PAUL SALVESON recalls a doyen of the Lancashire labour movement whose dialect writing still has relevance today. ‘I daresay Teddy Ashton’s droll sketches have done more to help reforms than far more pretentious and direct articles. For Teddy, even in his comic (dialect) sketches, pokes sly fun and undermining sarcasm at the iniquities and...
The mess we’re in
Soundings’ ebook, Britain’s Broken Economy – and how to fix it, is an essential read for anyone interested in a left alternative to UK capitalism, says BEN TURLEY. For political reasons, Britain’s Broken Economy does not touch on the structuraldeficit or engage with arguments about the sustainability of public expenditure. This is because the...
Why Inequality Matters
Why Inequality Matters A lecture by Professor Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level, in memory of Richard Brown (Dept of Sociology, Durham University 1966-1993). Monday 8th November 2010, St John’s College (http://goo.gl/maps/wnDg) , South Bailey, Durham, 6:30pm – FREE Drinks and nibbles will be provided. The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone, by Richard Wilkinson...
Party democracy: what the candidates say
One of the most important issues in the current leadership campaign is how to rebuild the membership of the Labour Party. Thousands may have joined since the Conservative-LibDem coalition came to power but the party lost many thousands over a long period of time before then. One (among many) reasons for this decline is...
The Future Left
BARRY WINTER considers the prospects for the left after the 2010 election. He argues that any future centre left alliance must include socialists, and that the politics of the city can play an important role in reconnecting the left. ‘Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have...
The Candidates’ Manifestos
The Dronfield Blather blog has run a three-month campaign to get manifestos from the Labour leadership candidates. This week it published the responses of all five Labour leader hopefuls. ‘On 16 June we commenced a campaign to get the candidates in the Labour Leadership Election to issue what we called “Manifestos of Intent”,’ says the...
Life Beyond Growth
STEVE THOMPSON commends the grassroots movements seeking alternatives to economic growth The current edition of New Internationalist (NI434. July/August 2010) tackles what I consider to be one of the most crucial problems we face today, perhaps the most crucial. Headlined ‘Life beyond growth’, it deals with the conundrum that economic growth is not environmentally...
Jennie Cuthbert
On 27th August the ILP’s oldest member, Jennie Cuthbert, celebrates her 90th birthday. Jennie joined the ILP in 1942. She was taken to an ILP Summer School in Bangor by her aunt, Anne Hambley. Anne had been a member for many years and the visit to Bangor was a reward for Jennie gaining a...
Three months in Spain
Three months in Spain The British Battalion at Madrigueras and Jarama Saturday 7 August, 2pm People’s History Museum Left Bank Spinningfields Manchester M3 3ER FREE ENTRY Historian Dr. Richard Baxell lectures on the day-to-day experiences of the British and Irish volunteers in The Spanish Civil War, during the early part of 1937. The lecture...
Equality of sacrifice?
So this is the new politics. On 22 June chancellor George Osborne’s budget unveiled the government’s intention to cut public spending harder and faster than any time since the second world war. Despite prime minister David Cameron’s claims that the budget would somehow “protect the poor”, and Osborne’s now infamous remark that “we’re all...
Crises of capitalism
Radical sociologist DAVID HARVEY provides a clear and concise analysis of the recent financial crisis and asks if it’s time to look beyond capitalism to a new social order. “Any sensible person now would join an anti-capitalist organisation,” he says. “We have a duty to change our mode of thinking.” Click here for Harvey’s...
Towards an ILP Perspective
The following is a statement – ‘a modest perspective’ – prepared by the ILP’s National Administrative Council for discussion at the 2010 ILP Weekend Seminar, ‘After the Election, What Next for the Left?’, to be held in Scarborough on 5-6 June. We hope it will stimulate comment and debate here on the website, at...