Cambridge University Labour Club
|
| |
| Founded | 1905 |
|---|---|
| Home Page | www.cambridgelabour.co.uk |
|
Current executive offices | |
|
Annual officers | |
| Chair | George Owers, Jesus |
| Deputy Chair | Pete Jefferys, Pembroke |
| Secretary | Peter Roberts, Girton |
| Treasurer and Website Officer | Tom Lloyd, St. John's |
| Campaigns and CLP Liaison Officer | Ashley Walsh, Downing |
| Women's Officer | Josephine Brady, Newnham |
| Publicity Officer | Sela Motshwane, Homerton |
| Membership Development Officer | Kit Hildyard, Trinity |
| Socials Officer | Richard Johnson, Jesus |
The Cambridge Universities Labour Club (CULC) is a political society first set up in 1905, which now seeks to unite socialist students at Cambridge University with the Labour Party. Today its membership also includes students from Anglia Ruskin University. Its varied past has seen it go through several disaffiliations, including periods in the 1960s and 1970s when it was under the influence of the Militant Tendency and disaffiliated with the national Labour Party. It is currently a part of the Labour Party again, but has disaffiliated from Labour Students.
The club runs speaker meetings, campaign sessions with the local Labour Party, dinners and other social events each term. It also runs its own campaigns on issues such as a Living Wage for employees of Cambridge University and in support of ethical investment by Cambridge Colleges. From 1992 to 2005 it was able to offer its members exclusive trips to the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street through the office of Anne Campbell, but after she lost the Cambridge seat in 2005, these opportunities vanished.
It has gone through several name changes. It was founded as the Cambridge University Fabian Society in 1905, and then changed its name in June 1915 to Cambridge University Socialist Society (which retained a Fabian Society within it), dedicated to "complete political and industrial democracy... [and] supersession of the capitalist system". It then became Cambridge University Labour Club in 1920, although it has at various times gone under the names Cambridge University Socialist Club, Cambridge Organisation of Labour Students, and then simply Cambridge Labour. It readopted the name Cambridge University Labour Club at the end of the 1990s and changed to its current name in 2007. The acronym CULC had historically belonged to the Cambridge University Liberal Club, before they became the Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats in 1988, and the acronym is still shared to this day with the Cambridge University Lacrosse Club.
The Club was most influential from the 1930s to the 1970s, when left-leaning schools of thought in British academia were centred at Cambridge, in areas such as Keynesian economics and Marxist historiography, resulting in numerous influential Cambridge Fellows and their students being members.
Also active until at least the 1960s was 'SocSoc' or the Cambridge University Socialist Society.
Alumni
As a society, CULC has produced such notable alumni as:
- Diane Abbott, MP
- Anne Campbell, MP
- Charles Clarke, MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Lord Eatwell, former special advisor to Neil Kinnock
- Charles Falconer, Lord Chancellor
- Andrew Gilligan, journalist
- Lord Harris of Haringey, chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority
- Patricia Hewitt, MP, Secretary of State for Health
- Geoff Hoon, MP, Secretary of State for Defence
- Derry Irvine, Lord Chancellor
- Damian McBride, former Special Advisor to Gordon Brown - famous for "smeargate".
- Chris Smith MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Charles Clarke was also elected President of the Cambridge Students' Union on a Labour party slate.
It has been reported that when the young Prince Charles was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge in the 1960s, he attempted to join the Labour Club, but was warned against doing so by the Master of Trinity, former Conservative politician R.A. Butler.[1]
Criticisms
Although a broad church, the Cambridge Labour club is renowned for being much further left than the national Labour party. As such, at times CULC has made criticisms of the Conservative Association (CUCA) for being excessively elitist and dedicated to preserving the privilege of its class. CUCA has responded denying these claims, arguing that CULC has misconceived CUCA. The debate continues.
References
External links
Political clubs and societies of Cambridge University | ||
|---|---|---|
| Current |  | |
| Defunct/amalgamated clubs & societies | ||
 | This article relating to the University of Cambridge is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
