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Keith Flett
Features / 18 April 2025
18 April 2025
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
Karl Marx 1
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
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
TURNING POINT: The anti-cuts plan put forward by Tony Benn (
Features / 31 March 2025
31 March 2025
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
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Excheq
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
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
Leaders of the Labour Representation Committee in 1906. From
Features / 4 March 2025
4 March 2025
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT
EVEN FURTHER RIGHT: Margaret Thatcher meets the press outsid
Features / 16 February 2025
16 February 2025
KEITH FLETT looks back 50 years to when the Iron Lady was elected Tory leader…
The arrest of the Cato Street Conspirators
Features / 4 February 2025
4 February 2025
The legacy of an 1820 conspiracy in revenge for Peterloo resonates down the ages, argues KEITH FLETT
Rachel Reeves
Features / 23 January 2025
23 January 2025
Britain’s first woman Chancellor delivers the same old fudge, as Labour’s commitment to economic orthodoxy, seen throughout its history, always betrays working people, writes KEITH FLETT
9 - Corbyn mass support
Features / 6 January 2025
6 January 2025
Every few years, it seems like the ‘right time’ to build a new left party — but what are the right conditions, asks socialist historian KEITH FLETT, looking back at the last two centuries and the insights of Ralph Miliband and EP Thompson
A Marx and Engles statue covered in snow
Features / 18 December 2024
18 December 2024
Modern Christmas as we know it, with its trees, dinner menu, cards and time off from work, only dates back to the early days of modern socialism as we know it, writes KEITH FLETT, checking in on Marx, Engels and the Chartists in the 1800s
TRULY MASSIVE: The great Chartist meeting on Kennington Comm
Features / 4 December 2024
4 December 2024
Forget Farage and the recent daft demands for a new election against Labour: the greatest petition Britain has ever known gathered millions of names demanding the right to vote — and it didn’t work either, writes KEITH FLETT
9restoration
Features / 19 November 2024
19 November 2024
KEITH FLETT considers how the return of the monarchy after Cromwell offers lessons for a left facing the return of Donald Trump, showing that radical traditions endure despite reactionary victories
Harold Wilson, Tony Blair and Keir Starmer
Features / 15 October 2024
15 October 2024
KEITH FLETT reflects on the 1964 and 1974 election victories, arguing that despite years in power, Labour failed to fundamentally reshape society in the way Thatcher later would — a pattern Blair and now Starmer would follow
Sidney Webb
History / 30 September 2024
30 September 2024
The words composed by Sidney Webb: ‘To organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a Political Labour Party’ were a crucial landmark in Labour’s journey to becoming a membership-based electoral presence, writes KEITH FLETT
A statue of former British prime minister Sir Robert Peel in
Features / 17 September 2024
17 September 2024
KEITH FLETT draws parallels with the 1834 Tory crisis, noting the absence of modern-day Robert Peel among the leadership contenders capable of reinventing the party for a new era
9 - Rachel Reeves
Features / 5 September 2024
5 September 2024
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
9 - Priestley riots
Features / 19 August 2024
19 August 2024
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT traces the parallel evolution of violent loyalist rampages and the workers' movement's peaceful democratic crowds, highlighting the stark contrast between recent far-right thuggery and mass Gaza protests
9_-_engels_on_the_isle_of_white
Features / 7 August 2024
7 August 2024
From military inspections to geological observations, KEITH FLETT recounts how the communist’s 1857 visit to Ryde combined health recovery with a sharp analysis of Britain’s defences
Drax Hall plantation in Barbados
Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 2024 / 20 July 2024
20 July 2024
KEITH FLETT uncovers the links between Dorset landowners, Caribbean plantations, slavery and the prosecution of trade unionists, revealing a darker side to the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ story
Leaders debate
Features / 30 June 2024
30 June 2024
KEITH FLETT offers some historical context to the election campaign’s final period
9 - anti-Farage demo
Features / 12 June 2024
12 June 2024
How has Farage repeatedly failed to get elected to Parliament, but always succeeded in influencing parliamentary politics? KEITH FLETT looks at the tools available to the right and left locked outside of Westminster
KF
Opinion / 31 May 2024
31 May 2024
KEITH FLETT looks at a Labour turncoat behind the ratcheting up of measures to courtail the right to protest
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with former Conservative MP N
Features / 14 May 2024
14 May 2024
Normally in British politics, leftwingers defect right. Under Blair and now Starmer however, this trend seems to reverse, calling into question the ‘broad church’ that welcomes Tories and excludes socialists, writes KEITH FLETT
pub
Features / 1 May 2024
1 May 2024
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT looks at the 19th-century roots of the labour movement’s celebratory day
9 - Streeting
Features / 19 April 2024
19 April 2024
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT unpacks the term currently being flung about by the Labour right as an insult and finds its popular association with ‘being a lefty’ is anything but assured in reality
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during the Labour Party local
Features / 3 April 2024
3 April 2024
Where Keir Starmer’s pledges to the unions clash with business interests, we can look to the archives of the Blair era to see what he is likely to do, writes KEITH FLETT
A photograph of the Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Com
Features / 18 March 2024
18 March 2024
With Gove, Lord Walney and others seeking to restrict our freedom of dissent, KEITH FLETT reminds us that such state repression is not new and it can be overcome
A young protester is pounced on by police officers on Whiteh
Features / 3 March 2024
3 March 2024
EP Thompson opposed romanticising riots, but the democratic intent of Palestinian protests is evident – which is why the powers that be really hate them. Looking at history, from the Chartists to today, they always have, explains KEITH FLETT
Len Murray (left) TUC General secretary: Arthur Scargill (ce
Features / 22 February 2024
22 February 2024
As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, large strikes once again become the norm and the Tories remain in permanent crisis, KEITH FLETT recalls 1974 — when organised labour brought down a government
Cromwell statue
Features / 6 February 2024
6 February 2024
KEITH FLETT shines a light on the moment when parliamentary democracy laid down its first roots
John Pilger speaking outside the Old Bailey, London, ahead o
Features / 8 January 2024
8 January 2024
The rich and powerful would not only prefer to forget certain episodes of history but will actively do what they can to make sure they are buried, says KEITH FLETT
Marx and Engels
Features / 17 December 2023
17 December 2023
Reading the fathers of communism’s letters from over a century-and-a-half ago, we find that far from being against festive fun, they were all feasting, drinking and giving presents, explains KEITH FLETT
Ramsay Macdonald speaking at the national Labour Conference.
Features / 12 December 2023
12 December 2023
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT looks at Britain’s first Labour government, where political timidity followed Establishment fears of radical reform
VOTING AGAINST WAR: Women on an anti-war protest in 2005 hol
Features / 26 November 2023
26 November 2023
It’s not just ‘the Muslim vote’ but a general opposition to war from the whole electorate that Labour should be wary of — even the Lib Dems have come off better better in the past, writes KEITH FLETT
IDF tank in the Sinai, 1973
Features / 13 November 2023
13 November 2023
The idea of the ‘short 20th century’ was based on an assumption that crises like the one that exploded 50 years ago were increasingly rare — instead, they’re increasingly common, writes KEITH FLETT
Protesters during a pro-Palestine march organised by Palesti
Features / 30 October 2023
30 October 2023
As huge demos once again hit the streets of Britain in defence of Palestine, we must recognise that ours is an era where street politics is increasingly vital, explains socialist historian KEITH FLETT
Labour party
Features / 17 October 2023
17 October 2023
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT looks at the Labour Party’s inconsistent attitude to war over the last century, and what we can do to shape it
Liz Truss
Features / 1 October 2023
1 October 2023
History shows that any diversion from ‘economic orthodoxy’ is likely to lead to pushback from Establishment forces, cautions KEITH FLETT
General view inside Wilko in Brownhills near Walsall, one of
Features / 20 September 2023
20 September 2023
The 12,500 jobs lost at Wilko echo the industrial vandalism of Tories in the 1980s. New Labour had plans to put in place a safety net — but will Keir Starmer resurrect these, asks KEITH FLETT
Tories
Features / 5 September 2023
5 September 2023
The party of the landed gentry which became the party of the manufacturing capitalist class — and then became the party of the free-market stocks-and-shares men? Never count it out, warns KEITH FLETT
A cartoon of the Peterloo Massacre
Features / 20 August 2023
20 August 2023
After the massacre of peaceful protesters two centuries ago, the state has been wary of provoking a reaction by using deadly force on dissident assemblies – but this is not a guarantee, explains KEITH FLETT
Bridlington was a firm favourite on Engels
Features / 8 August 2023
8 August 2023
KEITH FLETT explores the seaside divide afflicting the founding fathers of communism
higher education
Features / 26 July 2023
26 July 2023
There was a time in the 20th century when even the Conservatives recognised the value of higher education for anyone capable of it – a far cry from today, writes KEITH FLETT
Bishops, among the leaders of a peaceful anti-apartheid demo
Features / 10 July 2023
10 July 2023
Boycotts are one of the oldest forms of working-class collective pressure on employers, hitting their profits in sales rather than the workplace. No wonder the party of business hates them, writes KEITH FLETT
PM Robert Peel (1788–1850) and a poster celebrating the re
Features / 25 June 2023
25 June 2023
From the corn laws to the Irish question, from universal suffrage to Brexit, huge splits inevitably emerge in the Establishment — but these don’t automatically benefit the masses, explains KEITH FLETT
FLOATING PRISON: Around 500 migrants are to be kept on the B
Features / 11 June 2023
11 June 2023
In 1848 black Chartist prisoners were kept on prison hulks — in 2023 asylum-seekers are to be kept on barges. Little changes for those the state wants to want to keep out of the way, writes KEITH FLETT
The Windsors in their new hats
Features / 15 May 2023
15 May 2023
KEITH FLETT wonders, if the royal circus didn’t swell the public coffers with a wedge of fat tourist bucks as hoped, did it at least send our spirits soaring in a surge of national pride? Also no.
Trafalgar Square protest
Features / 1 May 2023
1 May 2023
KEITH FLETT looks back on some working-class and ruling-class traditions
HISTORIC: A daguerrotype, an early form of photograph, captu
Features / 20 April 2023
20 April 2023
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT looks at an enormous but messy day south of the Thames for England’s early working-class movement
Braverman, Sunak and Johnson
Features / 5 April 2023
5 April 2023
Ruling-class crisis might present more opportunities than disillusioned leftwingers might think, says KEITH FLETT
France pension strike
Features / 22 March 2023
22 March 2023
KEITH FLETT looks at the long-running quandary faced by strike movements like the one gripping Britain today: do we aim for influence over the ruling party — to drive it from power — or both?
The first Social Democratic Party conference at the City Hal
Features / 7 March 2023
7 March 2023
What is the Labour leader up to? It is not clear from his recent vague pronouncements — could the real goal not be winning an election, but creating the 1981 split in reverse, with the left forced into a rival party, asks KEITH FLETT
UNIQUELY CONFIDENTIAL? Fiery protests greet plans to push ba
Features / 9 February 2023
9 February 2023
KEITH FLETT argues against the lazy trope that British workers and their organisations are inferior in the militancy stakes to those around the globe – especially in light of the current strike wave
TURNING POINT: Pickets face off with police outside the News
Features / 8 January 2023
8 January 2023
Since the 1980s the Conservative Party has been trying to win its battles against the unions by changing the rules they are fought on — but you can’t change the material basis of industrial struggle, writes KEITH FLETT
A TALE AGAINST THE RICH: Charles Dicken's most famous work i
Features / 18 December 2022
18 December 2022
Despite being possibly the most popular Christmas story after Jesus's birthday, the political logic of A Christmas Carol — that poverty is not justified punishment for indolence — still escapes Britain's bosses, writes KEITH FLETT
The Twitter social media app showing Elon Musk running on a
Features / 28 November 2022
28 November 2022
KEITH FLETT pours scorn on the liberal-minded pretensions of the ‘world's richest man’ and his claim that Twitter can be an open forum for free debate, somehow abstracted from the perversions of capitalism
Violent movements like the NF, pictured here in the 1980s, r
Features / 6 November 2022
6 November 2022
From Thatcher’s ‘swamped,’ to May’s ‘hostile environment,’ to Braverman’s ‘invasion,’ the Tories know what they are doing when they blow the dog whistle of racist rhetoric in their speeches, writes KEITH FLETT
DEMOCRACY? Unelected Sunak
Features / 26 October 2022
26 October 2022
As our nation faces yet another unelected leader, how about we return to the other great avenues of enacting our democratic will, writes KEITH FLETT
Enough is enough
Features / 9 October 2022
9 October 2022
From the Anti-Corn Law League to today, lobbying Parliament from the outside, backed up by the angry street activity, can be effective when the working class lacks political representation, writes KEITH FLETT
Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer (right) leads tributes
Features / 26 September 2022
26 September 2022
Backed by a comically large Union Jack, Labour’s leadership decided to open this year’s conference with the national anthem rather than the Red Flag. But just what does Keir Starmer think the monarchy has achieved, wonders KEITH FLETT
King Charles III shakes hands with Prime Minister Liz Truss
Features / 11 September 2022
11 September 2022
In a nation of 67 million, only 80,000 Conservative Party member chose the next Prime Minister — still, that is 80,000 more than those who picked Charles III to be our head of state, writes KEITH FLETT
JAMMY: Johnson is reported to be looking to write a column f
Features / 28 August 2022
28 August 2022
Johnson and his cronyism has sunk politics to new levels of depravity, says KEITH FLETT
Students at the London School of Economics listen to a speec
Features / 16 August 2022
16 August 2022
The Conservatives have a long history of encouraging division in schooling – but the Labour government of 1964 introduced a new comprehensive system, sweeping away the grammar/secondary modern divide. KEITH FLETT takes a look
Liz Truss at an event in Leeds as part of her campaign to be
Features / 29 July 2022
29 July 2022
The vague threats to restrict our trade union rights even further may well break agreements made when Queen Victoria was on the throne, writes KEITH FLETT
Miners and trade unionists marching to Westminster during th
Features / 11 July 2022
11 July 2022
The Tory leadership turmoil can help the labour movement and class struggle, but history show this is not a given: the Labour Party looks unlikely to turn to the left, so it is our own activity in the unions that we must rely on, writes KEITH FLETT
Former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair during the annual Order
Features / 22 June 2022
22 June 2022
Yes, the landslide victory produced some moderate progress at first. But what appealed as unorthodox and visionary to Labour in the 1990s — like cosying-up to Murdoch and pushing privatisation — would find few buyers today, writes KEITH FLETT
IDEALISM: A map showing plans for a Chartist land settlement
Features / 30 April 2022
30 April 2022
The Chartists marked May Day long before it became a labour movement occasion. KEITH FLETT explains
The cost-of-living crisis from the 1840s to the 2020s
Features / 19 April 2022
19 April 2022
When it comes to fighting the class war in times when the rich have brought us to the brink of starvation, history shows no tactic can be ruled out, writes KEITH FLETT
A new age of catastrophe?
Features / 3 April 2022
3 April 2022
We can no longer take peace for granted: until WWI there had not been a major war for 100 years. Ukraine is the first in decades that draws in so many different nations that we could be looking at a similar disaster to 1914, warns KEITH FLETT
A mob loots suspected German shops in east London, 1915
Features / 22 March 2022
22 March 2022
KEITH FLETT sees some unpleasant echoes of the past in today’s drumbeats for war
Tony Benn
Features / 4 March 2022
4 March 2022
Despite attempts to erase history, there has always been strong anti-imperialist pro-peace contingent in Labour and the wider movement, says KEITH FLETT
Nato
Features / 27 February 2022
27 February 2022
When the Warsaw Pact crumbled alongside the USSR, it would have made sense for Nato to disband too — but Nato was always about political control of the West, as well as defence from the East, explains KEITH FLETT