Labour history Articles

This year will mark the 80th anniversary of the Labour party leadership election of 1935. Its long-term historical significance is not in doubt, for its winning candidate went on to become the 20th century’s most successful prime minister, leading the great postwar...

Ellen Wilkinson was born in a working-class area, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, on 8 October 1891. One of four children, her father was a Methodist minister, and she attended the Ardwick Higher Elementary School, and later studied history at Manchester University,...

Forty years ago, the nation’s political waters were particularly turbulent. In response to western support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Opec had introduced an oil embargo, which was led to the quadrupling in the price of a barrel of oil. This in...

On 4 July 1948, the day before the introduction of the National Health Service, the Labour party held a rally in Manchester. The main speaker, Labour’s minister of health and housing, Aneurin Bevan, captured the significance of the moment: ‘The eyes of the world are...