Only time will tell whether Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader is the beginning of the party’s renewal or yet another stage in its decay. It’s a question of head as well as heart, says JONATHAN TIMBERS. Jeremy Corbyn’s overwhelming election vcitory by a new mass Labour Party could be a sign that public discourse...
Brown Hails Hardie’s Moral Courage
Former Labour leader Gordon Brown traces the life of the Party’s first figurehead in a half-hour documentary broadcast on BBC Radio4 this morning (Thursday 10 September), a programme to be repeated this evening at 21:30 and available via BBC iPlayer....
A Politics of Radical Hope and the Labour Party
The ILP is getting together with the campaigning pressure group Compass in September to examine the future of the Labour Party and the politics of radical hope....
Keir Hardie: Evangelist and Strategist
In this chapter from a new book on Keir Hardie, BARRY WINTER argues that the Labour Party founder’s political life and ethical socialism can still serve as a beacon for the left in today’s increasingly unstable world....
Reading the Past
The pre-war ILP plays a leading role in two new books of contrasting types – one a novel set in north east England, the other a radical ramblers’ guide to the capital. MATTHEW BROWN follows the literary and geographical traces of our past....
One Man Against the War
HOLLIE BUSH tells the tale of Alf Myers, an ILPer and ironstone miner from a small Teesside village, whose refusal to fight in World War One almost cost him his life. Many lived through the conflict of World War One. Some fought in it, some lived it out on the home front – in Teesside,...
Remembering Bristol’s Anti-War Hero
Until recently Walter Ayles was almost a forgotten figure in Bristol. But a new group is reminding the city of a man who opposed the First World War from its jingoistic beginning to its bitter end. COLIN THOMAS explains why the group is campaigning for a blue plaque to honour his memory. Bristol’s Remembering...
Unbalanced Britain: The Living Wage and Labour’s Future
The Rose Bowl at Leeds Beckett University was the venue for the ILP’s second Unbalanced Britain seminar on 14 March, examining the campaign for a living wage and Labour’s response. The recession and its lop-sided recovery have left millions of working people in poverty, claimed Tom Chigbo of Leeds Citizens. Addressing the latest ILP seminar...
Red Flag Over Bermondsey
A new play about the remarkable London ILPer, Ada Salter, will be performed live in Birmingham for the first time next Saturday, 21 March, before it sets out on a tour of venues across the country over the next few months....
Growing Up in an ILP Household
It is with great sadness that we learned recently of the death of the ILP’s oldest member, Jennie Cuthbert. Jennie died peacefully in her sleep on Monday 9 March. Her lifelong membership of the ILP provided a living link between the modern organisation and the party’s earliest decades. ...
Last Chance to Book for the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain Seminar
It’s the last chance to book for the ILP’s free Unbalanced Britain seminar on ‘Work, Wages and Labour’ in Leeds this Saturday, 14 March. The second in the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain series, this one-day workshop will explore on-going changes in the labour market and work conditions, their political and social consequences, and what is being...
Unbalanced Britain: Work, Wages and Labour
Since the crash of 2008 the dominance of corporate elites has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged. Instead we have seen ever-increasing pressure on wages and conditions of work, zero hours contracts and cuts to in-work benefits. The ILP’s second seminar in its Unbalanced Britain series on Saturday 14 March will explore the on-going changes in...