Scott Cresswell finds Denis MacShanes's book a thought-provoking mixture of history and memoir It should remain and always be a worrying thought for British progressives, social democrats, and democratic socialists that the Labour Party rarely wins general elections. Since June 1970, there have only been eighteen years of Labour government: 1974-79, 1997-2010. Countless numbers of... Continue Reading →
Twenty years ago, the Conservative Party was at its lowest ebb. But on the night of New Labour’s greatest triumph, one man promised to revive their fortunes… As the sunset on eighteen years of Conservative rule in May 1997, Tony Blair had already set his sights on his next task. His primary focus was to... Continue Reading →
Taking an opposition party into government is a rare feat in British politics. At the 1979 General Election, the first-time voters who witnessed Mrs Thatcher take power are now in their sixties. In the intervening period those voters have seen the government change hands just twice. Keir Starmer is the latest in a long line... Continue Reading →
Review by Tom Chidwick Having been in government for thirty-two out of the last one hundred years, the Labour Party occupies more than its fair share of the pews in the pantheon of unjustly forgotten parliamentarians of the previous century. From ILP stalwarts George Barnes and John Wheatley to devolutionist Scots of the Seventies John... Continue Reading →
As Super League celebrates its 25th birthday, rugby league is further away from its founder’s vision than ever. As Britain approached the end of the 1970s there was much talk about the “managed decline” of a once-great powerhouse. As debts spiralled out of control and the creditors came knocking at the door, the future looked... Continue Reading →
Tom Chidwick wonders what would have happend if Scotland had voted Yes in the 1979 referendum...... As the country’s first referendum campaign drew to a close, Gordon Brown, the chairman of the Labour Party’s official ‘Labour Movement Yes’ campaign, warned that ‘to be swayed now by the scaremongering and false fears peddled by the money... Continue Reading →
Holding together working- and middle-class voters has been Labour’s historic Achilles’ heel. Can Keir Starmer do what Clement Attlee couldn’t in 1950? In April 1946, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, told Conservative MPs in a Commons debate, “We are the masters” and will be “for a long time to come”. Labour had just become... Continue Reading →
“Austerity is repealed for a day as Britons swarm to the pubs” The story of 1966 – the last time England were in a major a final Harold Wilson launched the tournament at a meeting of FIFA in London and claimed England had a good chance of winning. “England are playing together as a team.... Continue Reading →
