BARRY WINTER celebrates the ILP’s 120th anniversary with a brief survey of its history and consideration of the lessons it can pass on to a left struggling to make headway in our highly disconnected and politically disenchanted society.

“Fellowship was the foundation of their politics,” said Barry Winter, recalling the culture of the early ILP at the organisation’s 120th anniversary Weekend School in Scarborough on 4/5 May.

PAUL SIMPSON examines the life and politics of ILP founder Keir Hardie, uncovering staunch principles, distinct traits and personal contradictions.

James Keir Hardie was born in Lanarkshire in Scotland in August 1856. At seven he began work as a message boy and by the age of 10 he was working in a mine as a trapper, one of the boys who opened doors to let a coal cart through. At 17 he signed the temperance pledge.

Prospective Parliamentary candidate Anna Turley will address the ILP’s annual gathering of members and friends at Scarborough’s Esplanade Hotel this weekend. Turley will speak on emerging co-operative alternatives to public sector privatisation as part of a two-day programme of political discussions entitled ‘Ethical Socialism, Capitalism and the State’.

KATH CONNOLLY delves into the early life of socialist firebrand Jennie Lee, finding a woman steeped in the ILP and the politics she learned at the family fireside in Fife.

Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s I remember Jennie Lee as a small, grey-haired woman, a fiery speaker and chair of Labour Party conference. And as an Open University graduate in 1978 I was aware of her role in establishing the OU. The ILP’s 120th anniversary is an opportunity to look at the roots of her politics and her political life in more detail.

Glenn Greenwald writing in the Guardian earlier this week argued that upon their demise public figures are due a frank, rather than a respectful assessment. The ‘death etiquette’ which means we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, should not apply to public figures. The demand for ‘respectful silence’ is politically irresponsible.

During Margaret Thatcher’s time in office the ILP stood against much of what she said and did, and fought hard against her policies. Now, while Thatcher is gone, Thatcherism continues to exert a huge influence on British politics. We invite you here to post your thoughts, assessments, memories and links to the right kind of critical appraisals of Thatcher’s legacy.

Just like the YTS and the New Deal, the government’s mandatory work programme will cost billions and fail to work, argues ERNIE JACQUES.

Ethical socialism past and present, and its place in a ‘one nation’ Labour Party, will be the focus of debate at the ILP’s annual weekend gathering of members and friends at Scarborough’s Esplanade Hotel on 4/5 May.

Meetings about the Labour Party’s ‘one nation’ modernisation process have been coming thick and fast in the last few weeks, the latest batch a series of three at the Houses of Parliament organised by Compass, Progress and the Labour Policy Review.

The Co-operative Party is increasingly enthusiastic about co-operative councils. But it lacks a coherent philosophy and rationale for its position. We need to be cautious, argues JOHN HALSTEAD.