In a period awash with party election manifestoes, the left magazine and campaign group, Chartist, has unveiled its own manifesto for “a properly democratic socialist alternative to austerity”. Chartist’s 2015 manifesto is a revised version of one published by its editorial board in 2007 – “the year before financial capitalism fell in on itself”. “Capitalism...
Condition Critical
The Socialist Health Association has highlighted five ways the government’s health reforms have failed to improve patient care, the criteria used by former health secretary Andrew Lansley to defend his policies against a damning King’s Fund report last month. The King’s Fund health think tank described Lansley’s reforms as “damaging and distracting” for introducing even...
Unbalanced Britain: The Living Wage and Labour’s Future
The Rose Bowl at Leeds Beckett University was the venue for the ILP’s second Unbalanced Britain seminar on 14 March, examining the campaign for a living wage and Labour’s response. The recession and its lop-sided recovery have left millions of working people in poverty, claimed Tom Chigbo of Leeds Citizens. Addressing the latest ILP seminar...
Red Flag Over Bermondsey
A new play about the remarkable London ILPer, Ada Salter, will be performed live in Birmingham for the first time next Saturday, 21 March, before it sets out on a tour of venues across the country over the next few months....
Growing Up in an ILP Household
It is with great sadness that we learned recently of the death of the ILP’s oldest member, Jennie Cuthbert. Jennie died peacefully in her sleep on Monday 9 March. Her lifelong membership of the ILP provided a living link between the modern organisation and the party’s earliest decades. ...
Last Chance to Book for the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain Seminar
It’s the last chance to book for the ILP’s free Unbalanced Britain seminar on ‘Work, Wages and Labour’ in Leeds this Saturday, 14 March. The second in the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain series, this one-day workshop will explore on-going changes in the labour market and work conditions, their political and social consequences, and what is being...
One afternoon, 100 Speakers, One Hell-of-an Experience
BARRY WINTER was intrigued, confused and stimulated by the recent Compass carnival in London, the second of its ‘Change: How?’ events....
The Co-op Party Launches its Agenda for Britain
The Co-operative Party launched its election manifesto last week, the culmination of two years work setting out plans for “an economy and society that puts people first, in which the rewards of economic success are shared by all”. ‘A Co-operative Agenda for Britain’ sets out the party’s agenda on a number of areas, including energy,...
Miliband Promises New Rights to Co-op Ownership
Labour leader Ed Miliband committed to “put co-operative values at the heart of Labour’s platform for government” on Friday (6 February), saying that if Labour wins the general election workers will have the right to buy out the firm they work for when it comes up for sale or is threatened with closure. Writing in...
Greece Must Not Stand Alone
Support for the new Greek government is vital and in Labour’s interests, argues MIKE DAVIS. Hope, dignity, bread could summarise the slogans of the newly elected Syriza party in Greece. It has been an historic victory, the first radical left party to be democratically elected in Europe since the Second World war. Expectations of the...
Support Grows for Syriza’s New Model Politics
Support for Greece’s new Syriza-led anti-austerity government is growing on the British left with Labour MPs putting their weight behind an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons and an open letter published in today’s Guardian (27 January). According to the Greece Solidarity Campaign, the EDM is already backed by 12 MPs, while the...
Unbalanced Britain: Work, Wages and Labour
Since the crash of 2008 the dominance of corporate elites has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged. Instead we have seen ever-increasing pressure on wages and conditions of work, zero hours contracts and cuts to in-work benefits. The ILP’s second seminar in its Unbalanced Britain series on Saturday 14 March will explore the on-going changes in...