Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa
120 years on, Blair gets it wrong again on what the Labour Party is about
Three-time prime minister Tony Blair has a rather strange view of the Labour Party’s foundation — that it should not have happened. Socialist historian KEITH FLETT reports

IT WAS the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) at the end of February. In 1900 delegates from trade unions and left-wing parties met on February 26 and 27 in the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street.
The building has long since been replaced by an office block — but a plaque remains. Former Labour leader Tony Blair used the occasion to make a speech, partly about labour history and mostly about where he thinks “progressive” or centre-left opinion should go in the next 10 years.
“Who cares what Blair thinks?” is surely the reaction of most socialists.
More from this author
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT

From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT

Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT

Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT