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This article responds to comments made by three commentators on the book "Labour Revolt in Britain 1910–14." The first commentator discusses the pragmatic approach of the Liberal government in resolving industrial relations issues, which the author agrees with and attributes to the growing strike momentum and the need for an industrial relations policy. The second commentator highlights the gender segregation in the labor market and labor movement during this period, and the author acknowledges the limitations in their exploration of this aspect but argues against diminishing the positive aspects of women's strikes and the support they received from men. The article provides insights into the government's response to labor unrest and the role of women in the labor revolt, discussing their unique characteristics in resistance, their involvement in strike committees, and their adoption of suffrage tactics. It also explores the relationship between the labor and suffrage movements, the role of the Independent Labour Party and syndicalism, and the negligible influence of anarchism in the syndicalist movement in Britain. [Extracted from the article]

In recent years, a small number of the so-called ‘counterfactual’ or ‘what-if’ historical books, which ask us to imagine what would have happened if events in the past had turned out differently than they did, have been published. They have stimulated an important, albeit not entirely new, methodological debate about issues and questions which are (or should be) of central relevance to the work of labor historians, and which such labor historians need to engage with and contribute towards. This brief discussion article attempts to do this by presenting one particular Marxist viewpoint, with the hope and expectation that others (hopefully supportive but possibly critical of the argument presented here) will follow. In the process, it examines the past use (and abuse) of the counterfactual within historical analysis, presents an argument for the validity of a refined and renamed ‘alterfactual’ approach and examines the use of such an alterfactual approach to the British miners' strike of 1984–1985. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]