Advance notice: the ILP's 2012 Round Table Discussion weekend will be held on 5th/6th May next year at the Esplanade Hotel in Scarborough....
The ILP: Our Politics
A booklet version of The ILP: Our Politics, the ILP's recent statement on the current political situation, is now available....
Re-writing our History
The ILP is planning to rewrite and update its history publication, The ILP Past and Present, and invites readers to comment online and share their views about the the contents....
They did not pass
The 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street will be celebrated on Sunday 2 October with a commemorative march and rally, and numerous other events organised by Cable Street 75 and supported by more than 40 organisations....
Markets, Movements and Morals
BARRY WINTER reviews Tony Judt’s Ill Fares the Land, and finds the late academic’s fascinating account “both right and wrong” in its lament for social democracy. Born in London in 1948, Tony Judt taught at several British and American Universities. At New York University in 1995, he established an institute for the study of European...
Growing concern over Refounding Labour
Concern is growing over the Labour leadership’s handling of its ‘Refounding Labour’ proposals, as DAVID CONNOLLY explains. It seems that a final Refounding Labour document will go to the party’s Organisation Committee of the NEC on 15 September and then to the NEC itself five days later. If it is accepted the proposals it...
Trying to make sense of Hackney’s riots
Local resident MATTHEW BROWN sifts through the context and consequences of the riots which erupted on Hackney's streets and estates on 8 August....
Cameron’s Con continues
With the Office for Civil Society – the supposed engine room of the prime minister’s ‘Big Society’ – hit by a hefty 61 per cent cut in funding, the government’s con is well and truly exposed, Unite the union says today. The cut to the Office for Civil Society is just one of the...
Cake, choirs and comrades at Clarion House
The origins of the Clarion House at Newchurch, near Burnley, go way back to 1899 when a handful of ILP members rented their first Clarion House in Thorneyholme between Barley and Happy Valley. On 24 July, a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon 112 years later, the Clarion House at Jinney Lane and its surrounding countryside...
Remembering Spain’s volunteers
On Saturday 16 July, the 75th anniversary of the first involvement of anti-fascist volunteers from north west England in the Spanish Civil War was commemorated at Manchester Town Hall. CHRIS HALL was there. Over 100 people, including many young Spaniards, were present to hear about the contribution of the north west in the fight...
Building the Good Society
Ideas, campaigns and coalitions are needed to build the good society. BARRY WINTER reports on this year’s Compass conference. The recent Compass conference exceeded my expectations. Not least because, following the general election, last year’s event felt rather flat and earlier versions of this year’s programme seemed a little uninspiring. Was the formerly successful...
How Red Was Our Valley
PAUL SALVESON reports on the Colne Valley Labour Party’s 120th anniversary. Our former MP Kali Mountford described it as a ‘triumph’ and we’ll not disagree, self-effacing Northerners though we are. Last Thursday’s evening of walks, talks and drama to celebrate Colne Valley Labour Party’s 120th anniversary went pretty well. We had a capacity audience...