The death of Nelson Mandela in South Africa has rightly led to a flood of tributes from public figures all over the world. But we should remember that change in South Africa was the result of long, hard political struggle....
Encompass All, Change Nothing?
‘Change: How?’ was the deliberately open question posed by the recent Compass conference in London. But the event raised another question too – has the organisation changed so much it’s lost its political bearings? MATTHEW BROWN reports. It was nearly three years ago when Compass decided to change. Set up in 2003 to galvanise the...
The Case For Public Ownership
Arguments for public ownership did not start with Sidney Webb, nor end with Tony Blair, says HARRY BARNES. Once we create the conditions, we might be surprised at just how revolutionary our gradualism can become....
ILP@120: Katharine Bruce Glasier – The ILP’s Spiritual Socialist
History has often overlooked Katharine Bruce Glasier in favour of her more famous husband. But, as PAUL SALVESON shows, she was an inspiring figure who made an immense contribution to the socialist movement. Katharine Bruce Glasier was one of the most remarkable figures in the English socialist movement. She was one of the most popular...
ILP@120: John Bruce Glasier – Socialist Pioneer
An appreciation of John Bruce Glasier, written by Scottish ILP activist and social reformer MARTIN HADDOW in the 1940s. “What the socialist movement needs is a deepening of socialist life within – something that will exalt its faith and purpose, something that will suffuse it with the socialist spirit, rather than encourage lust for...
Veteran Campaigner Hetty Bower Dies
Former ILPer Hetty Bower, the veteran activist and peace campaigner, died earlier this month aged 108, just weeks after appearing on a panel alongside Labour leader Ed Miliband at Labour Party conference....
ILP@120: George Lansbury, the ILP and a Re-Imagined Labour Party
Labour MP JON CRUDDAS recently delivered the inaugural George Lansbury Memorial Lecture at Queen Mary University in Mile End, east London. He called it ‘The Choice before One Nation Labour – to Transact or Transform’. Here is the text. George Lansbury is one of the great figures in the history of the Labour Party, a...
ILP@120: Ada Salter – Sister of the People
Ada Salter’s ideas and activism transformed social and economic conditions in a poverty-stricken corner of south-east London, and revolutionised local politics. So why has she been written out of Labour history? GRAHAM TAYLOR reveals her remarkable story. Ada Brown was born in 1866 in Raunds, Northamptonshire. Her family were Gladstone Liberals in politics and Wesleyan...
Why My Poppy is White
Remember the war dead, but remember the conscientious objectors too, says ERNIE JACQUES....
New Edition of Land and Freedom
The ILP has published a new expanded edition of its popular Spanish Civil War pamphlet Land and Freedom, including a brief profile of the ILP volunteer Stafford Cottman written by historian and author Christopher Hall....
Orwell’s Complex Commander
Georges Kopp was George Orwell’s commander when he fought with the ILP contingent in the Spanish Civil War. A new biography reveals a brave man of many parts and much mystery, as CHRISTOPHER HALL explains. Anyone who has read Homage to Catalonia, or any major biography on Orwell, will have come across several mentions of...
ILP@120: What Can We Learn from the Interwar ILP?
IAN BULLOCK examines three debates which occupied the ILP in the interwar years and asks what they can tell us about the relationship between socialism and democracy today....