Six months before the 1959 general election, Roy Jenkins, then a young Labour MP for Stechford in Birmingham, wrote a short book laying out The Labour Case.
The final chapter was titled Is Britain Civilised?. To which his tacit answer was no – not unless Britain abolished the death penalty, decriminalised homosexuality and suicide, made divorce easier and abortion legal, and promoted racial harmony.At that point, Labour had been out of power for eight years.