In the second of our anniversary profiles, MICHAEL HERBERT remembers Hannah Mitchell, lifelong socialist and suffragette, an ILPer whose posthumous autobiography is a classic account of a working class woman’s quest for personal and political liberation. Mitchell was born in 1871 on a remote farm in Alport Dale, Derbyshire. She had just two weeks schooling,...
WILL BROWN reports from the Dronfield Labour Discussion Group where more than 30 activists braved a wintery night to mark the ILP’s 120th birthday on Sunday 13 January....
“He was a great man of a new kind, which the history books have not caught up with yet,” wrote JB Priestley of Fred Jowett. IAN BULLOCK profiles the ILPer who campaigned tirelessly for democratic reform. FW – or Fred – Jowett (1864-1944), known widely during his lifetime as ‘Jowett of Bradford’, was a prominent...
BARRY WINTER introduces our series of features on ILPers which begins with Fred Jowett, profiled by Ian Bullock, and will continue on the ILP website throughout the year....
This year marks the 120th anniversary of the ILP, a milestone in British political history that we aim to celebrate over the next 12 months. The Independent Labour Party was founded on 13 January 1893 when some 120 delegates gathered at the Labour Institute in Bradford to create a national political party to represent working...
Iconic political cartoons from the 1890s and 1920s are featured in a new wall calendar published by the ILP to mark our 120th anniversary next year. Launched to celebrate the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893, the A4 calendars are illustrated by biting socialist cartoons first published in Keir Hardie’s newspaper,...
The 100-year-old ILP Clarion House in Nelson was visited by Hardeep Singh Kohli for his Sunday Lunch programme on BBC Radio 4 this week (16 December)....
MERVYN WILSON argues that increasingly popular co-operative schools provide a democratic, community-based alternative to Michael Gove’s attack on state education....
The law locks up the man or woman / Who steals the goose from off the common / But leaves the greater villain loose / Who steals the common from off the goose…...
Lessons of ILP history will up for debate at the next Dronfield Labour Party discussion meeting held on the 120th anniversary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893....
JON CRUDDAS MP recalls the life of former Labour leader and east London ILPer George Lansbury, arguing that his life, work and principles crystallise the journey of political rediscovery underway in Ed Miliband’s ‘one nation’ Labour Party. George Lansbury is one of the great heroes of the Labour Party. He was to quote the great...
A new film about the birth of the co-operative movement has been described as “inspirational” and “amazing” after being shown three times on Film4 since its premiere in Manchester. ...