50 Years Ago: Tory-Labour agreement on capitalism

Everybody knows that the Conservative and Liberal Parties stand for capitalism and have no intention of seeing it abolished or undermined, but many people are confused about the intentions of the Labour Party. They think that the Labour programme of nationalisation or public utility boards under Government control and the programme of social reforms mark off the Labour Party from the others and prove that it is a Socialist party. Socialists are under no such illusion, nor are the more astute representatives of capitalism. (. . . )

It suits the [Daily] Express always to refer to the Labour Party as the Socialist Party, although the latter is not its own chosen title — (indeed, a resolution to adopt that title was many years ago not accepted by a Labour Party conference) — and although the Express is fully aware that the Labour Party does not stand for Socialism.
(From the Editorial in the Socialist Standard, January 1945)