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In 1963 JFK prepared (but never got to deliver) a speech attacking ‘voices preaching doctrines which apparently assume that … vituperation is as good as victory.’ Reading that last phrase recently I knew immediately what he meant. Years…
Andy Burnham will tomorrow pledge to recapture the spirit of Clement Attlee's Government, and slam the modern Labour Party for being "too frightened by its own shadow" to support policies as bold as the ones that saw the creation of the…
Back in 1987, Ken Livingstone wrote a book called 'If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It'. I picked it up a couple of years ago in a charity bookshop in Tooting for £2 as an anniversary gift for my partner (don't judge me, we're…
Stand by. Next month will see the 70th anniversary of Labour’s historic 1945 landslide victory. Dropping smack bang in the middle of the leadership campaign we can expect days if not weeks of Labour then and now comparisons. For the…
One of the up sides to having blogged for nine years is that there are certain key posts that you can update as history unfolds. This week I’m updating my tables which try to answer to the vexed question of who Labour’s most and least…
It is almost as much a tradition of the State Opening of Parliament as the rest of the regal pageantry, and once a year the political world awaits with baited breath what Bolsover MP Dennis Skinner will say when the Black Rod enters the…
As Scottish Labour's latest video shows, it's 36 years since Jim Callaghan's government was brought down with a vote of no confidence. This was won by one vote, in which the SNP supported Margaret Thatcher and the Tories. Here's Michael…
Today it is 36 years since Jim Callaghan's government was brought down by a vote of no confidence, resulting in the general election months later that brought Margaret Thatcher to power. The government lost the vote to the Conservatives by…
The House of Commons is a remarkable institution. It's one that I admire and respect, criticise and traduce. It's a means for the British establishment to asset itself upon the people, but also - increasingly so in the grand sweep of…
Today marks the first anniversary of Tony Benn's death. A titan of the Labour Party and the wider Labour movement, Benn's death was marked across the party. At the time we brought you tributes from Benn's friends Jeremy Corbyn, Maya…
I’m not the only Labour activist who is going to be spending Valentine’s Day knocking on doors. I’m also pretty sure that I’m not the only Labour activist who will be joined knocking on those doors by their partner. In our local parties I’m…
The picture has almost a ghost like quality which is hardly surprising as it was taken with my Kodak Brownie 126 purchased from Boot’s the chemist and it shows Harold Wilson on his way to Prime Minister’s Questions probably on Wednesday…
