CHRISTOPHER OLEWICZ examines an inside account of Preston Council’s much-hailed ‘model’ for local development, and casts his mind back to the 1980s when his own local authority tried to resist the march of Thatcherism with bottom-up regeneration and municipal enterprise....
CHRISTOPHER OLEWICZ looks back 90 years at Fenner Brockway’s ground-breaking report on destitution in 1930s Britain. With the current cost of living crisis, he asks, is ‘literal starvation’ once again stalking the nation’s poorest communities?...
BEN SALTONSTALL reviews a new book on the failings of the left that asks the right questions but falls for the all-too-easy answers of right-wing populism. ‘The book has the potential to tell the left things it needs to hear and understand. Unfortunately, it fails to do so.’...
With conflict brewing on the Russia-Ukraine border, and talk of an ‘unthinkable’ war in Europe, MARIA GOULDING turned to ‘one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time’, a book that speaks the unspeakable, and finds truth in the aftermath of horror....
Enquiries into the nature and purpose of the Labour Party have been coming thick and fast since its calamitous defeat at the 2019 general election. The latest, and perhaps most comprehensive comes from Labour Together… ...
It may be a centrist approach, but Keir Starmer’s recent Fabian pamphlet does at least reveal the three prongs of his electoral strategy. DAVID CONNOLLY assesses a flawed and uninspiring statement....
Nelson’s restored Unity Hall finally opened its doors to the public on Saturday 9 October with the official launch of the Selina Cooper Project. JEANNINE SUDWORTH and NEIL RHODES were there to admire the impressive work of the hard-working team who made it happen....
HARRY BARNES picks out a few problems and positives from the Labour leader’s recent Fabian pamphlet....
MARY STRATFORD reviews a joint memoir from two remarkable women who were thrust into the spotlight by the 1984 miners’ strike and found a shared sense of values, commitment and joy. ‘It is so rare to see a book in which defiant working-class women are able to recount their own tales and define their own...
IAN BULLOCK reviews an unusual and valuable account of the ILP before, during and immediately after the Second World War, a period when it hovered on the brink of virtual extinction....
A long forgotten pamphlet by Edward Carpenter extolling the virtues and advantages of co-operatives has been re-published by the Yorkshire Co-operative Resource Centre, Principle 5....
KATH CONNOLLY finds the latest book on the mould-breaking ILPer and Labour MP an unlikely and infuriating mix of fact and fiction....