Charitable giving keeps corporate capitalism and wealthy individuals in control, but adds nothing to the health of society, says STEVE THOMPSON. And so did Clement Attlee....
John McNair’s Spanish Diary
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, John McNair became the ILP’s representative in Barcelona, channelling money and medical supplies to support the republican cause and liaising with the ILP contingent which fought alongside the POUM militia. McNair’s graphic account of the war was reprinted in the ILP’s Socialist Leader in 1974 and later...
New ILP Mural Postcards Available
New postcards of the ILP’s famous mural from its 1914 ‘Coming of Age’ conference are now available from the ILP website....
ILP Profiles: Mary Barbour – Govan’s Local Hero
CATRIONA BURNESS marks the centenary of the Glasgow rent strikes with a narrative account of the life of Mary Barbour, the ILPer who lent her name to the ‘army’ of women who led resistance to profit-hungry property owners 100 years ago. The Remember Mary Barbour Association is campaigning to see a statue raised to Barbour...
Remembering the Rent Strikes 100 Years On
The life of ILPer Mary Barbour will be centre stage at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre in November when a heralded play about the 1915 rent strikes returns to the city to mark the centenary of that historic struggle....
Keir Hardie Centenary Conference
The Working Class Movement Library will be marking the centenary of the death of James Keir Hardie with a conference to celebrate the impact he had on British society and the legacy he left for those who followed....
Brown Hails Hardie’s Moral Courage
Former Labour leader Gordon Brown traces the life of the Party’s first figurehead in a half-hour documentary broadcast on BBC Radio4 this morning (Thursday 10 September), a programme to be repeated this evening at 21:30 and available via BBC iPlayer....
Keir Hardie: Evangelist and Strategist
In this chapter from a new book on Keir Hardie, BARRY WINTER argues that the Labour Party founder’s political life and ethical socialism can still serve as a beacon for the left in today’s increasingly unstable world....
Keir Hardie Centenary Celebrations
‘The Keir Hardie Factor’ at the Edinburgh Festival tomorrow (Thursday 27 August) is the first of a series of events being held across the country over the next month to mark the centenary of the Labour Party founder’s death on 26 September 1915....
Reading the Past
The pre-war ILP plays a leading role in two new books of contrasting types – one a novel set in north east England, the other a radical ramblers’ guide to the capital. MATTHEW BROWN follows the literary and geographical traces of our past....
One Man Against the War
HOLLIE BUSH tells the tale of Alf Myers, an ILPer and ironstone miner from a small Teesside village, whose refusal to fight in World War One almost cost him his life. Many lived through the conflict of World War One. Some fought in it, some lived it out on the home front – in Teesside,...
The ILP’s Story and What it Tells Us
The story of the Independent Labour Party and what it teaches us will be under discussion in Wakefield on Saturday 9 May....