late 1920s, social policy became for Labourists an important part of fundamental change of the country’s economy based on the principles of planning and public control. These ideas were in the programmes of the Labour party of 1928 and 1934, in the works of G. D. H. Cole and Clement Attlee, and in the articles of members of the Socialist League. Labourists started proposing not only large-scale plans of the improvement of education, public health, accommodation, and well-being, they made some demands, including State Health Service, accessibility of higher education, and help for disabled persons, unique for their times, thereby anticipating some important components of the Welfare State of the second half of the twentieth century