I WAS delighted to take part in a fantastic event last week at the Klondyke Club in in Manchester. It was an event organised by young activists in Momentum to discuss culture and the labour movement.

It was very positive to see an event focused on this aspect of our movement. Any genuine, living mass movement must have a cultural aspect and by that I mean an interaction with the arts, be that literature, music or drama.

The socialist movement has always had a cultural aspect to it. And it should not be forgotten that the very act of making the lives or struggles of so-called “ordinary” working class people the subject of literature, music or drama has been and remains intensely political of itself, as it challenges the notion that these things are not a worthy focus of art or culture.