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Clause 4

Clause 4

Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution sets out the objects of the Party, and has been the scene of political fights over its direction. The original version of Clause IV, drafted in 1918 by Sidney Webb, read, in part: :"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of 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 text is usually assumed to mean nationalization of the whole economy, but close reading of the text shows that there are many other possible interpretations. Common ownership, though later given a technical meaning by the 1976 Industrial Common Ownership Act, could mean municipal ownership, worker cooperatives or consumer cooperatives. Many would also include the John Lewis Partnership as a company in common ownership. The phrase has to mean something which would be seen by traditionalists as Socialist. After losing the 1959 general election, Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell came to believe that public opposition to nationalisation had led to the party's poor performance, and announced that he proposed to amend Clause IV. The left fought back and managed to defeat any change; symbolically it was then agreed to include Clause IV part 4 on Labour Party membership cards. Tony Blair announced at the conclusion of his 1994 conference speech that the Labour Party needed a new statement of aims and values, and that he would draw one up and present it to the Party. The new version was adopted at a Special Conference at Easter 1995. The present version reads: :"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. Where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe. And where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect." This should mean that New Labour is pledged to introduce measures of redistribution of income, power and opportunity. Although the Labour government has introduced a number of mild income redistribution measures such as the Working Families Tax Credit, they have not made redistribution a major plank of their policies and inequality is greater than in 1979. The present Labour government generally supports Public-Private Partnerships and the Private Finance Initiative in preference to public sector financing, and privatised National Air Traffic Services, so actually operates more in a social democrat way, than as a democratic socialist government suggested by Clause IV. ---- Clause Four was also the name of a campaigning group within the Labour Party's student wing, which succeeded in ending its control by the Militant Tendency in 1974. Category:UK Labour Party Category:Politics of the United Kingdom

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is the principal centre-left political party in the United Kingdom (see British politics). It is one of the United Kingdom's three main political parties and is currently the party of government in the United Kingdom. It describes itself as a Democratic Socialist party and is a member of the Socialist International. Under the leadership of Tony Blair it won by a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, and formed its first government since the 1979 general election. It retained its position with two further large victories in the 2001 and the 2005 general elections. Under Blair's leadership, the party has adopted a number of liberal policies.

Structure

2005 The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions and socialist societies, including the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making bodies, on a national level, formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference, and National Policy Forum (NPF) - although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say. Questions of internal party democracy have frequently provoked disputes in the party. For many years, Labour had a policy of Irish unity by consent, and did not allow residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining, but the National Executive has decided not to organise or contest elections there.

Early years

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century, when it became apparent that there was an increasing need for a third party in Britain to represent the interests and needs of the large working-class population (for instance, the 1899 Lyons vs. Wilkins judgement that limited certain types of picketing). Some members of the trade union movement were interested in moving into the political field and after the extension of the franchise to working class men in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party had endorsed some trade union-sponsored candidates. In addition several small socialist groups had been formed which wanted to link to the movement and give it a wider policy. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society (an intellectual group whose members were mainly middle-class), the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. British politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was divided between the perceived 'establishment', represented by the Conservative Party (nicknamed the Tories), and a more radical 'non-conformist' tradition, based around for example Welsh and North Midlands Methodism. The non-conformist tradition was embodied by the Liberal Party under leaders like William Ewart Gladstone and David Lloyd George. After the Representation of The People Act, 1884, most adult men had the vote but about 40% were still unenfranchised, mainly among the working class who would be more likely to support parties of the left. David Lloyd GeorgeIn 1899 a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all the left-wing organisations and form them into a single body which would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages including by the TUC and this special conference was held at the International Hall, Farringdon Street, London on February 27-28, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing about one-third of the membership of the TUC sent delegates. The Conference created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, and it was to have acted as a body coordinating attempts to elect to Parliament members who had been sponsored by trade unions as representing the working-class population. It had no single leader. In default of any other candidate, the Independent Labour Party's nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 'Khaki election' came too soon for the new party to effectively campaign. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Two candidates from the Social Democratic Federation were endorsed but the SDF was unhappy with the essentially compromising agenda of the Labour Representation Committee. At the SDF's 1901 conference it voted to withdraw. However support for the LRC among the trade unions was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgment effectively made strikes illegal (since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions). The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared uninterested in the problems of working people. In the 1902-03 period the LRC won two by-elections. Arthur Balfour The LRC won 29 seats in the 1906 election, helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay Macdonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone which aimed at avoiding Labour/Liberal contests in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office. In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to take the name "The Labour Party" (February 15, 1906). James Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have an individual membership until 1918 and operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies until that date. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement. In 1909 the Osbourne judgment ruled that Trade Unions could not raise funds for political purposes, a move which threatened one of Labour's main funding sources. This was especially detrimental to the Labour party as it supporters were generally poorer than other political parties. The two elections in 1910 saw Labour gain 40 seats and 42 seats respectively. In 1911 David Lloyd George gave MPs a wage of £400 per annum, which partly helped to alleviate the financial problems and the Osbourne judgment was overturned in 1913. Support grew for Labour during the 1910-1914 period as a result of an unprecedented scale of strike action. Seamen, rail workers, cotton workers, coal miners, dockers and many other groups all organised strikes, with many sympathy strikes also occurring. This increase in action can partly be explained by the recession of 1908-09 and subsequent rise in unemployment, as well as the growing support for radical change among the working-class (such as support for syndicalism). This was no doubt helped by the sometimes heavy-handed measures of the Liberal government; Winston Churchill sent in troops to the Rhondda valley in 1910 to deal with coal miners, resulting in some fatalities. During the First World War the Liberal Party split between factions supporting leader David Lloyd George and former leader Herbert Asquith. At the end of the war universal adult male suffrage was enacted, together with votes for women over the age of 30. The Liberal split, accompanied by this fundamental change in the system, allowed the Labour Party to co-opt some of The Liberals support, and by the 1922 general election Labour had supplanted the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives. With the Liberals still in turmoil, Labour formed its first minority government with Liberal support in January 1924, with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister; the government collapsed after nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry which MacDonald had declared an issue of confidence but the Liberal electoral base had vanished. The ensuing general election saw the publication four days before polling day of the Zinoviev Letter implicating Labour in a plot for a Communist revolution, and the Conservatives returned to power. The Zinoviev letter is now generally believed to have been a forgery. Zinoviev Letter

The split under MacDonald

The election of May 1929 saw Labour returned for the first time as the largest party in the House of Commons, and Ramsay MacDonald formed a second Liberal-backed government, though Labour's lack of a parliamentary majority again prevented it from carrying out its desired legislative programme. The financial crisis of 1931 caused a disastrous split in the party, with MacDonald and a few senior ministers going into alliance with the Conservatives and Liberals as the "National Government" (August 24, 1931) while most of the party rank-and-file went into opposition under the leadership of first George Lansbury and (from 1935) Clement Attlee. The ILP under James Maxton disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932, removing a substantial proportion of the left of the party from membership. While MacDonald's "National Labour" following dwindled to a small parliamentary appendage to the Conservatives, opposition Labour rapidly regained most of the party's former electoral support, and entered the wartime coalition government of Winston Churchill (May 1940) on terms of near equality with the Conservative majority.

Post-War victory to the 1960s

1940] With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and withdrew from the government to contest the subsequent general election (July 5) in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprisingly to many (especially overseas) observers, Labour won a landslide majority, reflecting voters' perception of it as the party to carry through wartime promises of reform. The results were announced on July 26; Labour won 48% of the vote and a landslide Parliamentary majority of 146 seats. Clement Attlee's government was one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century. It presided over a policy of selective nationalisation (the Bank of England, coal, electricity, gas, the railways and iron & steel). It developed a "cradle to grave" welfare state under health minister Aneurin Bevan. The party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's tax funded National Health Service its proudest achievement. Attlee's government however became split, over, amongst other things, the amount of money Britain was spending on defence (which reached 10% of GDP in 1950 due to the Korean War). Aneurin Bevan eventually quit the government over this issue. The government also faced a fuel crisis and a balance of payments crisis. Labour narrowly lost power to the Conservatives in October 1951, despite winning more votes. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the party became split between moderate modernisers led by Hugh Gaitskell and more traditional socialist elements within the party. This split, and the fact that the public was broadly content with the Conservative governments of the period, kept the party out of power for thirteen years. However, in the early 1960s, a series of scandals such as the Profumo affair engulfed the Conservative government, which damaged its popularity. The Conservative party was also seen as being out of touch with the changing country and the economy began to turn down. Due largely to this, the Labour party returned to government under Harold Wilson in 1964 and remained in power until 1970. 1970] The 1960s Labour government, though claiming to be far less radical on economic policy than its 1940s predecessor, introduced several social changes, such as the partial legalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty. In the 1970 general election, Edward Heath's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government. Wilson's party won power again in February 1974. After possessing a minority government, they achieved a small majority in the October 1974-- also under Harold Wilson.

The 1970s

The 1970s proved to be a disastrous time to be in government, and faced with a world-wide economic downturn and a badly suffering British economy, the Labour Government would be forced to go to the IMF for a loan to ease them through their financial troubles. However, conditions attached to the loan meant the adoption of a more liberal economic programme by the Labour Government, meaning a move away from the party's traditional policy base. The 1970s were also dogged by a host of industrial problems, including widespread strikes and trade union militancy. The Labour Party's close ties to the increasingly unpopular trade unions caused the party to gradually lose support throughout the decade. In 1976, citing his desire to retire on his sixtieth birthday, Wilson stood down as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, and was replaced by James Callaghan. In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). This breakaway was prompted by dissatisfaction with the lack of progress being made by the then Labour government on delivering a devolved Scottish Assembly. Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that people were beginning to think of breaking with the mainstream UK Labour Party, Ultimately, the economic problems facing the Labour Government of the 1970s, and the political difficulties of Scottish and Welsh devolution, proved too great for it to surmount despite an arrangement negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab Pact. In 1979, they faced the disastrous "Winter of Discontent", and in the 1979 general election they suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher.

The Thatcher years

The aftermath of the election defeat in 1979 provoked a period of bitter internal rivalry in Labour. From the mid 1970s, the party had became bitterly divided between left wingers under Michael Foot and Tony Benn, whose supporters dominated the party organisation at grassroots level, and right wingers under Denis Healey. After the defeat, the left had the upper hand when it asserted that the government had become unpopular because it had alienated its base by compromising, and needed to regain it by moving to a more left-wing policy. The election of Foot to the leadership and the change to a system of leadership elections in which party activists and affiliated trade unions had a vote led to the decision by the Gang of Four (former Labour cabinet ministers) on January 26, 1981 to issue the 'Limehouse Declaration', and then to form the Social Democratic Party. The Gang of Four were Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and William Rodgers. The departure of even more right-wingers further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference. In response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the party committed itself to "campaign actively" for a United Ireland. United Ireland

1983

Led by Michael Foot, who was increasingly unpopular with the public, the party went into the 1983 general election with a manifesto dominated by the politics of the party's left-wing, but considered by some socialists to be too watered down by Foot's indecisiveness and pressure from the party's right-wing to be truly convincing. The manifesto contained pledges to unilaterally disarm Britain's nuclear deterrent, withdraw from the European Community (EC), and pledged a programme of mass nationalisation of industry. A symptom of the divisions in the party was that the leading members of the right-wing had not resisted the manifesto, because they hoped that what they saw as an impending inevitable landslide defeat would discredit the policies. The 1983 manifesto was famously described by the senior Labour politician Gerald Kaufman as being 'the longest suicide note in history'. The right-wing press wasted no time in attacking the party's manifesto, and Labour's chances of electoral success were further damaged by the fact that the Thatcher government's popularity was on the rise after successfully guiding the country to victory in the Falklands War. This bolstered Thatcher who had been low in the polls due to a severe economic downturn. After suffering a landslide defeat at the 1983 election, Michael Foot immediately resigned. He was replaced by Neil Kinnock, who though initially a firebrand left-winger, had generally supported Foot and was seen as a more pragmatic leader. Through his leadership Kinnock progressively moved the party to the centre. He vastly intensified moves to expel left groups such as the Militant Tendency which represented left-wing views no longer supported by the party leadership, and further changed party policy to support EC membership. From 1985, Peter Mandelson as Director of Communications modernised the party's image.

1987

At the 1987 general election, the party was again defeated in a landslide, but had established itself as the clear challengers to the Conservatives and had fought an effective campaign. Kinnock easily retained the party leadership when challenged from the left in 1988 and continued his reform of the party. The Labour Party ceased to be unilateralist in early 1989, and embarked on a thorough Policy Review.

1992

By the time of the 1992 general election, the party had reformed to such an extent that it was perceived as a credible candidate for government. Most opinion polls during the campaign showed the party with a slight lead over the Conservatives although rarely with a lead sufficient to give a majority. However, the party ended up 8% behind the Conservatives in the popular vote, a result which was considered one of the biggest surprises in British electoral history. In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the 'Shadow Budget' announced by John Smith had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition Neil Kinnock's seeming triumphalism at a party rally in Sheffield eight days before polling day gave the impression that victory had already been achieved. Kinnock resigned after the defeat, blaming the overwhelming preponderance of Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure. John Smith, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was easily elected to succeed him over Bryan Gould who was identified with the soft left. Smith's leadership saw a degree of tension between those who preferred progressive change and others who identified as 'modernisers' and advocated a further wholesale revision of the party's stance. At the 1993 conference, Smith successfully changed the party rules so that trade unions had less say in the selection of candidates to stand for Parliament by introducing a one member, one vote system, but only just carried the day after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott and compromising on other matters in individual negotiations. However in May 1994, Smith died suddenly from a heart attack.

New Labour

"New Labour" is an alternative name for Labour Party which originated in 1994. The name is primarily used by the party itself in its literature but is also sometimes used by political commentators and the wider media; it was also the basis of a Conservative Party poster campaign of 1997, headlined "New Labour, New Danger". The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections. The name "New Labour" originates from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994, which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. However the term was intended to incorporate a wider rebranding of the party in the eyes of the electorate. The new name coincided with the re-writing of Clause IV of the party's constitution in 1995. Peter Mandelson was a senior figure in this process, and exercised a great deal of authority in the party following the death of John Smith and the subsequent election of Tony Blair as party leader. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of the New Labour ethos. They were among the most prominent advocates of the right-wing shift in European social democracy during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way". The use of "New" echoes slogans in American politics, particularly those of the Democratic Party, such as Roosevelt's New Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier and Clinton's New Covenant. New Labour (as a series of values) is often characterised as a belief in 'rights and duties', i.e. that a citizen should recognise that s/he possesses responsibilities linked with any legal rights they hold. The concept of a 'stakeholder society' is quite prominent in New Labour thinking. As noted above, New Labour thought also embraces the notion of the "Third Way", although critics pointed to the lack of any concise statement of its meaning, and the term later fell from use. Labour's economic policy sought to balance the laissez-faire capitalism of the Thatcherite era with measures that would lessen or reverse their negative impact on society. One of the most popular policies introduced was Britain's first National Minimum Wage Act. Tony Blair secured the revision of Clause IV of the party constitution, which had been adopted in 1918, and which committed the party to 'the common ownership of the means of production'. This was widely interpreted in the past as a policy of nationalisation: :"To secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry of service." A special conference of the party approved the change in March 1995. The key phrase of the new clause IV is: :"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each one of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect." An earlier attempt to modify clause IV, by Hugh Gaitskell, had failed, after which most Labour leaders regarded it as a distraction. Tony Blair was, however, determined to signal his mastery of the party and his complete rejection of those policies, such as nationalisation, which were seen to damage Labour. Hugh Gaitskell|right]] The name change coincided with a dramatic revival of the party's fortunes. The "modernisation" of Labour party policy, and the unpopularity of the Conservative government, greatly increased Labour's appeal to "middle England". The party was concerned not to put off potential voters who had previously supported the Conservatives, and pledged to keep to the spending plans of the previous government, and not to increase the basic rate of income tax. Unexpectedly defeated for a fourth consecutive time in the 1992 election, the party won the 1997 election with a majority of 179. Following a period of government and in particular after a second and third election victory in 2001 and 2005, the name has diminished in significance in British political life. The Labour Party is generally referred to in the media as 'the Government' rather than 'New Labour'. However, the name is still used in party literature. One of the first acts of the Labour government was to give the Bank of England operational independence in setting interest rates, a move that had not been foreshadowed in the manifesto or during the election campaign. Labour held to its pledges to keep to the spending plans set by the Conservatives, causing strain with those members of the party who had hoped that the landslide would lead to more radical policies. Left-wing MPs rebelled when the government moved to cut benefits paid to lone parents in December 1997. The government also promoted wider use of Public Private Partnerships and the Private Finance Initiative, which were opposed particularly by trade unions as a form of privatisation. The party won a further landslide majority (on a 59% turnout) in 2001, the first time ever that the Labour Party won two successive full terms of office. The second term saw increases in public spending, especially on the National Health Service, which the government insisted must be linked to the reforms it was proposing. Spending on education was likewise increased, with schools encouraged to adopt "specialisms". The Prime Minister's spokesman Alastair Campbell was much criticised by education professionals and teachers' trade unions when he stated that this policy meant the end of "the bog-standard comprehensive". Labour's foreign policy kept it close to the United States. Tony Blair managed to persuade Bill Clinton to take a more active role in Kosovo in 1999, and UK forces assisted in the international coalition which attacked the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. The UK was one of the allies of the United States that actually participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.The decision to engage in the conflict was met with much public disapproval, and many called Tony Blair's credibility into question when doubts emerged as to whether intelligence concerning Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was at all reliable. This loss of support contributed to the substantial reduction of Labour's majority in the 2005 general election. The name "New Labour" has been widely satirised. Critics associate the new name with an unprecedented use of 'spin doctoring' in the party's relationship with media. The Conservative Party attempted to tarnish the new Labour tag during the 1997 election campaign using the slogan 'New Labour, New Danger'. After Gordon Brown's budgets became more and more Keynesian, Private Eye began to call the party 'New' Labour. Oddly, it continues to do so even in articles relating an example of privatisation or free-market initiatives by Labour (a frequent theme, especially in Doing the Rounds, the medical column, and In the Back, the investigative section), or other right-wing or neoliberal policies, in which context the ironic inverted commas would be more appropriate around "Labour" than around "New". In left-wing circles, the name "New Labour" or Neo Labour is used pejoratively to refer to the perceived domination of the Labour Party by its right-wing. Indeed, some socialists argue that Labour has become so fond of neo-liberal policies it is Thatcherite rather than Democratic Socialist.

The Labour Party today

Democratic Socialist.]] The party's popularity has declined since 2001. Nevertheless, Labour won the 2005 general election with a reduced majority of 66. Tony Blair has said he will serve a full third term, which implies that he will retire in 2010 at the very latest. It is possible that Blair will retire earlier than that to allow time for his successor to settle in before another election campaign. If the pattern of recent elections is followed, the next election will be held on June 11, 2009 to coincide with elections to the European Parliament. This would suggest the announcement of Blair's resignation by Summer 2008 to allow for the leadership election and a "coronation" at the party conference in the autumn. Following the alleged Granita agreement, Gordon Brown, the long serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, is widely expected to succeed Blair and become Labour Leader and Prime Minister. See also:
- Politics of the United Kingdom

Leaders of the Labour Party since 1906

From 1906 until 1922 the leader was formally "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party".
- Keir Hardie 1906–1908
- Arthur Henderson 1908–1910
- George Nicoll Barnes 1910–1911
- Ramsay MacDonald 1911–1914
- Arthur Henderson 1914–1917
- William Adamson 1917–1921
- John Robert Clynes 1921–1922 From 1922 until 1970, the leader was formally "Leader of the Labour Party" and "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party". However these two posts were occasionally split, usually when the party was in government or when the leader of the party did not sit in the House of Commons.
- Ramsay MacDonald 1922–1931
- Arthur Henderson 1931–1932 Arthur Henderson lost his seat in the Commons a couple of months after becoming leader. For the remainder of his leadership, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party was George Lansbury.
- George Lansbury 1932–1935
- Clement Attlee 1935–1955
- Hugh Gaitskell 1955–1963 (died in office)
- Harold Wilson 1963–1976 In 1970, the posts of "Leader of the Labour Party" and "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party" were split with the latter having no policy role.
- James Callaghan 1976–1980
- Michael Foot 1980–1983
- Neil Kinnock 1983–1992
- John Smith 1992–1994 (died in office)
- Margaret Beckett 1994–1994 (acting)
- Tony Blair 1994–present

Deputy leaders of the Labour Party since 1922

- John Robert Clynes 1922–1931
- Jointly John Robert Clynes 1931–1932 and William Graham 1931–1932 (died in office)
- Clement Attlee 1932–1935
- Arthur Greenwood 1935–1945
- Herbert Morrison 1945–1955
- James Griffiths 1955–1959
- Aneurin Bevan 1959–1960
- George Brown 1960–1970
- Roy Jenkins 1970–1972
- Edward Short 1972–1976
- Michael Foot 1976–1980
- Denis Healey 1980–1983
- Roy Hattersley 1983–1992
- Margaret Beckett 1992–1994
- John Prescott 1994–present.

External links

- [http://www.labour.org.uk Official website] As of December 13, 2005, down due to Hemel Hempstead explosion
- [http://www.lambethlabour.com The Labour Party in the London Borough of Lambeth]
- [http://www.labourwandsworth.org.uk The Labour Party in the London Borough of Wandsworth]
- [http://www.labour-lini.org.uk Labour in Northern Ireland Campaign]
- [http://www.labour-party.org.uk/ Unofficial website, with an archive of Labour electoral manifestos from 1900-present and a directory of Labour Party websites, including constituency associations]
- [http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia&op=content&tid=320 SpinWatch profile - Labour Friends of Israel]
- [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/ Guardian Unlimited Politics - Special Report: Labour Party]
- [http://search.looksmart.com/p/browse/us1/us317836/us552286/us526499/us526505/us10234373/us703545/us671216/us671218/ LookSmart - Labour Party] directory category
- [http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Society_and_Culture/Politics/Parties/Labour/ Open Directory Project - Labour Party] directory category
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/United_Kingdom/Government/Politics/Parties/Labour_Party/ Yahoo! - Labour Party] directory category
- Category:Political parties in the United Kingdom Category:Socialist International ja:労働党 (イギリス)

Sidney Webb

Sidney James Webb (July 13, 1859–October 13, 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, normally referred to in the same breath as his wife, Beatrice Webb. He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884, along with George Bernard Shaw (they joined three months after its inception). Together with Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland and Sidney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society in England in the Edwardian era and beyond. Webb was born in London to a professional family. He studied law at the University of London in his spare time, while holding down an office job, and in 1895 helped to establish the London School of Economics, using a bequest left to the Fabian Society by a benefactor. He was appointed its Professor of Public Administration in 1912, a post which he held for fifteen years. In 1892, Webb had married Beatrice Potter, who shared his interests and beliefs. The money she brought with her had enabled him to give up his clerical job and concentrate on his other activities. Both were members of the Labour Party and took an active role in politics, Sidney becoming MP for Seaham in 1923. In 1902, he and his wife were active also in the creation of The Coefficients, a small and rather secretive 'think tank'. In 1929, he was created Baron Passfield, but continued as a government minister (serving as both Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs) under Ramsay MacDonald. In 1930 ailing health resulted in his stepping down from the Dominions Office, but retaining the Colonial Office. The Webbs were supporters of the Soviet Union until their deaths, their book, The Truth About Soviet Russia being published in 1942. Webb co-authored a pivotal book on the History of Trade Unionism (1894) with wife Beatrice Webb. Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron

Municipalization

Municipalization is the transfer of corporations or other assets to municipal ownership. The transfer may be from private ownership (usually by purchase) or from other levels of government.

Services

There have been two main waves of municipalization in developed countries. The first took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when municipalities in many developed countries acquired local private providers of a range of public services. The driving reason in most cases was the failure of private providers to sufficiently expand service provision outside wealthy parts of urban areas. The second wave took place in the early 1990s, when after the end of the communist states in eastern Europe state-owned companies in many public service sectors were broken up and transferred to municipal control. This was typical in sectors such as water, waste management and public transport, although not in electricity and natural gas. Such regional companies either remained under municipal control, or were privatized. Privatization was done variously: by selling them to investors, by giving a concession or a management contract. Examples include the water sector in the Czech Republic, over half of which has been privatized.

Governments

In the U.S., municipalization often refers to incorporation of an entire county into its municipalities, leaving no unincorporated areas. This generally ends de facto the county's own home rule, which in most states allows it to act as the municipal service provider in those unincorporated areas. The county is left offering only those services mandated of it by the state constitution, which are generally only extensions of state government like courts and sheriff departments. As with utilities, the county's assets usually end up being distributed among the cities, though this is less likely if the process is gradual rather than all at once.

References

- Scott E. Masten, Public Utility Ownership in 19th-Century America: The “Aberrant” Case of Water, Business School, University of Michigan [http://ssrn.com/abstract=596061]
- David Hall, Public Services Work! - Information, Insights and Ideas for our Future, PSIRU, University of Greenwich [http://www.psiru.org/reports/2003-09-U-PSW.pdf] Category:Macroeconomics Category:Political economy

Hugh Gaitskell

Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (April 9, 1906 – January 18, 1963) was a British politician, leader of the Labour Party from 1955 until his death in 1963. He was born in London and educated at the Dragon School, Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he gained a first class degree in PPE in 1927. He first became interested in politics as a result of the General Strike of 1926, and lectured in economics for the Workers' Educational Association to miners in Nottinghamshire. In the 1930s he was an academic at University College, London, where he headed the Department of Political Economy. He became Labour MP for Leeds in 1945, quickly rose through the ministerial ranks, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of 1950. It was at this time that he fell out with Aneurin Bevan over the introduction of charges in the National Health Service to pay for the Korean War. He later defeated Bevan in the party leadership contest, following the resignation of Clement Attlee in 1955. Gaitskell's election as leader coincided with one of the Labour Party's leanest periods, and he is regarded by some as "the best Prime Minister we never had". In 1959, the Labour Party had been widely expected to win the election but were undermined by public doubts about the credibility of proposals to raise pensions and by a highly effective populist campaign run by Harold Macmillan under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it". Gaitskell was an early moderniser, trying (unsuccessfully) to amend Labour's Clause IV which committed the party, on paper, to massive nationalisation of industry. He also, successfully, resisted attempts to commit Labour to a unilateralist position on nuclear weapons – losing the vote one year and then declaring he would "fight, fight and fight again to save the party I love". Battles inside the party produced the Campaign for Democratic Socialism to defend the Gaitskellite position in the early 1960s. Many of the younger CDS members were founder members of the SDP in 1981. Gaitskell alienated many of his supporters by his opposition to British membership in the European Economic Community which in 1962 he declared to be the "end of a thousand years of island history". He died after a sudden attack of Lupus erythematosus in 1963, and left an opening for Harold Wilson. The abrupt and unexpected nature of his death led to speculation that foul play was involved, the most popular conspiracy theory involving a KGB plot to ensure that Wilson (supposedly a KGB agent himself) became prime minister. This claim was given new life by Peter Wright's controversial 1987 book Spycatcher, but the only evidence that has ever come to light is the testimony of Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, who is not widely regarded as credible. Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh Gaitskell, Hugh

Nationalisation

Nationalization or Nationalisation is the act of taking assets into state ownership. Usually it refers to private assets being nationalized, but sometimes it may be assets owned by other levels of government, such as municipalities. Similarly, the opposite of nationalization is usually privatization, but sometimes it may be municipalization. Nationalization that happens after a previous privatization is often called renationalization. A key issue in nationalization is whether the private owner is properly compensated for the value of the institution. The most controversial nationalizations are those where no compensation is paid or an amount unreasonably below the likely market rate (expropriation). Many nationalizations through expropriation have come after revolutions, especially communist ones. In some instances, nationalization occurs as the government seizes the corporate property of a criminal. An example is Renault, which was seized by the French government from its owners because they had collaborated with Nazi Germany. The cost of legally buying a large business is such that many legal nationalizations have happened when firms of national importance run into trouble (close to bankruptcy), and could be acquired by the government for little or no money. A classic example is the UK nationalization in the 1970s of the car-maker British Leyland. At other times governments have felt it important to gain control of institutions and industries of strategic economic importance, such as banks or railways, or of important industries struggling economically. (The case of Rolls Royce plc, nationalised in 1971, is an interesting blend of these two arguments - see below). This policy was sometimes known as ensuring government control of the "commanding heights" of the economy, to enable it to manage the economy better in terms of long-term development and medium-term stability. The extent of this policy declined in the 1980s and 1990s as governments increasingly privatized industries that had been nationalized, replacing their strategic economic influence with use of the tax system and of interest rates. Nonetheless, national and local government has seen the advantage of keeping key strategic assets in institutions that are not strongly profit driven, can raise funds outside the public-sector constraints, but retain some public accountability. Recent UK examples include the vesting of the UK rail track in a not-for profit company, and the divestment of much council housing stock to 'arms-length management companies', often with mutual status.

Notable nationalizations

- Britain - British Coal, British Gas, British Petroleum, British Rail, British Steel, British Leyland, British Airways, the Bank of England, and the telephones division of the Post Office (now British Telecom). All the aforementioned were privatized during the Conservative period in power from 1979 to 1997, except the Bank of England which remains state-owned, but semi-independent. Many - particularly British Steel and British Leyland - fared poorly whilst nationalized. Conversely, British Rail (broken up into multiple parts including train operators, train owners, and a track owner; the latter now effectively deprivatised as Network Rail after near-bankruptcy) fared poorly after privatization.

Another example of a successful large nationalised utility was the CEGB, which was for a time the world's largest integrated electricity generator. Nationalisation was used by all political parties. In 1971 the Conservative government of Edward Heath nationalised the strategically-important aero-engine part of the recently-bankrupt Rolls Royce plc. (It is perhaps note-worthy that Rolls-Royce's Filton factory lay within the South Gloucestershire constituency of the then Minister for Aerospace, Frederick Corfield.)
- Canada - Canadian National Railways, created from several systems nation-wide following their bankruptcy during and after the First World War, and since privatized. Nationalization of electricity during the Quiet Revolution of Quebec, by minister René Lévesque and the Lesage government, to create Hydro-Quebec.There is talk of nationalizing the oil and gas industry thought this may lead to increased feelings of Alberta Separatism.
- United States - All U.S. railroads were nationalized as the United States Railroad Administration during World War I as a wartime measure but were returned to their private owers almost immediately after the war. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) was a government corporation created in 1971 for the express purpose of relieving American railroads of their legal obligation to provide intercity passenger service. They were trying to get out of this obligation anyway, but by taking over their passenger rail assets, Amtrak was able to keep the passenger trains running. In 1976 the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), another government corporation, was created to take over the operations of six bankrupt rail lines operating primarily in the Northeast U.S.; Conrail was privatized in 1987. Initial plans for Conrail would have made it a truly nationalized system like that during World War I, but an alternate proposal by the Association of American Railroads won out. Organization of the Tennessee Valley Authority entailed the nationalization of the facilities of the former Tennessee Electric Power Company in 1939. In 2001, in response to the September 11th attacks, the then-private airport security industry was nationalized and put under the authority of the Transportation Security Administration.
- Nationalization of the oil industry in numerous countries, including Libya, Kuwait, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
- Companies in Cuba after the 1959 revolution bringing Fidel Castro to power in which the assets of foreign (largely U.S.) companies were expropriated without compensation (the USA has long complained about these nationalizations).
- Zimbabwe's nationalization of its food distribution infrastructure.
- 1918, 1948. All manufacturing enterprises in the Soviet Union, in 1918, as well as in other countries of the Soviet bloc (for example, Czechoslovakia in 1948).
- 1918. Many retailing enterprises in the Soviet Union.
- 1944. Renault (seized from Louis Renault after WWII for his collaboration with Nazi Germany). Renault was successful whilst nationalised and remains successful today, after having been privatised in 1996.
- 1948. With the Decree 119 of june 1948 the new romanian communist regime nationalised all the existing private companies and their assests in Romania leading to the transformation of the Romanian economy from a free market economy to a centralised one.
- 1956. Under the presedential decree of 26th July 1956, The Egyptian President Gammal Abdel Nasser nationalised The Canal De Suez(Suez Canal) company. Such act led England, France and Israel to launch a combined attack on Egypt that was stopped by the US and the former Soviet Union.
- 1969. Nationalization of banks in India.
- 1982. The Paris business of M&A advisory firm Rothschild was nationalized and renamed.
- 2003. The Labour Government of New Zealand took an 80% stake in national air carrier Air New Zealand in exchange for a large financial infusion.

1994

1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family.

Events

January

- January 1 - North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect
- January 1 - Zapatista Army of National Liberation begins war in Chiapas, Mexico
- January 1 - Bantustans join South Africa
- January 6 - Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding.
- January 8 - Valeri Polyakov began his 437.7 day orbit, eventually setting the world record for days spent in orbit.
- January 11 - Irish government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Fein
- January 14 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles to targets and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
- January 17 - 1994 Northridge Earthquake, magnitude 6.7, hits the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles at 4:31 am.
- January 20 - In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet to attend The Citadel but soon drops out.
- January 26 - A man fires two blank shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in Sydney, Australia.
- January 28 - The first trial of accused murderer Lyle Menendez ends in a mistrial. He and his brother Erik are later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
- January 31 - German luxury car manufacturer BMW announces the purchase of Rover from British Aerospace

February

- February 1 - In Portland, Oregon, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.
- February 3 - William J. Perry was sworn in as the 19th Secretary of Defense of United States
- February 5 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers
- February 6 - Serb mortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace
- February 9 - Peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina announced (so called Vance-Owen peace plan)
- February 12 - Edvard Munch's painting, "The Scream," is stolen in Oslo. It is recovered on May 7
- February 22 - Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union by the United States Department of Justice. Ames would later be convicted to life imprisonment and his wife would receive 5 years in prison
- February 24 - In Gloucester, local police begins excavations at 25 Cromwell Street the home of Frederick West suspected of multiple murders. On February 28, he and his wife are arrested
- February 25 - Kahanist Baruch Goldstein opens fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank. He kills 29 Muslims before worshippers beat him to death
- February 27 - Australian Federal Sports & Environment Minister Ros Kelly resigns over "The Sports Rorts Affair", where it was alleged that she apportioned money for community sporting projects in a pork barreling fashion.
- February 28 - US F-16 pilots shoot down four Serbian fighter aircraft over Bosnia for violation of the Operation Deny Flight and its no-fly zone

March

- March 1 - A lone terrorist kills Ari Halberstam on an attack on 14 Jewish students on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. [http://www.arihalberstam.com]
- March 1 - South Africa cedes Walvis Bay to Namibia.
- March 1 - Mary Ellen Withrow begins term of office as Treasurer of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton.
- March 4 - Four terrorists are convicted for their roles in the World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured more than a thousand.
- March 6 - Referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
- March 7 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
- March 12 - A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as 'proof' of the Loch Ness monster, is confirmed to be a hoax.
- March 12 - The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
- March 16 - In Portland, Oregon Tonya Harding pleads guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for trying to cover-up an attack on figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She is fined $100,000 and banned from the sport.
- March 23 - At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated. Mario Aburto Martinez is arrested for the crime and confesses on the same day.
- March 27 - A tornado outbreak occurs in Southeastern United States. One tornado hits the United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama killing 22. This outbreak is the biggest tornado event of 1994.
- March 28 - In South Africa, Zulus and African National Congress supporters battle in central Johannesburg killing 18.
- March 31 - The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).

April

- April 6 - Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and president of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira died when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan Genocide
- April 7 - The Rwandan Genocide begins in Kigali, Rwanda.
- April 8 - Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found dead in Seattle, Washington. He had committed suicide three days earlier.
- April 16 - Voters in Finland decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
- April 20 - Paul Touvier is found guilty of ordering the execution of 7 Jews when he was serving in the Vichy France Milice
- April 21 - Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda
- April 22 - Former American President Richard Nixon dies.
- April 25 - End of term for Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu as 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26 - South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections.
- April 30 - Formula One driver Roland Ratzenberger of Austria, age 32, dies in a high-speed, single-car crash in the practise session for the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy

May

- May 1 - Formula One driver Ayrton Senna of Brazil, age 34, is killed in a high-speed, single-car accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy
- May 6 - The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over seven years to complete, opens between England and France. Passengers can now travel between the two countries in 35 minutes.
- May 9 - Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president
- May 10 - Illinois executes serial killer John Wayne Gacy by lethal injection for the murder of 33 young men and boys
- May 10 - An annular eclipse of the sun is visible across much of North America.
- May 10 - Punk rock band Weezer releases their eponymous debut that goes on to sell more than 3 million copies.
- May 12 - Hockey becomes Canada's official winter sport.
- May 31- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have dinner at the Granita restaurant in Islington and allegedly make a deal on who will become the leader of the Labour Party, and ultimately, the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

June

- June - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN weapons inspectors Ritter and Smidovitch learn, through Israeli intelligence reports, that Qusay Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, is the key player in efforts by the Iraqi government to hide the country's alleged illegal weapons
- June 6-8 - Ceasefire negotiations for the Yugoslav War begin in Geneva - they agree to one-month cessation of hostilities (which does not last more than a few days)
- June 12 - Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O. J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
- June 14 - Hacker Kevin Poulsen pleads guilty to seven counts of mail fraud, wire and computer fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
- June 14 - The New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks 4 games to 3 in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.
- June 15 - As of 2004 the third highest grossing animated film of all-time, The Lion King, opens in theatres nationwide.
- June 15 - Israel and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations
- June 17 - NFL star OJ Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low speed chase, which unfolds live on television, ends up at Simpson's mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, where he then surrendered to police.

July

- July - The planet Jupiter is hit by twenty one large fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 over the course of six days.
- July 2 - Assassination of Colombian soccer player Andrés Escobar in Bogotá
- July 7 - Aden is occupied by troops from North Yemen.
- July 17 - Brazil defeats Italy 3-2 on penalties to win the Football World Cup 1994, after the game ended 0-0 after extra time.
- July 18 - In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing ninety six and injuring many more. On 9 November 2005 Alberto Nisman Arentino prosecutor identified Hezbollah militant Ibrahim Berro responsible.
- July 25 - Israel and Jordan sign the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.
- July 25 - Phone Numbers through Australia start changing to eight digits (Mona Vale, Sydney 1st to change)

August

- August - 'Wollemia nobilis', a "fossil tree" discovered by bushwalker David Noble only 150 km from the largest city in Australia.
- August 1 - Fire destroys Norwich Central Library in the UK, including most of its historical records
- August 12 - Woodstock '94 begins. It is the 25 year anniversary of woodstock in 1969.
- August 14 - End of Woodstock '94.
- August 31 - the Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations" from midnight.

September

- September 3 - Cold War: Russia and the People's Republic of China agree to de-target their nuclear weapons against each other.
- September 4 - Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan opens. All international services are transferred from Itami to Kansai.
- September 5 - New South Wales State MP for Cabramatta John Newman is shot outside his home (Australia's first political assassination since 1977)
- September 8 - A Boeing 737 carrying USAir Flight 427 with 132 people on board, crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport. There are no survivors
- September 13 - President Bill Clinton signs the Assault Weapons Ban, which bans the use of these weapons for a period of 10 years.
- September 28 - The car ferry MS Estonia sinks in Baltic Sea, killing 852.
- September 28 - Jose Francisco Ruiz Massier, Mexican politician, assassinated on the orders of the president's brother
- September-October - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to stop cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors and begins to once again deploy troops near its border with Kuwait. In response, the U.S. begins to deploy troops to Kuwait.

October

- October 5 - UNESCO inaugurates World Teachers’ Day to celebrate and commemorate the signing of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers on October 5, 1966.
- October 8 - Iraq disarmament crisis: President of the UN Security Council says that Iraq must withdraw its troops from the Kuwait border and immediately cooperate with weapons inspectors
- October 12 - NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere either October 13 or October 14)
- October 15 - After three years of exile in the US, Haiti's president Aristide returns to his country.
- October 15 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Following threats by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S., Iraq withdraws troops from its border with Kuwait.
- October 26 - Jordan and Israel sign a peace treaty.
- October 29 - Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran was later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton).
- October 31 - An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 64 passengers.
- October 31 - HRH The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel where his late mother, HSH Princess Alice of Battenberg is honoured as "Righteous among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.

November

- November 4 - Sydney's third runway opens ensuring protests about noise levels.
- November 5 - A letter by former US President Ronald Reagan is released that announces he has Alzheimer's disease
- November 8 - Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secured control of both houses of U.S. Congress.
- November 13 - Voters in Sweden decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
- November 13 - The first passengers travel through the Channel Tunnel.
- November 16 - Federal judge issues a temporary restraining order that prohibits the State of California from implementing Proposition 187, that would have denied most public services to illegal aliens.
- November 20 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war (in 1995 localized fighting resumed).
- November 25 - Sony founder Akio Morita announces he will be stepping down as the company's CEO
- November 28 - Voters in Norway reject European Union membership (see Norwegian EU referendum, 1994)
- November 28 - In Portage, Wisconsin, USA, convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by another inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium.
- November 29 - Two-year murder trial of 14 south Vietnamese accused of murder of 24 north Vietnamese ends in Hong Kong - all defendants are acquitted.
- November 30 - Famous hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur survives five bullets in an apparent robbery attempt outside a New York music studio.

December

- December 2 - Australian government agrees to pay reparations to indigenous Australians who were displaced during the nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s.
- December 11 - Boris Yeltsin orders troops into Chechnya.
- December 11 - A small bomb explodes on