Labour Party

Timeline – ten years of Blair government

08 May 2007
1997 MayNew Labour elected with 179 seat majority. Chancellor Gordon Brown gives Bank of England control over interest rates. Tony Blair declares that he is against public sector monopoly. JulyBrown’s first budget promises to stick to Tory spending limits, but he cuts corporation tax to 31 percent Government says it will scrap student grants and introduce tuition fees. AugustFat cats brought into government. New ministers include BP boss Lord Simon.SeptemberSeven people die in Southall rail crash. Government refuses to renationalise rail.

Michael Foot and the left

17 April 2007
A new biography of Michael Foot, the former Labour leader, lays open the contradictions at the heart of the Labour Party. During his long career Foot was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a journalist and pamphleteer, and a cabinet minister.

Labour to blame for Tories’ revival

10 March 2007
The Channel 4 fantasy programme The Trial of Tony Blair had the next general election culminate in a photo finish between a tongue-tied, terminally indecisive Gordon Brown and a vacuously trendy David Cameron.

Nick Danziger's photos catch Tony Blair in the act

03 March 2007
Tony Blair’s now somewhat haggard features are familiar – too familiar. His made-up face stares at us every day from images in the papers or on television. In this context, the photographer Nick Danziger has done something remarkable – he makes us look at Blair in a new way.

What’s behind the Labour leadership battle?

03 March 2007
The crisis created inside the government over the Iraq war has spilled over into the debate around who will lead the Labour Party after Tony Blair leaves office.

Leaving Labour to join a fighting alternative

17 February 2007
Wayne Muldoon Respect’s campaign for the May local elections in England received a big boost last week when Wayne Muldoon, a Labour councillor in Loughborough, announced he was joining the party.

New Labour, sleaze, police interviews and BAE

16 December 2006
The stench of corruption around the Labour party is becoming overwhelming.

Letting Bush and Blair off the hook

11 November 2006
What a cowardly bunch of timeserving lickspittles Labour backbenchers are. Last week they were offered the opportunity to vote for an official inquiry into the Iraq war.

Labour in cartoons 5: 1969 - A nail in the coffin

21 October 2006
Harold Wilson’s Labour government was elected in 1964 and re-elected in 1966. Wilson had presented himself as a "moderniser", but over the next four years his government turned away from socialist policies, held down wages and presided over rising unemployment.

Labour in cartoons 2: 1924 - The Trojan horse

21 October 2006
The end of the First World War coincided with a huge wave of workers’ uprisings across Europe, fuelled by the Bolsheviks coming to power in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

David Blunkett's dog’s dinner of a diary

21 October 2006
Reading extracts from David Blunkett’s diary took me back to a time when the Labour Party looked very different to the one we see today.

Labour in cartoons 3: 1943 - Days of hope

21 October 2006
By 1943 workers were already stepping up pressure for radical social change - and for the implementation of previous promises - even though the war against Nazi Germany was still raging.

Did Cowards Flinch? - Labour's history through newspaper cartoons

21 October 2006
A new book and exhibition tell the story of the Labour Party through newspaper cartoons. We look at individual cartoons and the period they represent

Labour in cartoons 4: 1957 - Aneurin Bevan goes nuclear

21 October 2006
Left wing Labour MP Aneurin Bevan led the biggest rebellion in the history of the Labour Party in the early 1950s. Many Labour Party members were angry about the growing consensus between the Tory government and the leadership headed by Hugh Gaitskell.

Labour in cartoons 1: 1912 - cuddling up to the Liberals

21 October 2006
The 1910 general election saw 42 Labour MPs elected. Labour had made an agreement with the ruling Liberals that gave it a clear run in a number of seats. In return, Labour agreed to support the Liberal government that was returned with no overall majority.

Lebanon was last straw - Tony Woodley

07 October 2006
Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the T&G union, summed up delegates’ frustration with New Labour, but also the limitations of that opposition.

Inside the Labour bubble

07 October 2006
The Labour conference underlined just how right wing the party’s leaders have become.They are for war, neo-liberalism and for preventing real debate.

Labour conference: Anger and dissent on the floor

07 October 2006
For a brief moment there was a whiff of the 1980s about the conference last week. There was a real sense of left against right as a motion against NHS privatisation passed with a big majority against furious opposition from the party’s leaders.

John McDonnell’s challenge from the left

07 October 2006
John McDonnell spoke strongly at conference fringe meetings promoting policies against war and privatisation, and for workers’ rights. He was not called to speak from the conference floor.

Why I’ve had enough of New Labour

30 September 2006
Valerie Wise, the former leader of Preston City Council, told a packed Stop the War meeting last week in the city why she had left the Labour Party. She spoke to Socialist Worker about her decision.