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 →
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 →
When the death of John P. Mackintosh, the Labour Member of Parliament for Berwick and East Lothian, was announced on 31 July 1978, William Russell, the Glasgow Herald’s man in SW1A, reflected on the premature passing of a man ‘who looked a winner but failed to conquer’. Aged only 48 but having been an MP since... Continue Reading →
BY PAUL RICHARDS The leafy lanes and pretty Chiltern villages surrounding Chesham and Amersham are not immediately redolent of Labour history. Swan Bottom is a long way from Clydeside, and Cholesbury is no Tolpuddle. Yet growing up in the area, I was always fascinated by the stories of three Labour titans who were drawn to... Continue Reading →
By Tom Chidwick On 10 January 1979, after a six-day summit in Guadeloupe with President Jimmy Carter, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, an avuncular British Prime Minister James Callaghan touched down at Heathrow Airport to be met with a pack of the Fourth Estate. With severe frosts and heavy snowfall, a mean... Continue Reading →
Thirty years on, how significant was the Eastbourne by-election? By Paul Richards Thirty years ago, the people of Eastbourne, a sedate seaside town in East Sussex, went to the polls in a parliamentary by-election, caused by the assassination of Conservative MP Ian Gow by the IRA. It came amidst the choppiest of political waters for... Continue Reading →
