This monograph reimagines the modernisation of the Labour Party between 1979 and 1997 using entirely new source material (the 'Sawyer Journals' and 'Archive') and extensive interviews with Labour's key actors. Through this research, the book sheds new light on Labour's triumphant return to power in 1997 after eighteen years in the wilderness
Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough East from 1935 to 1950, has been subject to only cursory academic attention during the lifetime of the 1945–51 Labour governments. Consequently, this article provides the first detailed study of Edwards's parliamentary career. It is argued that Edwards was a significant national figure due to both his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1948 and the campaign he subsequently waged against Labour's policy of steel nationalization in 1949. This article further argues that steel nationalization was the most controversial measure enacted from Labour's 1945 manifesto, as it was neither a failing industry nor a public utility. As such, steel nationalization sparked huge internal debates about Labour's future direction and, in Parliament, provoked the largest anti-government vote of Clement Attlee's 1945–50 administration. In these years, Edwards played a substantial role in harnessing forces against steel nationalization, culminating in his campaign of 1949. Through an investigation of Edwards's parliamentary conduct, expulsion from the Labour Party, and Steel Defence Campaign, this article concludes that, even if speaking on only one issue and for a short period of time, Edwards was a headline-generating figure whose absence from the historiography of these years is worthy of reassessment.
AbstractThis article investigates the history of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee. It argues that the party's trade unions, outside a brief period of left‐wing NEC control between 1972 and 1981, formed a Praetorian Guard at the Executive around the party leader from Labour's foundation until 1997, and have continued to serve in an enlarged Praetorian Guard since then. From 1900–97, the unions maintained effective control of over half of the NEC's seats. Although widespread changes to the Executive in 1997 shifted the unions into a minority on the Committee, they continued to guard the leader. However, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, factional disputes led to a breakdown of the Praetorian Guard during heated battles for control of the NEC. Since this period, it is argued, Labour leaders have built new guards in which the unions continue to serve, but which also include soldiers from across the labour movement.
The recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus (EBOV) in Africa have brought global visibility to the shortage of available therapeutic options to treat patients infected with this or closely related viruses. We have recently computationally identified three molecules which have all demonstrated statistically significant efficacy in the mouse model of infection with mouse adapted Ebola virus (ma-EBOV). One of these molecules is the antimalarial pyronaridine tetraphosphate (IC(50) range of 0.82–1.30 μM against three strains of EBOV and IC(50) range of 1.01–2.72 μM against two strains of Marburg virus (MARV)) which is an approved drug in the European Union and used in combination with artesunate. To date, no small molecule drugs have shown statistically significant efficacy in the guinea pig model of EBOV infection. Pharmacokinetics and range-finding studies in guinea pigs directed us to a single 300mg/kg or 600mg/kg oral dose of pyronaridine 1hr after infection. Pyronaridine resulted in statistically significant survival of 40% at 300mg/kg and protected from a lethal challenge with EBOV. In comparison, oral favipiravir (300 mg/kg dosed once a day) had 43.5% survival. All animals in the vehicle treatment group succumbed to disease by study day 12 (100% mortality). The in vitro metabolism and metabolite identification of pyronaridine and another of our EBOV active molecules, tilorone, suggested significant species differences which may account for the efficacy or lack thereof, respectively in guinea pig. In summary, our studies with pyronaridine demonstrates its utility for repurposing as an antiviral against EBOV and MARV.