Labour’s propagandists didn’t ask their voters to vote Labour again in 1938 because, with the coming in to force of the new Social Security Act in 1939, they could get a benefit. The world Labour promised to build for its supporters had paid employment at its heart. That’s what their supporters wanted, and that’s what they got.

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Known principally for his political commentaries in The Dominion Post, The ODT, The Press and the late, lamented Independent, and for "No Left Turn", his 2007 history of the Left/Right struggle in New...