LSHG seminar - The British Labour Party’s New Socialist and the business of political culture in the late Twentieth Century

Monday June 3rd 5.30pm on Zoom Colm Murphy. 'The forgotten rival of Marxism Today: The British Labour Party’s New Socialist and the business of political culture in the late Twentieth Century' Free. Book at this link https://www.history.ac.uk/events/forgotten-rival-marxism-today-british-labour-partys-new-socialist-and-business-political This paper explores the world of the 1980s left in the UK and argues that political historians should integrate ‘business history’ questions to situate and evaluate sites for political debate. No history of the 1980s is complete without reference to the Communist Party’s glamorous Marxism Today. However, scholars have overlooked one of its significant market competitors. In 1981, the Labour Party founded its own intellectual magazine, the New Socialist. Initially, it was highly successful, recording healthy circulation figures and attracting iconoclastic pieces by leading socialists. Its early commercial success shows that it has been unjustly neglected since. Yet unfavourable political winds and internal editorial divisions fatally overlapped with ruinous business decisions in a worsening financial environment. This precipitated the collapse of New Socialist in the later 1980s—just as its Eurocommunist rival declared the arrival of the ‘New Times’ and wrote itself into history books. Closer attention to business contexts thus returns New Socialist to histories of the left and provides a better map of its ideological debates during a transformative decade. It also situates the travails of the 1980s left within social and cultural trends over the twentieth century.

CfP: The Benn Legacy -

The Benn Legacy A conference to be held on 12-13 April 2025 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Tony Benn’s birth, looking at Benn’s life and legacy. The issues to which Benn devoted his political life are, if anything, more burningly relevant today than they were when he died in 2014. These include the relationship of people to power, peace in the Middle East, Britain and Europe, the state of the House of Lords and socialism within the Labour Party. In keeping with his principles, the conference aims to be inclusive, inviting contributions from the academy but also reaching out to trade unions and activist groups. To this end, there will be travel/accommodation bursaries to enable people to attend who are from groups not normally represented at conferences. Papers of 10-15 minutes are welcomed on any aspect of Benn’s life and legacy. Topics may include but are not limited to: · Congregationalism/nonconformist contribution to political thought · Movement for Colonial Freedom · The peerage · Technology (notably the post office and Mintech) · 1960s radicalism · Referendum 1975 (and reflections on 2016) · Manufacturing industry in the 1970s and 80s · Coal and the miner’s strike · The Falklands War · Gulf War 1 · Iraq, anti-war protests · Radicals in the House of Commons · Political diaries · The Benn Archive Abstracts (up to 300 words) and biographies (up to 100 words) should be submitted in Word to Pippa Catterall and Jad Adams: p.catterall@westminster.ac.uk and jadadams@btinternet.com. Deadline for submission: 31 November 2024. www.thebennlegacy.co.uk