Bookings are now open for the ‘Starmer Year One’ conference organised by the Labour History Research Unit at Anglia Ruskin University. The event takes place on 14 June 2025 in Cambridge. Conference organiser Professor Rohan McWilliam says: ‘By the time we get to 14 June the government will have been in power for almost a year and politics may be a little different. The results … Continue reading Conference: Starmer Year One
Contributors: Peter Gurney, Laura Beers, Lawrence Black, Malcolm Petrie, and Martin WrightThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (1). Read more. The full text of this roundtable article is open access. The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any … Continue reading Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective
The Royal Historical Society has warned of ‘an alarming increase’ in the number of university history departments facing cuts to staffing and degree options – even as numbers studying the subject at GCSE and A level continue to rise. A briefing paper issued by the Society suggests that its survey of historians working in UK higher education shows that 88% of post-92 universities and 68% … Continue reading RHS finds cuts to history courses fall disproportionately on post-92 universities
What lessons should a Labour Cabinet which numbers five history graduates in its ranks* take from the experience of previous Labour governments? And how might the party’s past be used to help shape its future? In the fortnight leading up to the general election on 4 July, the Labour History Research Unit (LHRU) at Anglia Ruskin University surveyed historians of the Labour Party and modern … Continue reading Labour historians look to the past in search of lessons for the Starmer government
The three issues of Labour History Review published in 2023 have now been indexed and the index is available on the website. The update provides separate Word and PDF documents for volume 88, and includes an update to the consolidated Excel spreadsheet which now covers volumes 55 to 88 (1990-2023) inclusive. Labour History Review index. Access to the LHR index is available without charge. Find … Continue reading Labour History Review index 2023
Call for papers This CFP concerns submissions: Please see below for the submission guidelines for the one-day conference and the journal issue. The one-day conference and journal issue focus on the past four decades of industrial disputes and social movements in the UK. The year 2024 is the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-1985. As such, it provides an … Continue reading From 1984 to 2024: industrial disputes and social movements in the UK since the Great Miners’ Strike
Since the 2007-8 financial crisis and its aftershocks, international capitalism has once again been in crisis. The crisis has been particularly marked in the UK and its outcome is currently unclear. A Nation in Crisis: Division, Conflict and Capitalism in the United Kingdom is a new book by Neville Kirk that examines the systemic crisis facing the nations of the UK. The book is set … Continue reading A Nation in Crisis: Division, Conflict and Capitalism in the United Kingdom
Authors: Peter Gurney, Matthew Grant, Grace Huxford, Christoph Laucht, Jennifer Luff, Holger NehringThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (3), 277-312. Read more. This article is currently freely available. Introduction: Peter Gurney on The Marginalization of HistoryThe ongoing conflict in Ukraine is having profound repercussions in Britain, not least on our cultural and intellectual life. However, although the … Continue reading Roundtable on the ‘New Cold War’
The Society for the Study of Labour History calendar for 2023 uses as an illustration the Labour Party poster, ‘To-morrow – When Labour Rules’, created by the artist and lithographer Gerald Spencer Pryse. The original poster was issued for the general election of December 1923, from which Labour emerged in second place, ahead of the Liberals, with 191 seats. The party went on to form … Continue reading Society for the Study of Labour History 2023 calendar
The Society for the Study of Labour History calendar for 2022 enables you to see the whole year at a single glance – and maybe get just a little distracted working out which trade union badges appear in the photo. Download the 2022 SSLH calendar (PDF format) Continue reading Society for the Study of Labour History 2022 calendar
Society for the Study of Labour History 