No excuses can hide the criminal actions of a Nazi fellow-traveller in this admirably objective documentary, suggests MARTIN HALL
Ramsay sycophancy
PAUL DONOVAN observes how the first Labour parliamentarians were merely malleable pillars of the establishment
PAUL DONOVAN relishes a fascinating exploration of the leading lights of the Labour right in the 1970s
BEN LUNN alerts us to the creeping return of philanthropy and private patronage, and suggests alternative paths to explore
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
MIK SABIERS savours the first headline solo show of the stalwart of Brighton’s indie-punk outfit Blood Red Shoes
New releases reviewed by IAN SINCLAIR
STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
The Wild Men
David Torrance
Bloomsbury, £20
THE main achievement of the first Labour government of 1924 proved to be demonstrating that they were not “wild men” at all.
The Establishment clearly saw the mixture of working-class representatives, elected in 1923, as a potential revolutionary threat to its existence. The British version of the Bolsheviks in Russia. What David Torrance clearly demonstrates is that they were anything but.
There were the initial niceties of dress, certain suits for different occasions. The prime minister had personally to fund the furnishing of Downing Street. The lack of trust of the first Labour administration is amusingly illustrated with the story of four splendid silver candlesticks, which reappeared in the Colonial Office, as Labour minister Jimmy Thomas left.
Similar stories
The infamous forged missive exposed how the Establishment worked to discredit Labour despite its loudly declared anti-communist stance, writes MARY DAVIS, analysing the 1924 government’s destruction
MAT COWARD resurrects the radical spirit of early Labour’s overlooked matriarch, whose tireless activism and financial support laid the foundations for the party’s early success
MIKE QUILLE salutes an extensive body of photographic work that documents, with subtlety and compassion, working-class lives in north-east England
The Chancellor is rehashing discredited Victorian economics, showing the party has learned nothing from a century of failed Gladstonian economics, ignoring Keynes and betraying workers, writes KEITH FLETT