STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy
Labour Party high-flier's downfall a bathetic tale of misjudgement and greed
PRIDE BEFORE FALL: John Stonehouse (on the right) with the Queen at the opening of the National Postal Museum
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
FROM humble beginnings, John Stonehouse became a rising star in the Labour Party and a cabinet minister in Harold Wilson’s 1964 government, only to be brought crashing down as a result of his own hubris.
His working-class family, active in the Co-operative movement, were staunch socialists and their eldest son John also became a Co-operative activist. After a short spell in the RAF during the war, he gained a degree in economics and politics at LSE.
In 1957, aged 32, he became MP for Wednesbury, the youngest MP at the time and in 1968 was appointed postmaster general and joined Wilson’s cabinet. A tall and personable man, he was well- liked and respected in the Labour Party and, with his soft-left politics, was seen by a number of pundits as a potential prime minister.
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