Glasgow rent strike leader and pioneering ILPer Mary Barbour will be celebrated at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford on International Women’s Day as part of Manchester’s ‘Wonder Women’ feminist festival this March....
The Alf Mattison Collection
The life of 19th century ILPer and Leeds local historian Alf Mattison will be put under the spotlight by Professor Malcolm Chase during a lunchtime talk at Leeds Central Library on 14 January....
Living for That Better Day
Keir Hardie dedicated himself to ‘constant agitation’ and left a singular political legacy in the form of the Labour Party. David Connolly reviews What Would Keir Hardie Say?, a book of essays published last September to coincide with the centenary of Hardie’s death. Keir Hardie is an iconic figure in the history of the Labour...
What Attlee Can Teach Us About Charity and Socialism
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....
Which Way to Labour’s Radical Future?
Election defeat and Corbyn’s victory framed the discussions at the ILP’s joint conference with Compass last weekend where the prospects of Labour’s renewal and signs of radical hope were uppermost in people’s minds....
Is JC Labour’s New Messiah?
Only time will tell whether Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader is the beginning of the party’s renewal or yet another stage in its decay. It’s a question of head as well as heart, says JONATHAN TIMBERS. Jeremy Corbyn’s overwhelming election vcitory by a new mass Labour Party could be a sign that public discourse...
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....
A Politics of Radical Hope and the Labour Party
The ILP is getting together with the campaigning pressure group Compass in September to examine the future of the Labour Party and the politics of radical hope....
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....
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....