Labour Party members will gather at Valley Parade for centenary celebrations later this month.

Hundreds of local activists are expected to join MPs, MEPs and Cabinet Minister Alastair Darling at the reception.

Simultaneous celebrations will be going ahead up and down the country with Bradford the focus of the Yorkshire birthday party.

A centenary speech by Prime Minister Tony Blair will be beamed live on to big screens at the reception where there will also be a buffet and bar.

The event is being sponsored by the GMB union. Regional secretary Gerry Nelson said: "Bradford is the birthplace of the Independent Labour Party, that's why this event is taking place there.

"This will be a celebration of how far we've come and a chance for people to get a bit of an insight into where the Government is planning to go."

Bradford West and Halifax were among the first Yorkshire constituencies to return Labour MPs, in 1906.

Marsha Singh, who won the Bradford West seat in 1997, said: "I will definitely be there. I think it will be great fun especially since we are actually in Government again, it will be a poignant and happy day.

"People will also be looking forward hopefully to the next General Election and another Labour victory.

"It just amazes me all the time, how important Bradford has been in the history of this country, and I think those good days have come again.

"The celebration will be a reminder of how important Bradford is, and can become again - it's something pointing to the future rather than the past."

The Independent Labour Party was founded at a meeting at the Labour Institute in Peckover Street, Little Germany, Bradford, in January 1893, under the chairmanship of Keir Hardie.

The ILP lobbied trades unions in the following years to join together to form a party giving workers a voice in Parliament, which led to the TUC agreeing to call a conference.

This conference set up the Labour Representation Committee and two Labour members were returned to Parliament in 1900. Six years later the LRC - now known as the Labour Party - returned 29 MPs to Westminster - including those from Bradford West and Halifax.

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