Is the Progressive Alliance an idea whose time has come? GERRY LAVERY thinks so after reading a new Compass pamphlet on the election initiative. The call for a Progressive Alliance starts from the idea that our electoral system gives the Conservatives a built-in advantage and enables them to govern nationally even though most people do...
Articles
Unlocking Gramsci for Challenging Times
In this introduction to a new pamphlet on Antonio Gramsci, BARRY WINTER argues that the Italian thinker’s political insights offer a way forward for the left, and can help it tackle the dominance of ideas and practices that divide and disempower us....
The Age-Old Roots of Labour’s Current Crisis
Labour is facing an existential crisis, and parallels with the 1980s are painfully obvious. But the roots of the current crisis go much deeper, writes MARTIN WRIGHT. The Labour Party is the child of hope and compromise. Its political DNA was made from two main elements more than a century ago. One was the counter-cultural,...
‘Common Sense’ and Benefit Sanctions
In an extensive discussion paper, Unite Community member GERRY LAVERY considers how Antonio Gramsci’s ideas could help challenge popular attitudes towards benefit claimants and the fight to end government sanctions. Here, he provides a brief introduction....
Election 2017: The Choice is Simple
For A-level student student ROBIN EDEN, the Tories’ attack on the National Health Service makes the choice at the coming general election a straightforward one....
Co-op Members to Vote on Political Link – Again!
Co-op members are once again being asked to vote on the Group’s political link to the Co-operative Party, established by the movement exactly 100 years ago....
Barcelona May Days: 80 Years On
The street-fighting that took place in Barcelona in May 1937 remains one of the most controversial episodes of the Spanish Civil War. Hundreds died as the city was criss-crossed by a labyrinth of barricades....
Re-balancing Education: Dear Labour Councillor…
BEN SELLERS wrote an angry and articulate open letter to Durham County councillors on his blog last month, following their decision to suspend plans to cut the pay of local teaching assistants. As part of our series on education, we are re-publishing his letter below, prefaced with an explanatory note from ILP chair DAVID...
Unbalanced Britain: Education and Inequality
MELISSA BENN examines the continuing inequalities in our education system, and the failures of recent governments to close the gaps. What could Labour do to promote an alternative vision? Despite endless policy initiatives, exhaustive reforms and official obeisance to the questionable aim of ‘social mobility’, our education system still has yawning gaps in outcomes between...
Re-balancing Education: The Democratic Deficit
VICKY SEDDON attended the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain conference on education last month. Here, she argues that any future progressive reforms must include changes to our structures of democracy and control. The ILP hosted a very interesting discussion on 4 March in Sheffield. Melissa Benn was informative, strategic and focussed; Julie Thorpe was interesting and thought-provoking...
Red Noses For You
At a time when the UK aid budget is under concerted attacks from right-wing Tories, UKIP and the media, it might seem churlish to criticise one of the great ‘set piece’ British events that focus our attention on development in Africa. However, David Lammy’s Guardian comment is a necessary and welcome contribution to Red...
Commemorating the Leeds Convention of 1917
The 100th anniversary of an historic mass Labour and Socialist Convention held in support of the Russian Revolution at Leeds Coliseum in 1917 will be marked at a one-day event in the same city on 3 June this year. ...