A labour of Sisyphus: the quest for a great Labour Party
A central historical progressive dilemmas is explored, in chapter four, by Andrew Gamble through a re-visiting of Marquand’s 1977 biography of Ramsay MacDonald. An extensive historical work, which sought to rescue MacDonald from the simplistic cries from his own party of betrayal for his heading of the coalition National Government in 1931, the book was also intended to offer clear lessons for what Marquand viewed as a Labour Party in the 1970s undermining itself though its class warfare, trade union sectionalism and doctrinal narrowness. Gamble argues that the dilemmas observed and lived out by both MacDonald and by Marquand, as his biographer, endured throughout the twentieth century and indeed remain unresolved today. Nearly one hundred years on, MacDonald offers insights into the way in which, in times arguably even more challenging than our own he grappled for an extended period with these delicate political balancing acts.