Here's a link to the 1983 manifesto. I suggest readers skip through the intro by Michael Foot, which seems a little longwinded, and skip straight to the manifesto proper.
 
One thing they promised was the nationalisation of the banks. Of course we arn't seeing full nationalisation now, only a government stake in the banks, but this is as near as we are going to get in our lifetimes!

Other promises in that manifesto:

1. Introduction of minimum wage (Acheived by New labour in 1997)

2. Introduction of Freedom of information bill (achieved by New labour in 2000)

3. Reform of the house of lords (well, it's partly been done, the hereditary peers have gone)

4. Devolution to Scotland (New Labour delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales and London in 1998)

5. "Encourage the development of effective traffic management schemes to alleviate the problems of traffic congestion" (Ken Livingston managed to deliver congestion charge to London in 2003)

6. Program of works to help the Construction industry (er.. delivered by Blair in bringing the Olympics festival of construction to London)

7. Raise pension payments in line with earnings rather than inflation (Labour's Pensions Bill of 2007 brings this in with effect from 2012)

8. Phase out TV licences for pensioners (well, Labour has abolished licences for the over 75s)

9. Reduce VAT (well Labour have managed to reduce VAT on domestic fuel from 8% to 5%)

10. "Establish an integrated system of child care with priority for children in the most deprived areas" (Labour have brought in Sure Start)

11. Increase child benefit in real terms (Labour have increased child benefit by over 55% since 1997, from £11.05 to £18.80 a week for the first child and from £9 to £12.55 for other children)

12. phase out married man's tax allowance (Labour has done that)

13. Increase Health spending by 3% per anum in real terms (we were spending 4.976% of GDP on health in 97, it's now 7.515% of GDP - not quite 3%, but not bad)

14. Abolish corporal punishment in schools (it was the Tories who achieved that in 1986)

15. Increase aid to the developing world to 0.7 per cent of Gross National Product (achieved by new Labour)

16. Reverse Tory cuts in maternity rights and increase the maternity grant (Labour increased maternity leave to 39 weeks at £117.18 per week, and this will increase to 52 weeks)

17. Urgent repair of run-down council estates (labour have upgraded 1 million council houses and built another 336937 affordable new homes.)


What hasn't happened of course is

1. withdrawal from EU (Labour is now opposed to this)

2. stop nuclear power stations (Labour is now committed to nuclear power)

3. introduce a new wealth tax (labour has no plans for this)

4. remove the ceiling on NI contributions (Labour has no plans for doing this, though we did introduce a 1% charge for earnings over the upper limit)

5. Build coal-powered stations (Labour is considering a station, but depends on CO2 emmissions, may not happen because of that)

6. Increase North Sea levy to 50% (we've increased it from 10% to 20% and there are no plans for further increases)

7. Repeal the Thatcher union legislation (not going to happen)

I was also interested to read about gas prices in the manifesto. Gas prices in 1983 (and in 1983 gas was still publicly owned) had been increased by by 116 per cent since 1979 - and it was done by the Thatcher government, not private sector. Which is staggering for just four years. Puts the current situation in perspective (especially as from 1997 to 2007 prices were stable).

Obviously it's a very long manifesto - so what other things in there do people find relevant for the modern world?