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The first Labour government, Ramsay MacDonald’s 1924 minority administration, took office 100 years ago this month. Labour’s collective memory of its first two terms – the party returned to office in 1929 – is shadowed by conspiracy and…
When, in December 1923, the first three Labour women MPs were sworn in they brought something new to British politics. Unlike the Tory and Liberal women elected before them they had not inherited their seats. They had got into parliament…
Tributes have been paid by leading politicians to the "decency", "wry humour" and "wisdom" of the former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling, after his family announced his death.
While its delegates basked in by-election glory, few believed that this year’s Labour conference would shape Labour policy. And, sure enough, conference again proved to be a place that simply ratified decisions taken elsewhere. Debate was…
In his famous essay, Homage to Tom Maguire, the historian EP Thompson wrote in praise of heroes who were never household names but without whom the Labour movement could not have prospered as a political force. Countless individuals have…
In 2004, a University of Leeds/Ipsos MORI poll of university academics rated Clement Attlee as the twentieth-century’s greatest Prime Minister with an average mark of 8.34 out of 10; Winston Churchill was second on 7.88. Given the scale of…
Imagine waiting for a bus at Marble Arch on a hot summer evening in London in 1921. There are no bus stops as such, so you jump on board when you can. A red bus pulls up first, followed soon after by a chocolate-coloured one. The crews jump…
In 1960, the Labour Party was split on one policy above all: unilateral nuclear disarmament. After the 1960 Scarborough conference had decided in favour of adopting the policy, Hugh Gaitksell stood up as leader and ruled out supporting the…
It has to be said that Anthony Crosland, among the leading post-war revisionist social democrats in the British Labour Party, was never regarded as a serious leadership contender by the mainstream of the labour movement. He stood for the…
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the NHS this week will be marked by extensive commemorations. From a service in Westminster Abbey, to BBC programmes, to street parties and fun runs, people will celebrate the thing that they tell opinion…
The subtitle of Nick Thomas-Symonds MP’s majestic biography of Harold Wilson – The Winner – suggests we would miss a trick if we failed to learn from the former Prime Minister. Whilst this does not mean imitating, it does mean looking…
Today, the fame of 41st US president George H.W Bush is eclipsed by his predecessor and successors. But he casts a surprisingly long shadow in British politics. In 1987, he coined the phrase “the vision thing”. The term has since seeped…
