LEON IVESON’s childhood memories include numerous ILP conferences, Socialist Sunday School football matches and events at the ILP’s Clarion House. Here, he remembers growing up with his parents, dedicated ILPers, Stan and Ivy Iveson....
The Condition of Britain: The Debate Goes On
ERNIE JACQUES continues the ILP’s debate about Labour’s ‘One Nation’ project kicked off at the May Weekend School with a discussion focused on a speech by Jon Cruddas at the launch of the IPPR’s ‘The Condition of Britain’ programme....
The Condition of Britain: A Response to Jon Cruddas
JOHN HALSTEAD takes issue with a speech given by Labour’s Policy Review leader, which was discussed at this year’s ILP Weekend School as part of its consideration of the Party’s ‘One Nation’ project....
ILP@120: Past Lessons for Future Progress
“Fellowship was the foundation of their politics,” said Barry Winter, recalling the culture of the early ILP at the organisation’s 120th anniversary Weekend School in Scarborough on 4/5 May. ...
ILP@120: Reflections on the ILP’s History
BARRY WINTER celebrates the ILP’s 120th anniversary with a brief survey of its history and consideration of the lessons it can pass on to a left struggling to make headway in our highly disconnected and politically disenchanted society....
ILP@120: Keir Hardie – Labour’s champion
PAUL SIMPSON examines the life and politics of ILP founder Keir Hardie, uncovering staunch principles, distinct traits and personal contradictions. James Keir Hardie was born in Lanarkshire in Scotland in August 1856. At seven he began work as a message boy and by the age of 10 he was working in a mine as a...
ILP@120: Anna Turley to address ILP Weekend School
Prospective Parliamentary candidate Anna Turley will address the ILP’s annual gathering of members and friends at Scarborough’s Esplanade Hotel this weekend. Turley will speak on emerging co-operative alternatives to public sector privatisation as part of a two-day programme of political discussions entitled ‘Ethical Socialism, Capitalism and the State’....
ILP@120: Jennie Lee – A Child of the ILP
KATH CONNOLLY delves into the early life of socialist firebrand Jennie Lee, finding a woman steeped in the ILP and the politics she learned at the family fireside in Fife. Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s I remember Jennie Lee as a small, grey-haired woman, a fiery speaker and chair of Labour Party conference....
ILP@120: Alfred Salter & the Bermondsey Revolution
GRAHAM TAYLOR celebrates the life and achievements of Alfred Salter, the brilliant doctor, Bermondsey MP and lifelong ILPer who helped transform an impoverished corner of south east London. His life is chiefly known from Fenner Brockway’s 1949 classic of political biography, Bermondsey Story, which describes in moving terms how the young doctor dedicated his life...
ILP@120: Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
DAVID HOWELL remembers DH Lawrence and ‘the Eastwood circle’, a dissenting academy in Nottinghamshire ‘with the ILP at its heart’. Its lost world of Edwardian socialism shows that while ‘vision is essential, it is never enough’. The Eastwood circle epitomised the ILP's moral politics at a moment of optimism and diversity – a politics of...
ILP@120: Ethical Socialism, Capitalism and the State
Ethical socialism past and present, and its place in a ‘one nation’ Labour Party, will be the focus of debate at the ILP’s annual weekend gathering of members and friends at Scarborough’s Esplanade Hotel on 4/5 May....
Homage to Catalonia on Radio4
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell’s book about his experiences as an ILP volunteer at the Spanish Civil War, has been dramatised on Radio 4 over the last few weeks....