Celebrating the Spirit of the Salters

SHEILA TAYLOR reflects on the huge success of Southwark’s Salter Centenary project, which comes to an end in January. ‘Throughout the year I kept remembering how historians described the ILP, that it was less of a political party than a way of life,’ she says....

Pedal Power: Has the Clarion Lost its Calling?

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....

Work, Community & Labour’s Renewal

PAUL SALVESON reviews The Dignity of Labour by Labour MP Jon Cruddas, a fascinating engagement with the changing nature of employment and a thoughtful search for a popular, progressive politics that can provide a clear alternative to the Tories....

Throwing a Spotlight on ILP Women

To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we are highlighting the lives of nine ILP women who played important roles in the early years of the Labour movement. All of them were tireless campaigners for women’s votes and gender equality, and against war and poverty....

Making Socialists in Great Yarmouth

East Anglia is hardly known as a bedrock of the early ILP. But as MIKE WADSWORTH illustrates in his portrait of the Great Yarmouth branch before the First World War, local ILPers were as committed and passionate in their socialism as any of the organisation’s more famous figures....