Michael Mackintosh Foot, was a British Labour Party politician, who began his career as a journalist on Tribune and the Evening Standard. He co-wrote the classic 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, Guilty Men, under a pseudonym.
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell was a British politician and Leader of the Labour Party. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, he was elected to Parliament in 1945 and held office in Clement Attlee's governments, notably as Minister of Fuel and Power after the bitter winter of 1946–47, and eventually joining the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Facing the need to increase military spending in 1951, he imposed National Health Service charges on dentures and spectacles, prompting the leading left-winger Aneurin Bevan to resign from the Cabinet.
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey,, was a British Labour Party politician who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983.
The 1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. It marked a third consecutive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, now led by Harold Macmillan. For the second time in a row, the Conservatives increased their overall majority in Parliament, to 101 seats over the Labour Party led by Hugh Gaitskell. The Liberal Party led by Jo Grimond again returned only six MPs to the House of Commons, but managed to increase their overall share of the vote to 5.9%; compared to just 2.7% four years earlier. To date, the 1959 general election marks the only occasion since the Second World War when a government has managed to increase its overall majority while seeking a third term in government. However, despite this electoral success; the Conservatives failed to win the most seats in Scotland, and have not done so since. This election marks the beginning of Labour's domination of Scottish seats at Westminster, which lasted until the rise of the Scottish National Party at the 2015 general election. Both future Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and future Conservative Party leader and eventual Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first entered the House of Commons at this election.
Walter Jakob Wolfgang was a German-born British socialist and peace activist. He was Vice-President and Vice Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament up to the time of his death, and a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition. He became known to the general public after cameras recorded him being forcibly ejected from the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton on 28 September 2005 for shouting "nonsense" during Jack Straw's speech on the Iraq War, in an incident that provoked much media comment and embarrassed the Labour leadership.
Arthur William James Anthony Greenwood, Baron Greenwood of Rossendale, PC was a prominent British Labour Party politician in the 1950s and 1960s.
The 1935 Labour Party leadership election took place on 26 November 1935 when Herbert Morrison and Arthur Greenwood challenged Clement Attlee, the incumbent party leader of only one month and one day. Attlee, previously Deputy Leader, had been appointed as an interim leader the previous month when George Lansbury resigned and the general election was looming.
The 1980 Labour Party leadership election was held following the resignation of James Callaghan. Callaghan had been Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979 and had stayed on as leader of the Labour Party for eighteen months in order to oversee an orderly transition to his favoured successor, Denis Healey over his own deputy Michael Foot. However, during this period the party had become bogged down in internal arguments about its procedures and future direction.
The 1988 Labour Party leadership election saw Tony Benn, identified with the left wing of the British Labour Party, challenge the incumbent leader Neil Kinnock identified with the more moderate social democratic wing.
The 1955 Labour Party leadership election was held following the resignation of Clement Attlee. Attlee was Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951 and stayed on as leader of the Labour Party until he lost the 1955 general election.
The 1960 Labour Party leadership election was held when, for the first time since 1935, the incumbent leader Hugh Gaitskell was challenged for re-election. Normally the annual re-election of the leader had been a formality. Gaitskell had lost the 1959 general election and had seen the Labour Party conference adopt a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament which he considered disastrous and refused to support. A vacancy in the deputy leadership was first made by the death of incumbent Aneurin Bevan.
The 1963 Labour Party leadership election was held following the death of Hugh Gaitskell, party leader since 1955. He died on 18 January 1963 and was succeeded by deputy leader George Brown.
The Leader of the Labour Party is the most senior political figure within the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. Since 12 September 2015, the office has been held by Jeremy Corbyn, who has represented the constituency of Islington North since 1983.
Jonathan Cruddas is a Labour Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) since 2001, first for Dagenham and then for the successor constituency of Dagenham and Rainham.
The Ebbw Vale by-election of 17 November 1960 was a by-election for a single seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Caused by the death of Labour Party Deputy Leader Aneurin Bevan, the constituency was very safely held by the party and never in danger of changing hands. The selection of Michael Foot, a prominent leftwinger out of sympathy with the party leadership on nuclear disarmament and other issues, led to a lively campaign. Foot's handy win was seen as causing problems for party leader Hugh Gaitskell.
Gaitskellism was the ideology of a faction of the British Labour Party in the 1950s and early 1960s. It opposed many of the economic policies of the trade unions, especially regarding nationalisation and controlling the economy for the benefit of unions.
The Campaign for Democratic Socialism or CDS was a social democratic and democratic socialist organisation in the British Labour Party, serving as a pressure group representing the right wing of the party. Established in 1960, the CDS was composed of Gaitskellites, Labour members who supported the then-party leader, Hugh Gaitskell.
Socialism in the United Kingdom is thought to stretch back to the 19th century from roots arising in the aftermath of the English Civil War. Notions of socialism in Great Britain have taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert Owen through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the birth of the Labour Party.
The 1960 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place in November 1960, after the death of sitting deputy leader Aneurin Bevan.
