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

这个项目为20世纪中叶英国政治中的一些中心地标提供了一个新的视角。考虑到工党在1945年大选中的崛起，面对该党在两次世界大战期间的斗争，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，这一点在罗斯·麦基宾(Ross McKibbin)颇具影响力的工党和人民中得到了集中体现。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“阶级联盟”的必然性塑造的)，这种既定的叙事未能对政治联盟中发生如此关键变化的原因做出批判性解释。这个项目是理解工党财富轨迹背后的原因的第一次尝试，而不是假设。从该党在1931年灾难性的选举表现开始，它将绘制工党制定的官方阶级语言与地方一级使用的白话阶级习语之间的变化关系，历经1930年代的复苏尝试、战时人气飙升以及1951年执政仅六年后失去权力。它将主要依靠广泛的选举调查和社会科学组织大众观察(以及新闻、文学和电影)提供的问卷材料，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.