It’s been a long, hard journey for the Selina Cooper project team in Nelson, from a dusty archive in the local library to a long-delayed public launch at one of the town’s oldest buildings. But with Covid restrictions finally easing, their struggle to commemorate the locality’s proud socialist history is finally coming to fruition. Kevin Webb can clearly remember the moment he knew his efforts to revive the memory of a long-forgotten socialist icon would not be in vain…
GARY KENT reflects on the 100th anniversary of partition on 3 May and the distorted thinking that for decades dominated left-wing approaches to the province, the Troubles and the sectarian divide.
BEN SALTONSTALL reviews a powerful and timely study of the influence of identity politics on recent British history. It’s an analysis the left must consider if Labour is ever to rise from the ashes of 2019.
It is 30 years since Tory prime minister John Major was moved to protect Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s brutal slaughter. The safe haven initiative provides a telling example for Keir Starmer’s Labour as it rethinks its foreign policy, says GARY KENT.
ROGER SMALLEY recounts the life of a Blackburn ILPer who wanted her work ‘to sting people into rebellion against poverty and fire their hearts with a cause’. Ethel Carnie left an impressive legacy of dissent that continues to have relevance today.
Politicians of all shades trumpet the ideal of social mobility as a mark of a fair society. It’s a claim picked apart by Selina Todd in her rich and compelling new book, Snakes and Ladders. MARIA GOULDING is impressed by a powerful manifesto for change.
The first ever biography of socialist pioneer and Burnley Labour MP Dan Irving is due to be published by Nelson ILP Land Society.
Easter Sunday marks 12 months since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader on 4 April 2020. DAVID CONNOLLY assesses his first-year performance and suggests a way forward for the left.
It is a common misconception that trade unions founded the Labour Party in 1900. Not so, says JOHN H GRIGG. It was the ILP that drove the initiative.
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Fade to Mauve: Starmer’s Leadership One Year On
Easter Sunday marks 12 months since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader on 4 April 2020. DAVID CONNOLLY assesses his first-year performance and suggests a way forward for the left.