<P> The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century , and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s . In the 1930s and 1940s it stressed national planning , using nationalization of industry as a tool , in line with Clause IV of the original constitution of the Labour Party which called for the `` ... common ownership of the means of production , distribution , and exchange , and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service '' ( this clause was eventually revised in 1994 ) . Labour has had several spells in government , first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929 -- 31 . MacDonald and half his cabinet split with the mainstream of the Party and were denounced as traitors . Labour was a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940 -- 1945 . After the famous 1945 landslide under Clement Attlee ( 1945 -- 51 ) it set up the welfare state with the National Health Service , nationalised a fifth of the economy , joined NATO and opposed the Soviet Union in the Cold War . Under Harold Wilson in 1964 -- 70 it promoted economic modernisation . Labour was in government again in 1974 -- 79 , under Wilson and then James Callaghan . Escalating economic crises ( the `` Winter of Discontent '' ) and a split with David Owen and others forming the SDP , resulted in Opposition status during the Thatcher years , 1979 -- 1990 . </P>
<P> The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century , and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s . In the 1930s and 1940s it stressed national planning , using nationalization of industry as a tool , in line with Clause IV of the original constitution of the Labour Party which called for the `` ... common ownership of the means of production , distribution , and exchange , and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service '' ( this clause was eventually revised in 1994 ) . Labour has had several spells in government , first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929 -- 31 . MacDonald and half his cabinet split with the mainstream of the Party and were denounced as traitors . Labour was a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940 -- 1945 . After the famous 1945 landslide under Clement Attlee ( 1945 -- 51 ) it set up the welfare state with the National Health Service , nationalised a fifth of the economy , joined NATO and opposed the Soviet Union in the Cold War . Under Harold Wilson in 1964 -- 70 it promoted economic modernisation . Labour was in government again in 1974 -- 79 , under Wilson and then James Callaghan . Escalating economic crises ( the `` Winter of Discontent '' ) and a split with David Owen and others forming the SDP , resulted in Opposition status during the Thatcher years , 1979 -- 1990 . </P>
when did the labour party first come to power
when did the labour party first come to power
1945
1945