Is socialism possible? An evening discussion looking at the figure of Ken Coates and his work around industrial democracy, education and socially useful production.

This event will start with the screening of a fragment of Report:St Ann's, a film by Stephen Frears based on the work and research undertaken by Ken Coates, Richard Silburn and the St Ann's Study Group in the region in the late 60's. After commenting and discussing the film, Tom Unterrainer will talk about Ken coates personal political archive and he will present some materials from one of his "famous red boxes".



This event is organised with the The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

Ken Coates was a British politician and writer. He chaired the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and edited The Spokesman, the magazine launched in March 1970. He was a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999. Coates was brought up in Worthing, when called up for national service in 1948, Coates chose to become a coal miner rather than be conscripted into the British army to fight in the Malayan Emergency. He later won a scholarship in 1956 to Nottingham University and achieved a first in Sociology. Coates played leading roles in the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, the Institute for Workers' Control, and European Nuclear Disarmament.

Tony Simpson has worked at the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation since 1980. He edits The Spokesman, which is the quarterly journal of the Foundation. This journal publishes in many areas including politics, peace and disarmament, history, drama and philosophy.

Tom Unterrainer is a teacher, political activist and the editor of 'Corbyn's Campaign' (published in January 2016) and is co-editing the forthcoming title 'Standing Up for Education'. He has been working on a bibliography of Ken Coates' political writings for the past 18 months and has just completed a catalogue of Ken's personal political archive.

The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was launched in 1963 after twelve months of preparation. It was established in order to carry forward Russell's work for peace, human rights and social justice. This had been assisted by a small secretariat in earlier years, but its rapid growth and increasing cost made the burden larger than could be carried by one person, however distinguished. Preoccupied with the danger of nuclear war, Russell had always been deeply concerned with the defence of civil rights, and the institutionalisation of his work made it possible to create a number of desks which could specialise on different areas or particular problems.

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