(Sydney Ansell, 1860-1938, from 1888 President of the Leicester Secular Society) asking him to excuse the delay in my reply to your kind invitation to say with you... I have been trying today to get enough work through my hands to enable me to say 'yes' to you & so until now I could not write to you. I'll stay with you with pleasure and travel direct to Hull on Wednesday morning..., 2 sides 8vo., 3 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, 13th January
In 1906, the Labour Representative Committee changed its name to the Labour Party, amalgamating with the Independent Labour Party. In that same year, 29 Labour MPs were elected, including MacDonald, for Leicester, who then became one of the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party. These Labour MPs undoubtedly owed their election to the 'Gladstone–MacDonald pact' between the Liberals and Labour, a minor party supporting the Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith. poMacDonald became the leader of the left-wing of the party, arguing that Labour must seek to displace the Liberals as the main party of the left