Labour history Articles

As I read this collection of essays on the life of Harold Wilson I became acutely aware of the particular influence Harold had had on the whole of my life, from the time I was born. Starting with his key wartime role as a civil servant and moving on to his close...

It was my fellow Welsh Labour member of parliament Kevin Brennan who first told me that I had been drawn in the ballot to put forward a private members’ bill. I was delighted. But when one of your predecessors is renowned backbench legislator Leo Abse, you know that...

Pain, progress and pioneers The Last Word is back! This time with 20 per cent more intellectual content, a 10 per cent reduction in sarcasm and no mention of Super Tuesday. Burn after reading But a word of warning. Before you read further, I'm currently 100/1 on...

The Labour government ‘contributed almost nothing new or imaginative to the pool of ideas with which men seek to illuminate human nature and its environment’. So wrote the New Statesman in a 1954 biographical piece about Clement Attlee and the 1945-1951 Labour...