The GMB union has welcomed the Labour Party’s election pledges to put working people and trade unionists at the centre of the 2015 general election....
Labour Should Outlaw Zero-Hours Contracts
Labour’s opposition to zero hour contracts is important and welcome, says ERNIE JACQUES. But the Party’s approach is still far too timid. In his speech at Senate House last month, Labour leader Ed Miliband could not have been stronger in his attack on the coalition government’s ‘zero-zero economy’ and the horrific Victorian employment practices exemplified...
Urgent Appeal from the Working Class Movement Library
The Working Class Movement Library in Salford, home to some of the ILP’s archives, has launched an urgent appeal to raise funds....
Owen Jones: Our Prophet of Hope?
BARRY WINTER was one of 260 people who piled into the largest lecture theatre at Leeds Beckett University last week to hear left wing author and journalist Owen Jones. He left feeling impressed, and a little bit inspired....
Full Reading of Salters Play
A full reading of Alison Mead’s play ‘Politic Man’, about pioneering ILPers Alf and Ada Salter, will be staged in Kent on Monday 24 November....
Barnsley Hosts Two Exhibitions on the Miners’ Strike
Two innovative exhibitions are currently showing in the gallery at Barnsley’s Civic Theatre to mark the legacy of the 1984/5 miners’ strike....
Class Gathers to Challenge Inequality
A huge roster of speakers from the Labour and progressive movement has been assembled for a conference on ‘challenging inequalities in wealth and power’ in central London this Saturday....
Salters Play to Perform at Cockpit Theatre
A new play about the pioneering ILPers, Alfred and Ada Salter, will get its first hearing at London’s Cockpit Theatre on Monday 13 October....
WWI: Exhibition Explores War Myths and Realities
An exhibition exploring the myths and realities of World War One opens in the Working Class Movement Library in Salford on Wednesday 6 August....
WWI: Down with the War!
On 6 August 1914, just nine days after the start of what came to be known as World War One, the ILP published a front page appeal in its weekly journal, Labour Leader, imploring the “workers of Great Britain” to unite with those across Europe and resist the government’s call to arms....
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...