Tony Blair's espousal of privatization before the 1997 General Election finally extinguished the life of socialism as a significant political force in this country. There have been many reasons - both philosophical and personal - for its demise, yet in the end socialism sickened and died because of its impracticability and the failures consequent thereon. Edmund Dell's authoritative history traces the British socialist tradition from the origins of the Labour Party in the trade union movement, examining what socialism meant to the Atlee government in 1945 and what socialist governments from Atlee to Callaghan sought to achieve and why they often failed. It portrays the leading figures and their thoughts and actions from the perspective of one who was an MP and a Minister during the heyday of Labour in the seventies, and who knew all the key players well.