John Lowe recorded everything that happened to him and his Nottinghamshire NUM comrades during the 1984-5 miners’ strike. His grandson, JONATHAN SYMCOX, who edited the newly published diary, recalls a man transformed by the dispute.

John Lowe of Clipstone in Nottinghamshire was off sick in spring 1984 when the National Coal Board and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government put into motion their long-prepared pit closure programme. The miners’ strike for jobs erupted almost overnight.

PAUL SALVESON traces the life of early ILPer Hannah Mitchell and explains why her kind of politics is still an inspiration today.

When I was getting interested in working class history, back in the early 1970s, I was fascinated by a book called The Hard Way Up. It was written by a Northern working class woman called Hannah Mitchell. She was born in rural North Derbyshire and moved as a young girl to what must have seemed like the thriving metropolis of Bolton, where I was brought up. She became involved in the embryonic socialist movement and read Blatchford’s Clarion newspaper.

The ILP had branches across Britain. In some places, it was not only strong but influential.

Part two of the ILP’s interview with Maurice Glasman, the social thinker most closely associated with the ideas around ‘Blue Labour’, and one of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s most influential advisers.

Glasman is a senior lecturer in political theory at London Metropolitan University and a former community organiser with London Citizens. He was made a peer by Miliband in February this year.

Socialism did not begin with the ILP. But the ILP created a unique blend of socialism. Not only did it achieve independent representation for labour and links with the trade unions, it also worked outside the formal political structures.

From the beginning, the ILP accepted women and men as equal members and, as early as 1895, it supported the extension of the vote to both women and men.

The first of a two-part interview with Maurice Glasman, the social thinker most closely associated with ideas around ‘Blue Labour’ and one of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s most influential advisers.

Last month JON CRUDDAS delivered the Clement Attlee Memorial Lecture at University College, Oxford. Here, in an edited version of that talk, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, argues that, far from his cold, taciturn image, Attlee was always at heart an ILP socialist.

A host of very readable biographies exist, yet there remains a sense of something hidden deep within the character of the man.

Part one of the ILP’s history pamphlet, The ILP: Past and Present, written by BARRY WINTER, covering the birth of the organisation and its role in helping to found the Labour Party.

It was no coincidence that the ILP’s founding conference was held in Bradford. The city and surrounding textile areas had a strong tradition of radicalism dating back to the early years of the industrial revolution.