Labour MP Harry Barnes the left needs a new approach to Iraq following the elections Given that the Iraqi turnout was the same or even larger than at the last UK election, the left must do some urgent rethinking on Iraq or be morally sidelined while our natural comrades there fight for non-sectarian democracy...
Between the pop and the party
It may be a compelling read, says Will Brown, but ultimately The Last Party by John Harris is a disappointing analysis of the relationship between pop and politics It may be little older than Blair’s leadership of the Labour Party but in John Harris’ The Last Party Britpop has had its post mortem. Ten...
Telling it like it is?
With a ‘difficult’ election upon us, Matthew Brown reviews two contrasting tales of Britain under the Labour government It all seemed so much simpler back then. A little more than 20 years ago I clung to the back wall of a packed students’ union hall listening to Billy Bragg telling it like it is...
Letter: Reform of the House of Lords
It’s a sideshow, says Sean Creighton The type of reform Labour envisages for the House of Lords is a side-show from grappling with the real problem of the relationship between the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and a future working Stormont. I wonder whether the relationship could be considerably improved...
Beyond the market, below the radar
Barry Winter reports on a Catalyst conference that raised more questions than it answered Billed by Catalyst as a ‘major pre-election conference’ on renewing the public services, this event – ‘Beyond the Market: Public services in the twenty-first century’ – aimed to create ‘a positive agenda and a new progressive alliance’ on the left....
Lyotard and the post-modern
Does French Philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard have anything to teach democratic socialists? Martin Jenkins has his doubts Post-modernism’s impact on western intellectual life was at its height in the 1970s and 1980s, and was received by many on the political left as a threat.(1) As many prominent post-modernist thinkers were ex-Maoists, ex-communists and ex-Trotskyists, they...
Valley Fever
Ben Tullett reports on the battle to beat back the BNP in Halifax during the latest round of local elections Outside London, the June 2004 council elections were particularly significant. Following boundary changes, in large swathes of the country all seats were up for election, meaning that instead of having just one vote, many...
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism exists and needs to exist, because contemporary capitalist societies are corrupt in fundamental ways: by the unjustifiable and unaccountable economic control by a small minority; by the consequent concentration of immense power in a few hands; by the disempowerment of the majority and the social exclusion of a significant sector of society;...
A democratic economy
It also implies a new economic egalitarianism, which starts from the recognition that the economy should exist to serve and empower people as a whole. Instead of capital being used to exploit, demean and disempower labour, the challenge is to build an economy in which labour exploits capital for the benefit of all; an...
Democratic politics and the state
In this there is an essential role for the democratic State, which can and must be a force for safeguarding democratic structures and practices and for meeting those needs not met by the market in a socialist economy. The democratic socialist sees this State as the guardian of rights and freedoms, as well as...
The democratic potential
Nevertheless, we in the ILP still want to stress the link between the status, condition and experience of people and the fortunes of democratic socialism; to underline the significance of the political-economic consciousness that can be encouraged amongst people who are economically disenfranchised or oppressed in other ways, and to emphasise the vital importance...
The democratic socialist party
Independent Labour Publications encourages membership of the Labour Party and sees the future of democratic socialism bound up in the fortunes of the Labour Party. Clause IV of the Party describes Labour as a democratic socialist party, committed to:- a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many...