It’s not all frivolous stuff here you know. Today’s book is incredibly important. It’s the first ever Labour Annual, subtitled ‘A Year Book of Industrial Progress and Social Welfare.’ It is a very early account of the gradual consolidation of unions, socialist organisations and other bodies into what we know today as The Labour Party. Opening it at random reveals fragments of a story still going on today: nationalising railways, women’s rights, the colossal disparity of workers’ and executives’ pay, electoral reform to abolish the first past the post system and more. The march towards ‘Light and Life’ has been going on for a long time it would seem…
Labour Press Society Limited., 1895. First edition.
