In 1924 he co-wrote "Working Class Education" with his wife Winifred. He supported the general strike in 1926, and co-wrote "The Workers History of the Great Strike" (1927) with Ellen Wilkinson MP and Raymond Postgate. He had a long-standing affair with Wilkinson. He was the Labour MP for Peterborough from 1929 to 1931, under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald. In 1930, he was one of seventeen Labour MPs to sign the "Mosley Memorandum", drawn up by Oswald Mosley. He lost his seat at the General Election of 1931 occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a National Government.