The Making of "Labour's Working Class" 1931-51

这个项目为20世纪中期英国政治的一些中心地标提供了一个新的视角。考虑到工党在1945年的选举中上台，面对两次世界大战期间该党的斗争，这一领域的成熟著作强调了工党动员工人阶级支持的能力的转折点，罗斯·麦基宾颇具影响力的著作《政党与人民》集中体现了这一点。然而，由于假设工人阶级和工党的这种联盟是“自然的”（最初是由20世纪50年代和60年代政治中不可避免的“阶级联盟”所形成的），这种既定的叙述未能提供一个关键的解释，为什么政治联盟发生了这种关键的转变。这个项目构成了理解工党命运轨迹背后的原因的第一次尝试，而不是假设。从1931年工党灾难性的选举表现开始，它将描绘工党开发的阶级官方语言和地方使用的阶级方言之间不断变化的关系，经历20世纪30年代的复苏尝试，战时人气飙升以及1951年执政仅六年就失去权力。它将主要依赖社会科学组织Mass-Observation（以及媒体、文学和电影）提供的广泛的选举调查和问卷材料，分析一系列不同的案例研究。

This project offers a new perspective on some of the central landmarks in mid-twentieth century British politics. Inaccounting for Labour's rise to power at the 1945 election, in the face of the party's struggles in the interwar period,established works in this field have emphasised turning points in Labour's ability to mobilise working-class support,epitomised in Ross McKibbin's influential work _Parties and People_. However, owing to an assumption that this allianceof the working classes and the Labour party was 'natural' (shaped initially by the perceived inevitability of 'classalignment' within 1950s and 1960s politics), this established narrative has failed to offer a critical explanation for whysuch pivotal shifts in political alignment occurred. This project constitutes the first attempt to understand, rather thanassume, the reasons behind the trajectory of Labour's fortunes. Beginning with the party's disastrous electoralperformance in 1931, it will chart the changing relationship between official languages of class developed by the LabourParty and vernacular idioms of class used at a local level, across attempts at recovery in the 1930s, its wartime surge inpopularity and its loss of power in 1951 after only six years in government. It will crucially rely upon the extensiveelectoral survey and questionnaire material from social-science organisation Mass-Observation (as well as press,literature and film), analysing a series of diverse case studies.