STEVE THOMPSON sketches a brief profile of Robert Blatchford, the founding editor of The Clarion newspaper, who campaigned for socialism as a way of life....
Cable Street Anniversary Prompts Call for Support
Hope not Hate have marked the 81st anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street with a call for donations towards its current day efforts to “present a steadfast and united opposition to fascism”. The day on 4 October 1936 when the people of the east end of London united to halt Oswald Mosley and his...
Fear and Hope in a Divided Country
England is both an increasingly tolerant and open society and a more divided place, according to the latest ‘Fear and Hope’ survey published this week by Hope not Hate. In its fourth survey of attitudes to race, faith, belonging and identity since 2011, the anti-extremist campaign group finds that England is more tolerant and open...
Alfred Martlew and the Richmond 16
ROS BATCHELOR examines the short life and sad death 100 years ago of an early ILPer and World War One CO who paid a heavy price for sticking to his conscience in defiance of military orders. On 11 July 1917, a young man was found drowned in the River Ouse at Bishopthorpe, a village south...
Labour Saves Itself, and Restores Hope
Labour’s unexpected ‘success’ in last week’s general election has been greeted with relief and joy across the left. But we need words of caution as well as cheers, says WILL BROWN, for there is still much to do to turn this opportunity into a real transformative victory. Given what seemed possible a few weeks ago,...
The Progressive Alliance and a War of Position
Is the Progressive Alliance an idea whose time has come? GERRY LAVERY thinks so after reading a new Compass pamphlet on the election initiative. The call for a Progressive Alliance starts from the idea that our electoral system gives the Conservatives a built-in advantage and enables them to govern nationally even though most people do...
The Age-Old Roots of Labour’s Current Crisis
Labour is facing an existential crisis, and parallels with the 1980s are painfully obvious. But the roots of the current crisis go much deeper, writes MARTIN WRIGHT. The Labour Party is the child of hope and compromise. Its political DNA was made from two main elements more than a century ago. One was the counter-cultural,...
‘Common Sense’ and Benefit Sanctions
In an extensive discussion paper, Unite Community member GERRY LAVERY considers how Antonio Gramsci’s ideas could help challenge popular attitudes towards benefit claimants and the fight to end government sanctions. Here, he provides a brief introduction....
Re-balancing Education: Dear Labour Councillor…
BEN SELLERS wrote an angry and articulate open letter to Durham County councillors on his blog last month, following their decision to suspend plans to cut the pay of local teaching assistants. As part of our series on education, we are re-publishing his letter below, prefaced with an explanatory note from ILP chair DAVID...
Unbalanced Britain: Education and Inequality
MELISSA BENN examines the continuing inequalities in our education system, and the failures of recent governments to close the gaps. What could Labour do to promote an alternative vision? Despite endless policy initiatives, exhaustive reforms and official obeisance to the questionable aim of ‘social mobility’, our education system still has yawning gaps in outcomes between...
Re-balancing Education: The Democratic Deficit
VICKY SEDDON attended the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain conference on education last month. Here, she argues that any future progressive reforms must include changes to our structures of democracy and control. The ILP hosted a very interesting discussion on 4 March in Sheffield. Melissa Benn was informative, strategic and focussed; Julie Thorpe was interesting and thought-provoking...
Back to the Future: Re-balancing Education
Every government since New Labour has made education its top priority yet inequality still runs through the system from top to bottom. So why have they failed and how can Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party win support for a return to the principles and values of the comprehensive system? That was the question raised by...