The People’s Flag – pt 1

Part 1 – ‘The First Betrayal’ 1914-1931

60 mins 16mm/DVD, 1986-88

Part 1 looks at the emergence of the Labour Party at a time when the Union Jack still flew over a great empire based on conquest. It contrasts Labour’s support for the First World War with the anti-war stance of the Russian Bolsheviks.The film describes the militancy of the post-war period, the memorable display of solidarity with the miners in 1926 and their subsequent abandonment by the TUC and starving back to work. It examines the first short-lived Labour government, swept away by a ‘red scare’ in 1924, and the second Labour government of 1929. The film ends with the fall of that government in 1931 and its leader MacDonald’s heading of a right wing ‘National Government’.