From the beginning, the ILP accepted women and men as equal members and, as early as 1895, it supported the extension of the vote to both women and men....
ILPer honoured by new northern network
A dozen or so experienced politicos from across the north met at Sowerby Bridge Station one Friday earlier this month to set up ‘The Hannah Mitchell Foundation’, a think tank for northern socialists named after an old ILPer....
The ILP: Past & Present (1993)
The second of six instalments from The ILP: Past & Present covering ethical socialism, the Labour Party, the women's suffrage movement, and the onset of World War One....
A conversation with Maurice Glasman
The first of a two-part interview with Maurice Glasman, the social thinker most closely associated with ideas around ‘Blue Labour’ and one of Labour leader Ed Miliband's most influential advisers. ...
Attlee, the ILP and the Romantic Tradition
Last month JON CRUDDAS delivered the Clement Attlee Memorial Lecture at University College, Oxford. Here, in an edited version of that talk, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, argues that, far from his cold, taciturn image, Attlee was always at heart an ILP socialist. A host of very readable biographies exist, yet there remains...
‘I have never wavered…’
The Labour Party in Perspective by Clement Attlee was published in 1937. Here are a couple of brief extracts. ‘Some thirty years ago, when I was a young barrister just down from Oxford, I engaged in various forms of social work in East London. The condition of the people in that area as I...
The ILP: Past & Present (1993)
Part one of the ILP's history pamphlet, The ILP: Past and Present, written by BARRY WINTER, covering the birth of the organisation and its role in helping to found the Labour Party....
Attlee seminars in Labour history
'Patriotism, Fellowship and the Left: Explorations in British Labour History', a series of lectures by Jon Cruddas MP, are at University College, Oxford in November....
A New School for Democratic Socialism
KEN CURRAN introduces a new political education initiative set to launch in Sheffield this autumn Socialism as an idea and as a movement has a long history. But as a consequence of Thatcher’s election in 1979, the triumph of neo-liberalism and the collapse of Communism after 1989, socialism became unpopular. Key figures in Labour...
Is Compass losing direction?
The recent decision by Compass, the centre left pressure group, to open up to members of all parties has prompted a series of resignations. MATTHEW BROWN looks at the implications for advocates of progressive realignment. Last Saturday (12 March), a group of Compass members wrote a letter to the Guardian announcing their decision to...
Compass: a wider view or loss of focus?
The left of centre think tank, Compass, is currently consulting and balloting its members on proposals to become more ‘pluralistic’ by allowing full voting membership to members of political parties other than Labour. It would be easy to regard this debate as relevant only to Compass itself, and those with an unhealthy interest in...
A galaxy but no stars
WILLIAM BROWN reports from the Compass annual conference where the Labour left considered the post-election political landscape In a conference hall not so far away, the labour left gathered on June 12th for the Compass annual get together. Launching this year’s event, optimistically titled ‘A New Hope’, Compass chair Neal Lawson set off on...