PAUL SALVESON brings his celebration of the 120-year-old Colne Valley Labour Party up to date with a look at its present predicaments and future prospects In the aftermath of the May 2010 election defeat there has been a re-evaluation of where the Labour Party was going, at local and national level. Despite being defeated,...
Fighting Cuts To Legal Aid
As the controversial Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill moved into committee stage this week, HARRY BARNES called for campaigners to defend current legal provisions. “Because the proposed legislation covers a wide area, the issue of the massive cuts in legal aid is in danger of failing to get a full and fair...
A New School for Democratic Socialism
KEN CURRAN introduces a new political education initiative set to launch in Sheffield this autumn Socialism as an idea and as a movement has a long history. But as a consequence of Thatcher’s election in 1979, the triumph of neo-liberalism and the collapse of Communism after 1989, socialism became unpopular. Key figures in Labour...
Socialism in the Valley
To mark its 120th anniversary this July, local member PAUL SALVESON celebrates the roots, birth and history of the Colne Valley Labour Party and examines its impact on the distinctive culture of the area The Colne Valley CLP was formed on 21 July 1891 and put down deep roots in the Pennine communities of...
The Road from Ruin?
PAUL SALTONSTALL reports from a recent seminar on how to reform capitalism from the inside The talk was given by Michael Green, one of the authors of The Road from Ruin: A new capitalism for the Big Society, and the host was the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). This was one of their...
NHS Reforms: An insider’s view
Health care professional NELLI FINN provides an inside account of years of NHS reform, a tale of competing trusts, contracting out, cost-cutting and chronically low morale. I have been working for the NHS as an occupational therapist since 1995 and, apart from a couple of brief sojourns abroad and in the private sector, have...
Colne Valley Labour Party 120th Anniversary Celebrations
—- Colne Valley Labour Party 120th Anniversary Celebrations Thursday 21 July, 7.30pm The Watershed (behind Monsoon) Bridge Street Slaithwaite HD7 5JN Guest speaker: Lord David Clark, author of Colne Valley: radicalism to socialism and MP for Colne Valley 1970-1974 Plus: launch of souvenir booklet Looking Back, Looking Forward: Colne Valley Socialism 1891-2011 socialist songs from...
Members’ rights will not be compromised, says Hain
Peter Hain this week moved to allay fears that a new Labour supporters’ network will lead to ‘US primary-style’ party elections as a result of the Refounding Labour process on party reform which he is heading. Speaking at a meeting in the House of Commons organised by Compass on Tuesday (14 June), Hain said...
The North West’s Spain Volunteers
The 75th anniversary of the Spanish Civil war will be commemorated at Manchester Town Hall on Saturday 16 July with a celebration of the contribution made by volunteers from the north west of England. Organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust, the event will mark the role of the north west volunteers in the...
Refounding Labour?
Despite its vagueness and many, many unanswered questions, Refounding Labour could be a genuine opportunity to renew the party, says WILL BROWN The future of the Labour Party, and in particular its internal organisation and operation, was a recurrent theme in the campaign for party leadership. All candidates argued that the party needs reinvigorating...
The Politics of the Coalition
MATTHEW BROWN reviews the birth and record of the Tory-led government and considers the current short-comings of the anti-cuts movement. Let’s go back a year. In fact, let’s go back more than a year, to shortly before the general election when a Conservative majority appeared almost inevitable. It may seem difficult to believe now,...
A Sustaining Weekend
Around 40 ILP members, friends and fellow travellers gathered in Scarborough on 7/8 May for the organisations’s annual weekend school, where the politics of the ILP, the coalition government and the Labour Party came under scrutiny. “Why have people like us not given up?” asked Barry Winter at the start of two days of...