CHRISTOPHER OLEWICZ examines an inside account of Preston Council’s much-hailed ‘model’ for local development, and casts his mind back to the 1980s when his own local authority tried to resist the march of Thatcherism with bottom-up regeneration and municipal enterprise....
Charles Ammon had a habit of getting sacked for speaking his mind. But he rose from lowly telegraph boy to Labour Chief Whip and the House of Lords. GRAHAM TAYLOR traces the life of a founding ILPer and lifelong socialist who provided support and friendship to the Salters in Southwark....
The Labour leader is right on Ukraine, but wrong in his response to the anti-war left, says WILL BROWN. By threatening the left rather than winning a political argument, Starmer is putting petty vendettas ahead of party unity in the face of this perilous European conflict....
Unite Community has been at the heart of campaigns against Tory cuts to Universal Credit. HEATHER BLAKEY and GERRY LAVERY report on the ongoing battle for a new ‘common sense’....
BEN SALTONSTALL reviews a new book on the failings of the left that asks the right questions but falls for the all-too-easy answers of right-wing populism. ‘The book has the potential to tell the left things it needs to hear and understand. Unfortunately, it fails to do so.’...
The importance of religious beliefs to Keir Hardie’s political convictions is well known. But most Labour historians have underplayed the influence of radical Christianity on his world view, says NEIL JOHNSON....
The ILP was a major driver of opposition to the First World War in many parts of the country. The south London borough of Southwark was no different, as new research by JOHN TAYLOR has revealed....
With conflict brewing on the Russia-Ukraine border, and talk of an ‘unthinkable’ war in Europe, MARIA GOULDING turned to ‘one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time’, a book that speaks the unspeakable, and finds truth in the aftermath of horror....
The lives and achievements of ILPers and ethical socialist pioneers Ada and Alfred Salter are to be celebrated with a year-long series of events in south-east London where the Salters led their ‘Bermondsey Revolution’ in the early decades of the 20th century....
Nelson’s restored Unity Hall finally opened its doors to the public on Saturday 9 October with the official launch of the Selina Cooper Project. JEANNINE SUDWORTH and NEIL RHODES were there to admire the impressive work of the hard-working team who made it happen....
MATT PERRY marks the 85th anniversary of the Jarrow Crusade with a call for the revival of the grassroots campaigning politics that roused the marchers on their month-long trek and helped Labour recover from electoral disaster in the 1930s....
As world leaders gather in Glasgow for COP26, Sheffield Hallam Labour MP Olivia Blake has launched a climate manifesto built from the ground up. WILL BROWN reports....