Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T11:54:17.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Younger Generation: The Labour Party and the 1959 Youth Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2013

Catherine Ellis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1956, Martha Gellhorn spent an evening exploring the uncharted territory of London's espresso bars. Her impressions were recorded in an article on “the younger generation”: “Full of expectations and ignorance, I made the long sight-seeing trip through the Espresso-bar country of London, stared at the young natives, and came gladly home at last with many pictures in my mind but little understanding …. The youthful Espresso-ites remained hopelessly strangers, in their strange, small, chosen land; I can only report what I have seen.” Gellhorn's account was punctuated by references to the “strangeness” of her experience. The decor of the bars invoked “distant places” with “bull-fight posters, bamboo, tropical plants, an occasional shell or Mexican mask.” As she traveled through this “strange country,” the sight of a tortilla was “terrifying,” the customers' clothing was breathtakingly exotic, and their skin tones suggested amalgams such as “Chinese-Javanese-Siamese” or “Spanish-Arab-Cuban.” At times, Gellhorn heard French and Italian spoken freely among the espresso bars' young patrons.

The foreign topography of youth culture described by Gellhorn was not unusual among accounts of young people in the 1950s, yet until recently this period has been characterized principally as a time of social peace and political apathy, “an age of prosperity and achievement” shaped by “consensus” and a return to normality after the disruption and sacrifices of the Second World War. Following an extended period of austerity, the welfare state and the managed economy seemed to have ensured full employment and an unprecedented standard of living, while the election of successive Conservative governments in 1951, 1955, and 1959 has been explained as the political reflection of rising personal prosperity and security.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , April 2002 , pp. 199 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gellhorn, Martha, “The Younger Generation II: So Awful to Be Young, or, Morning to Midnight in Espresso Bars,” Encounter (May 1956): 42–43Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., pp. 43, 45–47.

3 Bogdanor, Vernon and Skidelsky, Robert, eds., “Introduction,” in their The Age of Affluence, 1951–1964 (Harmondsworth, 1970), pp. 7, 15Google Scholar.

4 See, e.g., Bogdanor, V., “The Labour Party in Opposition, 1951–1964,” in Bogdanor, and Skidelsky, , eds., Age of Affluence, pp. 78–116Google Scholar; Calder, Angus, The People's War: Britain, 1939–1945 (London, 1969)Google Scholar; and Addison, Paul, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

5 Morgan, Kenneth O., The People's Peace: British History since 1945 (Oxford, 1999), p. 145Google Scholar.

6 Conekin, Becky, Mort, Frank, and Waters, Chris, eds., “Introduction,” in Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain, 1945–1964 (London, 1999), pp. 4–5Google Scholar. One of the most optimistic and uncritical accounts is Hennessy, Peter, Never Again: Britain, 1945–1951 (London, 1993)Google Scholar.

7 Recent reappraisals of wartime and postwar political and social consensus include Lowe, Rodney, “The Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State,” Twentieth-Century British History 1, no. 2 (1990): 152–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, José, “Great Britain: The People's War?” in Allies at War: The Soviet, American and British Experience, 1939–1945, ed. Reynolds, David, Kimball, Warren, and Chubarian, A. O. (Basingstoke, 1994), pp. 233–59Google Scholar; and Fielding, Steven, Thompson, Peter, and Tiratsoo, Nick, England Arise! The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain (Manchester, 1995)Google Scholar.

8 Waters, Chris, “‘Dark Strangers’ in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947–1963,” Journal of British Studies 36, no. 2 (1997): 207–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brooke, Stephen, “The Conservative Party, Immigration and National Identity, 1948–1968,” in The Conservatives and British Society, 1880–1990, ed. Francis, M. and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, I. (Cardiff, 1996), pp. 147–70Google Scholar; and Paul, Kathleen, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, 1997)Google Scholar. British response to the nascent European Economic Community and the development of the “special relationship” with the United States were also affected by increasingly complex and contested understandings of national and social identity at this time. See, e.g., Kaiser, Wolfram, Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945–1963 (London, 1996)Google Scholar; and Noakes, Lucy, War and the British: Gender and National Identity, 1939–1991 (London, 1998)Google Scholar.

9 Bailey, Peter, “Jazz at the Spirella: Coming of Age in Coventry in the 1950s,” in Conekin, Mort, and Waters, , eds., Moments of Modernity, p. 40Google Scholar; Brooke, Stephen, “Gender and Working-Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s,” Journal of Social History 34 (2001): 773–95CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Steedman, Carolyn, Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Mort, Frank, Cultures of Consumption: Masculinities and Social Space in Late Twentieth-Century Britain (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Segal, Lynne, “Look Back in Anger: Men in the Fifties,” in Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, ed. Chapman, R. and Rutherford, J. (London, 1988), pp. 68–96Google Scholar; and Birmingham Feminist History Group, “Feminism as Femininity in the 1950s,” Feminist Review 3 (1979): 48–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Hopkins, Harry, The New Look: A Social History of the Forties and Fifties in Britain (London, 1963), pp. 423–40Google Scholar; Frith, Simon, Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure and the Politics of Rock (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Springhall, John, Coming of Age: Adolescence in Britain, 1860–1960 (Dublin, 1986), chap. 6Google Scholar; Gillis, John R., Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations, 1770–Present (London, 1981)Google Scholar, chap. 6; and Osgerby, Bill, Youth in Britain since 1945 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 17–28Google Scholar.

11 Osgerby, , Youth in Britain, p. 17Google Scholar.

12 For examples of these contrasting views, see Zweig, Ferdynand, The Student in the Age of Anxiety: A Survey of Oxford and Manchester Students (London, 1963)Google Scholar; and Fyvel, T. R., The Insecure Offenders: Rebellious Youth in the Welfare State (Harmondsworth, 1963)Google Scholar. Frank Musgrove drew on Zweig's study in his critique of the effects of the tripartite educational system on young people in Youth and the Social Order (London, 1964), especially pp. 106–24Google Scholar.

13 Clarke, Johnet al., “Subcultures, Cultures and Class: A Theoretical Overview,” in Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, ed. Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (Birmingham, 1976), p. 18Google Scholar.

14 Hopkins, , New Look, p. 423Google Scholar.

15 Weight, Richard and Beach, Abigail, eds., “Introduction,” in The Right to Belong: Citizenship and National Identity in Britain, 1930–1960 (London, 1998), p. 10Google Scholar. Bill Osgerby's recent study, Youth in Britain, does not consider the relationship between youth and political parties nor does Kevin Jefferys's study of politics and voting patterns in this period; see Jefferys, Kevin, Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics, 1951–1964 (Basingstoke, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See, e.g., Millward, Robert, “The 1940s Nationalizations in Britain: Means to an End or the Means of Production?” Economic History Review 50, no. 2 (1997): 209–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tomlinson, Jim, Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945–1951 (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar; Burnham, Peter, “Britain's External Economic Policy in the Early 1950s: The Historical Significance of Operation Robot,” Twentieth-Century British History 11, no. 4 (2000): 379–408CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Booth, Alan, “Inflation, Expectations, and the Political Economy of Conservative Britain, 1951–1964,” Historical Journal 43, no. 3 (2000): 827–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some recent discussions of political parties and common culture include Harris, José, “Labour's Social and Political Thought,” in Labour's First Century, ed. Tanner, D., Thane, P., and Tiratsoo, N. (Manchester, 2000), pp. 8–45Google Scholar; Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; Weight and Beach, eds., Right to Belong; and Plant, Raymond, “Social Democracy,” in The Ideas That Shaped Post-war Britain, ed. Marquand, David and Seldon, Anthony (London, 1996), pp. 165–94Google Scholar.

17 A brief discussion is found in Fielding, Steven, “Activists against ‘Affluence’: Labour Party Culture during the ‘Golden Age,’ circa 1950–1970,” Journal of British Studies, 40 (April 2001): 262–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tiratsoo, Nick, “Popular Politics, Affluence and the Labour Party in the 1950s,” in Contemporary British History, 1931–1961: Politics and the Limits of Policy, ed. Gorst, A., Johnman, L., and Lucas, W. Scott (London, 1991), pp. 44–61Google Scholar; Thorpe, Andrew, A History of the British Labour Party (New York, 1997), p. 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butler, D. E. and Rose, Richard, British General Election of 1959 (London, 1960), pp. 11, 193, 197Google Scholar; and Butler, D. E. and King, Anthony, British General Election of 1964 (London, 1965), p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Young people's contribution to political ideas has been observed primarily in the emergence of the New Left, and studies have focused on the role of a small number of young “intellectuals.” See, e.g., Kenny, Michael, The First New Left: British Intellectuals after Stalin (London, 1995)Google Scholar; and Desai, Radhika, Intellectuals and Socialism: “Social Democrats” and the Labour Party (London, 1994)Google Scholar.

18 The policy development program initiated after the 1955 election did not include any separate consideration of issues related to young people past school-leaving. See Labour Party Archives, Manchester (hereafter LPA), Research Department, R. 532, Policy and Publicity Sub-Committee, “The New Research Programme,” September 1955.

19 Among recent studies, see Shaw, Eric, The Labour Party since 1945: Old Labour, New Labour (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar; Fielding, Steven, ed., The Labour Party: “Socialism” and Society since 1951 (Manchester, 1997)Google Scholar; Brivati, Brian, Hugh Gaitskell (London, 1996)Google Scholar; and Foote, Geoffrey, The Labour Party's Political Thought: A History, 2d ed. (London, 1986), pts. 4 and 5Google Scholar. Two notable attempts to present more nuanced perspectives are Ellison, Nicholas, Egalitarian Thought and Labour Politics: Retreating Visions (London, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Desai, Intellectuals and Socialism. Large areas of the history of the Labour Party during this period remain untouched outside the biographies and diaries of major political figures. See, among others, Foot, Michael, Aneurin Bevan: A Biography, vol. 2, 1945–1960 (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Williams, Philip, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Jay, Douglas, Change and Fortune: A Political Record (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Morgan, Janet, ed., The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (London, 1981)Google Scholar; and Walker, Patrick Gordon, The Political Diaries, 1932–1971, ed. Pearce, Robert (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

20 This is especially true of the years following defeat in 1931. See Pimlott, Ben, Labour and the Left in the 1930s (Cambridge, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Durbin, Elizabeth, New Jerusalems: The Labour Party and the Economics of Democratic Socialism (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

21 Ellis, Catherine, “Ideas, Policy and Ideology: The British Labour Party in Opposition, 1951–1959” (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar.

22 LPA, Research Department, RD. 37, Home Policy Sub-Committee, “Britain in 1964,” March 1960.

23 Modern Records Centre (Warwick University), Richard Crossman Papers, MSS 154/3/LIT/2/131, “Impressions of the 1955 General Election,” 7 June 1955; Abrams, Mark, Rose, Richard, and Hinden, Rita, Must Labour Lose? (Harmondsworth, 1960), pp. 51–54Google Scholar; Crosland, Butler and Rose, , British General Election of 1959, pp. 10–16Google Scholar; C. A. R., , Can Labour Win? Fabian Tract no. 324 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; and Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, “Rationing, Austerity and the Conservative Party Recovery after 1945,” Historical Journal 37, no. 1 (1994): 173–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Phillips, Morgan, Labour in the Sixties (London, 1960), p. 15Google Scholar; and Black, Amy and Brooke, Stephen, “The Labour Party, Women and the Problem of Gender, 1951–1966,” Journal of British Studies 36, no. 4 (1997): 419–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Labour Party, Me?! An Idealist? (London, 1955)Google Scholar, unpaginated; and Labour Party, Take It from Here: A Policy for Young People Who Think for Themselves (London, 1956), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

26 MacInnes, Colin, “Labour and Youth,” Socialist Commentary (December 1959), p. 20Google Scholar.

27 On the history of Labour's youth movement, see Layton-Henry, Zig, “Labour's Lost Youth,” Journal of Contemporary History 11, nos. 2–3 (1976): 275–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Ball, Stuart, “Local Conservatism and the Evolution of the Party Organization,” in Conservative Century, ed. Seldon, Anthony and Ball, Stuart (Oxford, 1994), pp. 274–75Google Scholar; and Layton-Henry, , “Labour's Lost Youth,” p. 287Google Scholar. Layton-Henry cautions, however, that youth membership figures were often inflated by regional and national organizers in both parties.

29 Layton-Henry, Zig, “The Young Conservatives, 1945–1970,” Journal of Contemporary History 8, no. 2 (1973): 147Google Scholar.

30 Rowntree, B. Seebohm and Lavers, G. R., English Life and Leisure: A Social Study (London, 1951), p. 392Google Scholar.

31 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 1, “Youth Commission,” April 1959.

32 University College, London (hereafter UCL), Hugh Gaitskell Papers, C193, Gaitskell to Tommy Steele, 20 March 1959, and Larry Parnes to Gaitskell, 25 March 1959.

33 The majority of men were married before the age of 25, while most women were married by age 22. LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 1, “Youth Commission,” April 1959.

34 Labour Party, The Younger Generation: Report of the Labour Party Youth Commission (London, 1959), p. 48Google Scholar.

35 Ibid.; LPA, Research Department, RD. 19, Home Policy Committee, “Report of Youth Commission,” January 1960.

36 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YOCOM/9, “Youth Commission Report,” Minutes of Campaign Committee, 26 August 1959.

37 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YOCOM/10, Gerald Gardiner to Morgan Phillips, 2 September 1959, GS/YOCOM/12, Arthur Bax to Morgan Phillips, 9 September 1959, GS/YOCOM/13, press release for Labour Party, The Younger Generation, 13 September 1959Google Scholar; LPA, Research Department, RD. 17, Home Policy Committee, “Youth Commission,” January 1960; and UCL, Hugh Gaitskell Papers, C193, Hugh Gaitskell to Gerald Gardiner, 16 September 1959.

38 Labour Party, Britain Belongs to You (London, 1959), p. 2Google Scholar.

39 LPA, Research Department, RD. 17, Home Policy Committee, “Youth Commission,” January 1960, and RD. 21, Home Policy Sub-Committee, “Draft Statement on Youth Commission Report,” January 1960.

40 LPA, National Executive Committee, “Report and Recommendations of the Youth Working Party,” 25 November 1959.

41 See, among others, Bowlby, John, Child Care and the Growth of Love (Harmondsworth, 1953)Google Scholar; Fyvel, Insecure Offenders; Evans, Winifred M., Young People in Society (Oxford, 1965), pp. 187–91Google Scholar; Clarke, Johnet al., “Subcultures, Cultures and Class,” in Hall, and Jefferson, , eds., Resistance through Rituals, pp. 18–20Google Scholar; Clarke, John and Jefferson, Tony, “Working Class Youth Cultures,” in Working Class Youth Culture, ed. Mungham, Geoff and Pearson, Geoff (London, 1976), pp. 138–58Google Scholar; and Turner, Barry and Rennell, Tony, When Daddy Came Home: How Family Life Changed Forever in 1945 (London, 1995), chap. 10Google Scholar.

42 Fyvel, , Insecure Offenders, p. 24Google Scholar.

43 Studies that gave substantial attention to the place of youth in the postwar family and society included Reed, Bryan H., Eighty Thousand Adolescents: A Study of Young People in the City of Birmingham (London, 1950)Google Scholar; Logan, R. F. L. and Goldberg, E. M., “Rising Eighteen in a London Suburb: A Study of Some Aspects of the Life and Health of Young Men,” British Journal of Sociology 4 (1953): 323–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mogey, J. M., Family and Neighbourhood: Two Studies in Oxford (London, 1956)Google Scholar; Young, Michael and Willmott, Peter, Family and Kinship in East London (Harmondsworth, 1957)Google Scholar; Zweig, Student in the Age of Anxiety; and Willmott, Peter, Adolescent Boys of East London (London, 1966)Google Scholar.

44 LPA, Research Department, RE. 437, Home Policy Sub-Committee, “Proposed Public Opinion Survey: The Working Class Vote,” September 1958; and Butler, and King, , British General Election of 1964, pp. 67–71Google Scholar. Mark Abrams's own views on the use of polls in British politics at this time are recorded in “Public Opinion Polls and Political Parties,” Public Opinion Quarterly 27, no. 1 (1963): 9–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Opinion Polls and Party Propaganda,” Public Opinion Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1964): 13–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Labor Party, Younger Generation, p. 4Google Scholar; and LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar, also published as The Teenage Consumer, London Press Exchange Paper no. 5 (London, 1959)Google Scholar. While from a longer historical perspective the proportion of teenagers in the population in the 1950s was very low, interwar fears about population decline had heightened the effect of the “baby boom” on public opinion. Gillis, , Youth and History, p. 11Google Scholar.

46 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar, and “Younger Generation. I. The Facts of Young Life” (hereafter cited as “Facts of Young Life”), Encounter (May 1956), p. 39Google Scholar. Osgerby has recently reassessed Abrams's figures and suggests that young people's economic affluence was not as great as contemporary studies claimed. It is clear, however, that the popular perception of young people's affluence was central to both contemporary comment and Labour's understanding of youth. See Osgerby, , Youth in Britain, pp. 23–26Google Scholar.

47 Abrams, , “Facts of Young Life,” pp. 39–40Google Scholar. Abrams's figures are supported by an earlier study of young people in Birmingham that found that both boys and girls went out at least twice a week, most often to youth clubs and the cinema. See Reed, , Eighty Thousand Adolescents, pp. 26–33Google Scholar.

48 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 13, “Analysis of Correspondence to Roxy & Marilyn,” May 1959, and YC. 25, Rosemary Timperley, “Reveille: Correspondence from Readers,” June 1959.

49 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Mark Abrams, “The New Consumer,” May 1959.

50 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 1, “Youth Commission,” April 1959.

51 Quoted in MacDonald, Sally and Porter, Julia, Putting on the Style: Setting Up Home in the 1950s (London, 1990)Google Scholar, unpaginated.

52 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar.

53 Fyvel, , Insecure Offenders, p. 12Google Scholar.

54 Convictions for violent crimes rose proportionately, from 1,709 in 1956 to 4,422 in 1961, while the Borstal population increased from 2,800 to over 5,000 between 1956 and 1960. Ibid., pp. 15–17. On the difficulties associated with defining and policing juvenile crime and the tendency to idealize the behavior of earlier generations, see King, Peter, “The Rise of Juvenile Delinquency in England, 1780–1840: Changing Patterns of Perception and Prosecution,” Past and Present, no. 160 (1998): 116–66Google Scholar; Hendrick, Harry, Images of Youth: Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880–1920 (Oxford, 1990), esp. pp. 119–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Humphries, Stephen, Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth, 1889–1939 (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar; Pearson, Geoffrey, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears (London, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chaps. 2 and 3; and Smithies, Edward, Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II (London, 1982), pp. 171–85Google Scholar.

55 Labour Party, Leisure for Living (London, 1959), p. 40Google Scholar; Willmott, Adolescent Boys, chap. 8; and Shaw, Lulie A., “Impressions of Family Life in a London Suburb,” Sociological Review, new ser., 2, no. 1 (1954): 185Google Scholar.

56 Jefferson, Tony, “Cultural Responses of the Teds: The Defence of Space and Status,” in Hall, and Jefferson, , eds., Resistance through Rituals, pp. 82–83Google Scholar; Rock, Paul and Cohen, Stanley, “The Teddy Boy,” in Bogdanor, and Skidelsky, , eds., Age of Affluence, pp. 299–300Google Scholar; and Springhall, , Coming of Age, pp. 206–7Google Scholar. The media presentation of Teddy Boys at the time of the Clapham Common murder and during the Notting Hill riots is discussed in Fyvel, , Insecure Offenders, pp. 55–56, 61–62Google Scholar.

57 Lewis, Peter, The Fifties (London, 1978), pp. 129–30Google Scholar; Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth, 1958), pp. 222–28Google Scholar; and Fyvel, , Insecure Offenders, pp. 54–55Google Scholar.

58 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 12, Willis, Ted, “Notes on Research for a Television Play,” May 1959Google Scholar; Carman, Rock and Cohen, , “The Teddy Boy,” pp. 298–302Google Scholar; and Barry, , “‘Teddy Boys’ at Shepherd's Bush,” in Newcomers: The West Indians in London, ed. Glass, Ruth (London, 1960), pp. 261–69Google Scholar. The loss of direction between school-leaving and National Service was also blamed for young men's antisocial behavior. See Crowson, Nicholas, “Citizen Defence: The Conservative Party and Its Attitude to National Service, 1937–1957,” in Weight, and Beach, , eds., Right to Belong, pp. 213–19Google Scholar; and Osgerby, , Youth in Britain, pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

59 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 24, Matthews, Leonard, “Top Spot: Readers Views,” June 1959Google Scholar, YC. 17, Hacker, Rose, “Sex, Love and Marriage,” June 1959Google Scholar, YC. 27, National Association of Labour Student Organisations, “Evidence to the Labour Party Youth Commission,” June 1959Google Scholar.

60 Logan, and Goldberg, , “Rising Eighteen,” p. 344Google Scholar; Abrams, Philip and Little, Alan, “The Young Voter in British Politics,” British Journal of Sociology 16 (1965): 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Zweig, , Student in the Age of Anxiety, pp. 42–45, 116–17Google Scholar.

61 Industrial Welfare Society, What I Expect from Work (London, 1959)Google Scholar; LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 16, Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations, “Memorandum of Evidence to the Central Advisory Council for Education (England) from the Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations, Dec. 1957,” June 1959, and YC. 23, Albu, Austen, “Apprenticeship and Training of Young People,” June 1959Google Scholar.

62 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 17, Hacker, Rose, “Sex, Love and Marriage,” June 1959Google Scholar; and Logan, and Goldberg, , “Rising Eighteen,” pp. 340, 343Google Scholar. A Church of Scotland survey in 1955 found that 38 percent of boys and 12 percent of girls saw nothing wrong with premarital relations provided that the couple was engaged, but far fewer expressed approval if there was no engagement. See Abrams, , “Facts of Young Life,” p. 42Google Scholar.

63 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar.

64 Osborne, John, Look Back in Anger (London, 1956), pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

65 The most articulate proponent of this approach was Richard Crossman. See Crossman, Richard, Labour in the Affluent Society, Fabian Tract no. 325 (London, 1960), pp. 9–11Google Scholar.

66 Abrams, , “Facts of Young Life,” p. 36Google Scholar.

67 Galbraith, J. K., The Affluent Society (Harmondsworth, 1958)Google Scholar; and Labour Party, Signposts for the Sixties (London, 1961), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

68 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 29, “Evidence Submitted by U.L.R.,” July 1959.

69 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 27, National Association of Student Organisations, “Evidence to the Labour Party Youth Commission,” June 1959Google Scholar.

70 For example, Abrams, Rose, and Hinden, Must Labour Lose?; Crosland, Can Labour Win?; Crossman, Labour in the Affluent Society; and Goldthorpe, Johnet al., The Affluent Worker, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1968–1970)Google Scholar.

71 MacInnes, Colin, “Pop Songs and Teenagers,” in England, Half English (Harmondsworth, 1961), p. 57Google Scholar. Similar sentiments had, however, already been expressed by J. B. Priestly, observing youth in the 1930s: Priestly, J. B., English Journey (London, 1934), pp. 402–3Google Scholar.

72 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar; Murdock, Graham and McCron, Robin, “Youth and Class: The Career of a Confusion,” in Working Class Youth Culture, ed. Mungham, Geoff and Pearson, Geoff (London, 1976), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; and Clarke, et al., “Subcultures, Cultures and Class,” pp. 21–22Google Scholar.

73 Young, Michael and Willmott, Peter, “Research Report No. 3: Institute of Community Studies, Bethnal Green,” Sociological Review 9 (1961): 203–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Townsend, Peter, “A Society for People,” in Conviction, ed. Mackenzie, Norman (London, 1959), p. 112Google Scholar. I am grateful to Lord Young for bringing the research report to my attention.

74 Crosland, C. A. R., “Aims of Social Policy: A Contribution to Labour Party Thinking,” Fabian Journal (July 1956), pp. 19–20Google Scholar. See especially the contributions of Townsend, and Abel-Smith, to the Labour Party's old-age pension plan, National Superannuation (London, 1957)Google Scholar.

75 Willmott, , Adolescent Boys, pp. 86–87Google Scholar; LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 25, Timperley , Rosemary, “Reveille: Correspondence from Readers,” June 1959Google Scholar, and YC. 27, National Association of Labour Student Organisations, “Evidence to the Labour Party Youth Commission,” June 1959Google Scholar.

76 Willmott, , Adolescent Boys, p. 164Google Scholar.

77 Ibid., p. 165.

78 On youth and class, see also Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London, 1995)Google Scholar; and the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Birmingham, including Hall and Jefferson, eds., Resistance through Rituals.

79 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 11, Abrams, Mark, “The New Consumer,” May 1959Google Scholar.

80 Willmott, , Adolescent Boys, pp. 53–70Google Scholar; Zweig, , Student in the Age of Anxiety, pp. 57–58Google Scholar; Young and Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London, chaps. 3 and 6; and Townsend, Peter, The Family Life of Old People (Harmondsworth, 1957), pp. 105–8Google Scholar. After surveying teenagers and adults in the early 1960s, Frank Musgrove concluded that the problem was not “the ‘rejection’ by the young of their elders” but, rather, “the rejection of the young by adults.” See Musgrove, , Youth and the Social Order, pp. 2, 86–105Google Scholar.

81 LPA, Youth Commission Papers, YC. 17, Hacker, Rose, “Sex, Love and Marriage,” June 1959Google Scholar; and Tiratsoo, , “Popular Politics, Affluence, and the Labour Party,” pp. 50–53Google Scholar.

82 For a general discussion of youth and consumer society, see Benson, John, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880–1980 (London, 1994), pp. 164–76Google Scholar.

83 See, e.g., Labour's internal discussion of appropriate policies on commercial television: LPA, Research Department, R. 517, Policy and Publicity Sub-Committee, “Television Policy,” April 1955Google Scholar, and RE. 511, Sub-Committee on Television and Radio, “Recommendations on Third Programme and Television Policy (Revised),” February 1959.

84 Crosland, C. A. R., “Introduction,” in his Orientation: Socialism Today and Tomorrow (Amsterdam, 1959), p. 39Google Scholar.

85 Crosland, C. A. R., “Monopoly, Advertising and the Consumer,” in his The Conservative Enemy (London, 1962), p. 54Google Scholar.

86 British Library of Political and Economic Science (London), C.A.R. Crosland Papers, 4/8/23, “Britain,” n.d. [1960–64], and 13/20/1, “Looking at the News: Rock n' Roll,” 21 September 1956.

87 Crosland, C. A. R., The Future of Socialism (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, and “Monopoly, Advertising and the Consumer,” pp. 50–67.

88 Crossman, , Labour in the Affluent Society, p. 5Google Scholar.

89 Labour Party, Younger Generation, pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

90 Ibid., p. 7.

91 Ibid., pp. 40, 35–37.

92 Ibid., pp. 38–40.

93 See, e.g., Labour Party, The Nonsense about Youth (London, 1961)Google Scholar, Labour and the Scientific Revolution (London, 1963)Google Scholar, and What the New Britain Will Be Like When Labour Wins (London, 1964), p. 12Google Scholar.

94 Labour Party, What the New Britain Will Be Like, p. 15Google Scholar. See also the manifesto, Labour Party, Let's Go with Labour for the New Britain (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

95 LPA, Research Department, RD. 35, Home Policy Sub-Committee, “Notes on the General Election,” March 1960; and Butler, and Rose, , British General Election of 1959, pp. 193, 197Google Scholar.

96 Mark Abrams, “Why Labour Has Lost Elections,” pts. 1, 2, 4 [sic], and 5, Socialist Commentary (May–August 1960); LPA, NEC Sec. no. 106, “Socialist Commentary Survey: Why Labour Lost Elections,” 13 July 1960. The Socialist Commentary survey was subsequently expanded and published as Abrams, Rose, and Hinden, Must Labour Lose? The electorate's view of Labour during this period is examined in Brooke, Stephen, “Labour and ‘the Nation’ after 1945,” in Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Modern Britain, ed. Taylor, Miles and Lawrence, Jon (London, 1997), pp. 153–75Google Scholar.

97 LPA, Research Department, RD. 87, Home Policy Sub-Committee, “A Note on Dr. Abrams' Survey,” September 1960. By contrast, a survey conducted in 1956 had found that 54 percent of young people supported Labour, while the Conservatives had the support of 40 percent. See Abrams, , “Facts of Young Life,” p. 41Google Scholar.

98 Phillips, , Labour in the Sixties, pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

99 Ibid., p. 17; and LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/52, “The Young Socialists: A New Organisation for Labour's Youth,” 21 January 1960.

100 Labour Party, How, When and Why: A Guide for the Young Socialists (London, 1960), p. 6Google Scholar.

101 LPA, National Executive Committee (NEC), “Report and Recommendations of the Youth Working Party,” 25 November 1959Google Scholar; and NEC, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/44, “Organisation of Youth: Observations by the General Secretary,” 16 December 1959.

102 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/29, Windsor, Maureen, Jarvis, Fred, Morris, Peter, and Rust, W. Bonney, “The Labour Party and Youth,” September 1950Google Scholar; and Layton-Henry, , “Labour's Lost Youth,” pp. 285–90, 293Google Scholar.

103 Layton-Henry, , “Labour's Lost Youth,” p. 294Google Scholar; and Butler, and King, , British General Election of 1964, p. 63Google Scholar.

104 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/55, J. K. Hewitt to Morgan Phillips, January 1960.

105 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/62, Desmond Donnelly to Morgan Phillips, 21 March 1960.

106 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/63i, Arthur Bax to Morgan Phillips, 24 March 1960, and GS/YS/64, Phillips to Donnelly, 8 April 1960. For an example of the gramophone sleeve style, see Labour Party, Too Young? (London, 1960)Google Scholar.

107 LPA, General Secretary's Papers, GS/YS/65, “Young Socialists,” 8 April 1960, and GS/YS/61, notes for press conference, 21 January 1960.

108 Layton-Henry, , “Labour's Lost Youth,” pp. 295–304Google Scholar; Shipley, Peter, The Militant Tendency: Trotskyism in the Labour Party (Richmond, 1983), pp. 27, 31–33Google Scholar; and Butler, D. E. and Pinto-Duschinsky, M., British General Election of 1970 (London, 1971), pp. 277, 287Google Scholar.

109 For example, Gardner, Llew, “The Fringe Left,” in The Left, ed. Kaufman, Gerald (London, 1966), pp. 136–39Google Scholar; and Tiratsoo, Nick, “Labour and Its Critics: The Case of the May Day Manifesto Group,” in Coopey, and Tiratsoo, , eds., Wilson Governments, p. 173Google Scholar.

110 Compare Labour Party, Britain Belongs to You, p. 2Google Scholar, and Let's Go with Labour, pp. 13–14, 18.

111 See table 1. In 1969, the Representation of the People Act fulfilled one of Labour's promises by lowering the voting age to 18, and although many newly enfranchised youths were not registered, and their turnout in the 1970 election was low, Labour was nevertheless the main beneficiary of their support. On the role of young voters in the elections of 1964, 1966, and 1970, see Butler, David and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of Electoral Choice, 2d ed. (London, 1974), pp. 239–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 Labour Party, Younger Generation, p. 40Google Scholar.