The enduring legacy of Ralph Miliband and his Marxist and democratic ideals will be the focus of discussion at the first Leeds Taking Soundings event of 2014....
Articles
ILP@120: Alf Mattison – Leeds Archivist and Labour Activist
A lifelong ILPer, Alf Mattison is best known as a local historian, and for his Leeds Labour archives, source of material on the movement’s early years. MICHAEL MEADOWCROFT discovers the man behind the footnotes. Socialism has always needed its scribes and archivists. Alf Mattison was both, and without him Labour history in Leeds would be...
ILP@120: Bob Edwards – A Lifetime on the Left
From Liverpool ILP to the House of Commons via Russia, Spain and the USA, Bob Edwards was politically active all his life. CHRIS HALL retraces his long journey. Bob Edwards had a remarkably long political life. He was a member of the ILP ‘Guild of Youth’, then became an ILP member and a Labour Party...
Taking Sides in the Spanish Civil War
The role of artists and writers in the Spanish Civil War will be the focus of next year’s Len Crome Memorial conference in Manchester on 1 March....
Unbalanced Britain: What Can We Do?
Our society has been deranged by neoliberal capitalism, says BARRY WINTER. How can the creative, reflective forces of the progressive left begin to counter the huge imbalances in power and wealth?...
ILP@120: Tom Maguire – A Leeds Pioneer
Tom Maguire died tragically young, but for 10 years he built a formidable reputation as an orator, organiser and poet. JOHN BATTLE tells his tale. Tom Maguire, the Leeds socialist pioneer, fought for a new politics at the end of the 19th century. He saw his struggle primarily as building up a movement to wrest...
Homage to Tom Maguire
The following extracts are from EP Thompson’s ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’, first published in 1960. The spread of socialist ideas socialist ideas was not spontaneous but was the result of the work,over many years, of a group of exceptionally gifted propagandists and trade unionists. This did not begin with street-corner oratory...
Nelson Mandela: Remember the Man and the Struggle
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....
Unite Calls for Commons Debate on Hunger
The Unite union has joined calls for a parliamentary debate into UK hunger as foodbanks brace themselves to feed 60,000 people this Christmas....
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...
Miners’ Strike Film-Makers Appeal for Funds
The makers of a new film about the miners’ strike have launched a crowd-funding campaign to help raise money to complete the project in time for next year’s 30th anniversary of the strike....
No Pasaran: From Civil War to Los Indignados
The 75th anniversary of the return of the International Brigade’s British battalion from the Spanish Civil War will be celebrated with two events in east London on Saturday, 7 December....