The Militant Tendency once ran the city of Liverpool. A group of only 7,000 revolutionary socialists, they infiltrated the Labour Party, they orchestrated the antiPoll Tax campaign. But by last year Neil Kinnock had expelled most Militants including MPs Dave Nellish and Terry Fields. Cutting Edge: Comrades, captions, Channel 4 1992
He was once described in the press as the most dangerous man in Britain. A Viscount’s son, the public schoolboy who became a champion of the working class. A politician devoted to his party but whose socialist vision nearly tore it apart. Tony Benn: Labour’s Lost Leader, BBC 2014
He swapped the BBC for the Labour Party. He stood for the seat of Bristol south-east. ibid.
In 1963 the Peerage Bill was passed which allowed Ben to renounce his title. ibid.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson appointed Benn Postmaster-General. ibid.
Benn’s political journey to the left was encouraged every step by his wife. ibid.
‘He immatures with age.’ ibid. Harold Wilson
‘He was at the head of a broad social movement.’ ibid. Chris Mullen
‘I’d have been utterly ashamed if I’d followed the course of Neil Kinnock.’ ibid. Benn, 1995
The Labour Party leader a decade before Tony Blair was Michael Foot, a lifelong leftwing socialist. But Foot came under attack for not acting like a party leader. Labour’s Old Romantic, BBC 1997
The way he looked at the Cenotaph was to cause one of the biggest political rows of his life. ibid.
Michael Foot’s life has been one long protest march. No ‘Ban the Bomb’ rally was complete without him. But he is also a man of many paradoxes. ibid.
‘There’s a touch of Jesus about him.’ ibid. Spike Milligan
Foot’s father was a Liberal MP, a campaigner against alcohol and a bibliophile. ibid.
Aneurin Bevan: the Welsh firebrand became Foot’s mentor and lifelong hero. ibid.
‘He had a lot of pretty girls before me.’ ibid. wife
Foot became a leading member of the Keep Left group of Labour MPs. ibid.
In 1945 Britain emerged from the most devastating conflict in history. In a surprise election result the people overwhelmingly voted in Clement Attlee and a Labour government that promised the prize of far-reaching social reform. But could they deliver? The War had almost bankrupted Britain. David Reynolds: The Improbable Mr Attlee, BBC 2005
A most unlikely prime minister. These were years of intense drama … The tension between radicalism and patriotism was embodied in the man at the very top. Terse, uncharismatic but often very effective. ibid.
Attlee seems the very opposite of a leader, a mousey little man with a moustache … Nor was he much of an orator. ibid.
‘There’s less there than meets the eye … He has a great deal to be modest about.’ ibid. Churchill
Attlee was also a man of ideals. Appalled by the poverty he witnessed as a social worker in London’s East End, he joined the Labour Party, and standing as Major Attlee, became an MP in 1922. ibid.
Attlee moved fast sending Keynes to Washington to seek aid. ibid.
Economics would prove his Achilles’ heel. ibid.
Bevan and Attlee agreed that Britain must develop its own bomb. ibid.
In September 1949 the £ was devalued by 30%. ibid.
Attlee was out; Churchill was back. ibid.
I think Peter Mandelson is the ghost at the banquet. You know, he’s behind a lot of what’s going on. The purges of left-wing candidates, the purges of socialists from the party, from what is supposed to be a socialist party, Mandelson is behind that. Mick Lynch
The UK Labour Party is a truly despicable preversion of what a labour party is supposed to be. It is a monstrosity. Something hideous to make the flesh creep. George Galloway, tweet 20th April 2024