Tag: Labour Party

Events

Jenkins, Healey, and Crosland: ‘The Gang of Three’ on stage

‘The Gang of Three’: Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Tony Crosland: three brilliant friends, three bitter rivals – and all three convinced they should lead the Labour Party. Now, an acclaimed drama, and available for booking on a national tour. Labour historians might be all too familiar with the intricate details, machinations, and history of the three leading Labour Party figures – Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, … Continue reading Jenkins, Healey, and Crosland: ‘The Gang of Three’ on stage

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Digitised and online: the Labour Union Journal

A late-nineteenth century labour journal once described as ‘the most flourishing organ of the labour movement in the whole country’, has recently been digitised by the British Newspaper Archive. The Bradford Labour Union was a forerunner of the Independent Labour Party, and later the Labour Party. Its organ, The Labour Union Journal, was first published on 26 May 1892. After the Manningham Mills strike in … Continue reading Digitised and online: the Labour Union Journal

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

John Russell (Queen Mary University of London) on the Labour Party’s reorientation in Middle Eastern policy following the Suez Crisis.

Financial support from the Society for the Study of Labour History allowed me to fund several research trips to the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People’s History Museum in Manchester in 2024 and 2025. These visits were used to research and draft the final chapters of my PhD thesis – an exploration of the Labour Party’s relationship with Zionism in the middle … Continue reading John Russell (Queen Mary University of London) on the Labour Party’s reorientation in Middle Eastern policy following the Suez Crisis.

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Labour History Review

Britain’s Labour Party and the Anti-Colonial Labour Movement in Fiji (1945–1970)

Author:  Adrien RoddThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (3). Read this article. The Labour Party in Britain achieved its first ever absolute parliamentary majority in the 1945 general election, at the tail end of the Second World War. Historically a socialist and internationalist party founded with the aim of providing parliamentary representation to trade unionists and the working class, Labour formed … Continue reading Britain’s Labour Party and the Anti-Colonial Labour Movement in Fiji (1945–1970)

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Labour History Review

A Rebel with a Cause: Eric Heffer, the Marxist Years, 1938-1958

Author: Keith Laybourn and Neil PyeThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (2). Read this article. Eric Heffer, who rose to the top of the Labour Party’s left-wing hierarchy in the 1970s and 1980s, spent much of his early political career in the Communist Party of Great Britain and, after being expelled in 1948, in the Socialist Workers’ Federation, an anti-Communist … Continue reading A Rebel with a Cause: Eric Heffer, the Marxist Years, 1938-1958

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Documents & objects

‘Mr Attlee is confident’: a Limehouse declaration

Towards the end of October 1945, Prime Minister Clement Attlee was back in his Limehouse constituency for a victory rally. It had been less than six months since the end of the war in Europe, and just weeks later in the UK a Labour government had been swept to power. A world reshaped by conflict was being remade once again in a new era of … Continue reading ‘Mr Attlee is confident’: a Limehouse declaration

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Events

Conference: Starmer Year One

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

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Labour History Review

Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective

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

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Labour History Review

Exorcizing Dysfunctional Myths: Betrayal, Economic Incompetence, and the Memory of the 1931 Second Labour Government’s Crisis

Author: Giuseppe Telesca This is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2024), 89, (3). Read more. On 23 August 1931, the second Labour government split over the decision to cut unemployment benefits. The next day, a National Government, led by Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, but largely supported by Conservative and Liberal MPs, was appointed to ‘save sterling’ – only to decide to leave the gold … Continue reading Exorcizing Dysfunctional Myths: Betrayal, Economic Incompetence, and the Memory of the 1931 Second Labour Government’s Crisis

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Obituaries

Tribute: John Shepherd (1942 – 2024)

Professor John Shepherd, one of the founders of the Labour History Research Unit at Anglia Ruskin, died last week. John taught History in the 1980s at the institution which became Anglia Ruskin, serving the university in multiple roles and in recent years became Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield.  John did his PhD with Eric Hobsbawm at Birkbeck and went on to become a very … Continue reading Tribute: John Shepherd (1942 – 2024)

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