What is a socialist government?

Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. This control may be either direct-exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils-or indirect-exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system, socialism is characterized by state or community ownership or control of the means of production. The above is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Socialism.

However, it is quite an elusive term, of which the boundaries have become blurred. For instance, the UK Labour Party (Current UK Government) of which Tony Blair used to lead is a "democratic socialist" party affiliated with Socialism International.

The same can be said for the French government, as for the German government and many other European governments, as an example that there is no prevailing definetion of socialism as it varies from one territory to another.