Superb article by @racheljcollett.bsky.social in @mbhjournal.bsky.social, recovering the Capenhurst Women's Peace Camp. Fascinating case study of 1980s anti-nuclear feminism on the Wirral peninsula, and the surprising connections to the Namibian freedom struggle. academic.oup.com/tcbh/article...

Fun fact: Danny Kruger had to resign as the Tory candidate for Sedgefield in 2005 after saying the Tories were planning to introduce 'a period of creative destruction in the public services'. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_poli...

With all the debate about @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social and the kind of soft+hard left unity that may be necessary to change the Labour Party's current trajectory, it would be remiss of me to not share my article on the last time something like this happened:

Huge congratulations to Martin Carthy for being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize! @comesingitplain.bsky.social @klofmag.com klofmag.com/2025/09/mart...

Died #OTD 1999, Alan Clark, political diarist and Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton, 1974-92 and Kensington and Chelsea, 1997-99. He was once described by Norman Lamont as 'the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times.'

Excellent article in Guardian from John McDonnell MP Don’t sugarcoat this: Starmer’s government is weak and may perish. Here are my five steps to recovery John McDonnell www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I attended my first Morris dancer AGM and let me just say a bitter CLP meeting is NOTHING in comparison.

I am going to be speaking at this year’s NACBS on this amazing panel with colleagues and comrades @racheljcollett.bsky.social, @fmarshallpayne.bsky.social and Daniel Frost. Hope to see some of u there or for a pint afterwards 🍻

I am going to be speaking at this year’s NACBS on this amazing panel with colleagues and comrades @racheljcollett.bsky.social, @fmarshallpayne.bsky.social and Daniel Frost. Hope to see some of u there or for a pint afterwards 🍻

Excellent piece! Time for a new Corrupt Practices Bill to counter the danger of plutocratic wealth - often from the US - corrupting British politics.

Final cover proof! Pre-order the hardback edition for your institutional library now: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179593/

Last year @alfiesteer.bsky.social looked at Benn's campaign for the right to renounce his peerage and the events of the subsequent elections. Watch the video via our TikTok channel: www.tiktok.com/@histparl/vi...

Britain can’t go on like this. The normalisation of extreme racism via social media & the UK gov cosplaying the far right has brought us to a very dangerous place - perhaps the most dangerous since the 1950s

One of the major far right critics of Churchill was David Irving, who in the 1980s used Churchill's record to favourably contrast with Hitler. His 1987 book 'Churchill's War' was an example for this, before his fully explicit Holocaust denial from the late 1980s onwards.

#OTD 1819, the Peterloo Massacre took place, when a peaceful protest calling for parliamentary reform turned into tragedy. Find out more in this video: www.tiktok.com/@histparl/vi... (1/7)

Born #OTD 1930, Arthur Latham, Labour MP for Paddington from 1969 to 1979. As @alfiesteer.bsky.social recently explored in an article for #HistParl, much of Latham's career intersected with the rise of the Labour left in the 1970s: historyofparliament.com/2024/08/14/a...

Socialist Feminist Lynne Segal of Beyond the Fragments fame is the latest guest on the Labour Left Podcast. To see the full episode go to YouTube, Audible, SubStack or your favourite podcast site and just search for the Labour Left Podcast. Links in replies 1/2

To read all of Dr Martin Spychal's series on the life and political career of Lord Ronald Gower, please follow the link below: historyofparliament.com/tag/ronald-g...

In Parliament, Gower quickly got the nickname 'the beautiful boy', suggesting a level of innuendo and gossip around his sexuality. Within such an environment, it is probably not surprising that Gower soon decided politics was not for him. historyofparliament.com/2025/08/11/r... [3/4]

Gower's detailed private diary provides a unique insight into his social life, which mixed London's conventional aristocratic calendar with the capital’s queer nightlife. historyofparliament.com/2025/08/11/r... [2/4]

This month marks the birth of Lord Ronald Gower, MP for Sutherland 1867-74 & a prominent figure in British LGBTQ+ history. To mark this we are reposting a series of articles by ‪@martinspychal.bsky.social exploring Gower’s parliamentary career. historyofparliament.com/2025/08/11/l... 🧵 [1/4]

Shameless self promotion but I was part of a research project on Michael and Ann Dummett’s anti racism which you can read in this book. www.new.ox.ac.uk/righteous-an...

Anyone want to read a rubbish thesis chapter I wrote on left wing policy development from late 1980s? Features these geezers.

a portrait of the worst and stupidest people alive today. you are welcome: on.ft.com/4mtItOd

Making Trouble: Lynne Segal on the Labour Left Podcast labourhub.org.uk/2025/07/23/m...

was reminded of this clip listening to novarafm this evening (they don’t reference it, there’s just talk about this time period) and it honestly feels like a century ago youtu.be/fRRneR_buDI?...

"The camp was most known for its non-violent direct action, including women ‘embracing the base’, chaining themselves to and cutting the fence, staging ‘die-ins’ and organising blockades." Maisie Jepson (@girlinthewrongera.bsky.social) on women's protest at Greenham. www.historyworkshop....

In a new article on the #HistParl site, Dr Robin Eagles, editor of our Georgian House of Lords project, is looking into the career of one of the lesser known Archbishops of Canterbury:John Potter. Read the post here: historyofparliament.com/2025/08/07/j...

It's 80 years since a nuclear bomb was dropped on #Hiroshima Learn how activists commemorated this event in 1985 through a "shadow" protest. Read more this and many other aspects of 1980s protest in Red Rag magazine "Reading's only floating free newspaper" mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/RRG

🧵(1) Born #OTD 1775, Daniel O'Connell. Known by supporters as 'The Liberator', O'Connell was considered the leader of Ireland's Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century, and 'by far the most prominent Irishman in the Commons' from 1830. buff.ly/eBmk09B

I also wrote this on the corresponding anti-war movement in the UK in 1990-91 www.redpepper.org.uk/global-polit...

#OTD 1925, Plaid Cymru was formed at a meeting of six leading Welsh nationalists, including the poet Saunders Lewis, at a cafe in Pwllheli. Its first MP, Gwynfor Evans, was first elected in 1966 and since 1974 the party has maintained a consistent presence in Parliament.

It cannot be denied: this is a deliberate and coldly-calculated famine, engineered by a technologically-advanced state which knows exactly what it is doing. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

wonder if decades of mocking media studies as a Mickey Mouse subject has anything to do with this at all

There's a realistic chance we get to a position where Wikipedia is blocked while official government accounts are posting on a site that created MechaHitler AI

how it feels to be asked about your research

Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike

Orgreave papers destroyed by police thought to include report on notorious truncheon beating

One consequence of the 1872 Ballot Act was the so-called 'Plumper Problem', around the casting of votes in mutli-member constituencies, as Dr Philip Salmon also explores. historyofparliament.com/2025/07/18/t...

Born #OTD 1798, Feargus O'Connor, Irish Chartist, owner of the influential newspaper "The Northern Star", and campaigner for smallholdings for the working classes. He was also the MP for County Cork from 1832 to 1835, and Nottingham from 1847 to 1852.

#OTD The 1872 Ballot Act introduced the requirement for parliamentary elections to be held by secret ballot. It also ended the often unruly system of public nominations, and had some other unintended consequences too, as Dr Philip Salmon explains: historyofparliament.com/2025/07/18/p...

Since we’re all discussing Epstein now, here’s a nice vignette that says a lot about how politics works: In 2003 Peter Mandelson, the current UK Ambassador to the US, attended a meal with Donald Trump, the current US President, and Jeffrey Epstein (& other luminaries). nymag.com/nymetro/news...

#ICYMI, this week we released a special episode of our podcast 'Tales from the Green Benches'! Recorded in front of a live audience, listen to hosts Emma and Alex reflect on the #HistParl oral history project, alongside three special guests. Listen where ever you get your podcasts! buff.ly/4cEbkSI

Tony Blair could lead a party that included Dennis Skinner — and often, in fact, spoke about the importance of the party being able to contain both of them within its broad church. This stuff doesn’t make Starmer look strong, quite the opposite.

It’s shocking to see @brianleishmanmp.bsky.social suspended from Labour Party for standing by the workforce at Grangemouth oil refinery. He was sticking to promises the government broke when it let the refinery close and hundreds of skilled workers to be made redundant.

Listen through to the very end of this fab podcast from @histparl.bsky.social oral history project - there are audience vox pops, and mine is the very last voice! It was great to hear clips and get the MPs reflections live in the room 🗃️

In the latest article for #HistParl, Dr Patrick Little explores the strange life and career of Francis, Lord Deincourt, and his destructive obsession with money. historyofparliament.com/2025/07/14/f...

This was so much fun to record. Our guests, Gisela Stuart and Anne Milton, were BRILLIANT: just like their interviews for the project were. Do take a listen! Lots of stuff on #oralhistory, Brexit, politics and social media, women in parliament - a whole range of things

In this special episode, hosts Dr Emma Peplow and Dr Alex Lock were joined by three guests, including former MPs Anne Milton and Gisela, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston. Together they spoke about political and historical interviewing, and the reality of being an MP. Listen to the episode now!