JOHN BUCKELL describes the life and times of Northampton ILPer Harold Croft, who faced prison, hardship and abuse for being a conscientious objector and anti-war activist. On 9 November 1920, at statutory meetings all over England, borough councils elected mayors and aldermen. Almost always these were a formality, the results agreed in advance between the...
WWI: Resisting the War in Hebden Royd & Calder Valley
JONATHAN TIMBERS looks at the activity of ILP branches in the Upper Calder valley in the period before conscription was introduced in 1916, when the British army relied on volunteers to fight the Germans. It was the period before conscientious objection. The story reveals a lot about the troubled relationship developing between the ILP and...
ILP Profiles: Morgan Jones and the First World War
WAYNE DAVID recounts the life of Morgan Jones, an ILP councillor and anti-war activist who emerged from the hardship of prison to become the first conscientious objector elected to Parliament. Morgan Jones was born on 3 May 1885 in the village of Gelligaer at the foot of Gelligaer mountain. His birthplace was the small Rhos...
ILP Profiles: Clifford Allen – The ILP’s Enigmatic Thinker
DAVID HOWELL recounts the life and career of Clifford Allen, an ILP chairman and editor between the wars, whose marginalised political vision was, perhaps, a lost alternative for the party and the progressive movement. Reginald Clifford Allen was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on 9 May 1889. His father owned a drapery business; his mother died...
Unbalanced Britain: Wealth, Power and Poverty
ILP members and friends gathered at the Circle conference centre in Sheffield at the end of June for the first in a series of one-day workshops on ‘Unbalanced Britain’....
Blue Labour Thinkers Gather in Nottingham
Blue Labour thinkers, supporters and activists met at Nottingham University on 5 July to discuss ‘The Strength of Association: in the Family, Community and Workplace’....
Unbalanced Britain: Corporate Power and our Me-Based Culture
Over the past 30 years the New Right, aided and abetted in some respects by New Labour, has introduced changes that have profoundly damaged, not only our economy, but British culture and politics. The result, says BARRY WINTER, is a seriously unbalanced society. We live in an era of what the American philosopher, Michael Sandel,...
An Editor Reflects
MIKE DAVIS became editor of the Labour left publication Chartist 40 years ago. Here he reflects on the very different political world of 1974, how the left has been weakened in the intervening years, and the daunting challenges it faces today. Chartist was a very different political animal when I took over editing in spring...
Tony Benn, the Labour Left ‘and all that’
BARRY WINTER reflects on Tony Benn’s personality and politics, interweaving his own memories of the period as he considers the left’s failures in the 1970s and ’80s and the lessons for those seeking progressive change today. Few people in contemporary politics have attracted such public affection as Tony Benn. In spite of years of vilification...
Hardie’s ‘Sunshine of Socialism’ Speech
One hundred years ago this month, members of the ILP gathered in Bradford for its ‘Coming of Age’ 21st anniversary conference. In his address to delegates, KEIR HARDIE, the ILP’s guiding spirit and the Labour Party’s first leader, outlined how far the organisation had come since it was founded in the same city in...
From Manchester to Madrid
A collective of Manchester-based artists have organised a special evening of prose, song, poetry and exhibition to tell the story of the city’s unsung heroes and heroines who went to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War....
Can Labour Learn to Trust People?
Left of centre think tanks Compass and Progress are joining forces at the end of April to host a discussion on Labour’s approach to public sector reform with Jon Cruddas, coordinator of the party’s policy review process....