| Founded | 1905 / 1934 | ||
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| Home Page | www.cambridgeuniversitylabour.co.uk | ||
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Honorary offices |
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| President | Andy Burnham, MP | ||
| Vice-President | Alastair Campbell | ||
| Vice-President | Baroness Patricia Scotland | ||
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Current executive offices |
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| Chair | Richard Johnson, Jesus | ||
| Vice-Chair | Nicola Bartlett, Homerton | ||
| Secretary | Martha Morey, Fitzwilliam | ||
| Treasurer | Tom Conway, Trinity | ||
| Campaigns and CLP Liaison Officer | Tom Moule, Girton | ||
| Women's Officer | Clare Walker-Gore, Selwyn | ||
| Publicity Officer | Akilah Jeffers, Girton | ||
| Socials Officer | Sean Keeley, Homerton | ||
| Membership Development Officer | Sam Ahmed, Girton | ||
| IT Officer | Will Day, Downing | ||
The Cambridge Universities Labour Club (CULC) is a political society whose predecessor was first set up in 1905, which now seeks to unite socialist and social democratic students at Cambridge University with the Labour Party by propagating "the values of Clause 4 of the Labour Party’s constitution, to the effect that we are a "democratic socialist party" that "believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone…". [1] 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, and Labour Students.
The club runs speaker meetings, campaign sessions with the local Labour Party, 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. The club also offers its members trips to the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street.
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According to Cyril Bibby's biography (p.170), the Cambridge University Labour Club was founded in Easter Term 1934 "by a group of us who were disconcerted with the manner in which the communists had come to dominate the C.U. Socialist Society." Bibby says that he was the inaugural Junior Treasurer, while Lionel Elvin was the university-required 'Senior Treasurer'.
CULC has gone through several name changes. The society it began as an offshoot of 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 separate Fabian Society within it), dedicated to "complete political and industrial democracy... [and] supersession of the capitalist system". It then changed its name to Cambridge University Labour Club in 1920, before reverting to being the C.U. Socialist Society at the end of the decade.
CULC has at various times since 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.
On 4 November 2010, former CULC Chair and member of Jesus College, George Owers, was elected to become the Labour councillor for Coleridge ward on Cambridge City Council following the resignation of the single remaining Conservative councillor in Cambridge. Owers' victory means that all of the councillors in Coleridge are now members of the City Council Labour group. Owers won with 44% of the vote, a considerable improvement on Labour's previous performances in the ward. [2]
As a society, CULC has produced such notable alumni as:
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.[3]
The Cambridge Universities Labour Club is a broad church, independent from, but affiliated to the National Labour Party. It has caused controversy at times by making criticisms of the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA)and Cambridge University for being excessively elitist and dedicated to preserving the image of antiquated class distinctions.[4] CUCA has responded denying these claims, arguing that CULC has misconceived CUCA [5]
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