Dianne Hayter Articles

David Clark charts the career of Victor Grayson, an idealist ill-suited to tolerating others, writes Dianne Hayter At just 25, Victor Grayson was elected in 1907, a socialist, firebrand, handsome, bisexual, often drunk, always charismatic. Yet he disappeared –...

I am biased on Europe: born, postwar, in a divided Germany. Educated in a Britain outside of the common market, seeing a terrifying wall built in Berlin. Helped set up the European Trades Union Congress as we joined in 1973, bringing non-communist trade union bodies...

When the full history of trade unions and the Labour party gets to be written, one of its unsung heros will surely be included. Bill Sirs (January 1920-June 2015) was general secretary of Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, one of the ‘triple alliance’ which, in...

From 1918, with a manifesto claiming ‘The Labour party is the women’s party. Woman is the chancellor of the exchequer in the home’, women very gradually entered parliament. However, with full equal voting rights only in 1929, hence ‘flapper election’, despite being...