DAVID CONNOLLY celebrates the political thinking of Eric Preston, the ILP activist and theoretician who died a year ago today. “At the ideological heart of socialism is the understanding that the economic imperatives of the unfettered market not only create massive disparities in wealth and power, and exploits resources irrespective of long-term effect, but also undermines the institutions, damages the social framework and corrodes the values and moral authority on which a good society and interdependent social order depends.”
VINCE MILLS surveys the state of Scottish politics after May’s Holyrood elections and finds a new political partnership singing the same old tunes on independence. Scottish Labour needs to spell out a radical alternative.
KATH CONNOLLY finds the latest book on the mould-breaking ILPer and Labour MP an unlikely and infuriating mix of fact and fiction.
Like nothing before, the Covid-19 pandemic has alerted the people of Wales to the role of its government, and how different it is from that of the UK. ALUN BURGE wonders if the time has come for Home Rule.
Allen Clarke was a well-known figure in the north of England socialist movement between the early 1890s and 1930s, yet today he is virtually forgotten. PAUL SALVESON recalls the extraordinary achievements of a working class writer and romantic radical who deserves a larger legacy.
As Len McCluskey retires, the ballot to elect the next general secretary of Unite opens on Monday 5 July. For the union, Labour and the left, there’s a lot at stake. GERRY LAVERY assesses the field.
News that the Clarion Cycling Club has dropped its historical association with socialism made national headlines last week as critical voices lamented the demise of one of the left’s oldest institutions. So has the Clarion changed gear? Not quite, explains the club’s former chair, IAN BULLOCK.
With auto-exclusions and proscribed organisations, Labour seems to have entered another period of acute internal tension. But the party needs its broad church and membership-based democracy more than ever, says DAVID CONNOLLY.
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.
Comment
The Battle for Labour’s Soul
With auto-exclusions and proscribed organisations, Labour seems to have entered another period of acute internal tension. But the party needs its broad church and membership-based democracy more than ever, says DAVID CONNOLLY.