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.

On a day that saw around two million workers from 29 trade unions take strike action in defence of their pensions, thousands gathered at rallies around the UK on Wednesday 30 November.

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.

The second of six instalments from The ILP: Past & Present covering ethical socialism, the Labour Party, the women’s suffrage movement, and the onset of World War One.

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.

Integrated education is vital to the future of a non-sectarian Northern Ireland, says Gary Kent

There was a time when Northern Ireland barely made any impact on mainland and mainstream British politics. It was, to use a phrase popularised by the Sunday Times, John Bull’s slum. After partition in 1921, which Britain accepted rather reluctantly, it [...]