WILL BROWN reports on the ILP’s weekend of discussions on the privatisation of public services What is the privatisation of public services? Where is it coming from and with what consequences? And what should our political response be? These are the issues which formed the central focus of the ILP’s successful weekend school in...
Orwell’s boy
BARRY WINTER remembers Staff Cottman, life-long socialist and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who died last year. Last September, after a year’s illness, Stafford Cottman died. Staff was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, a life-long socialist and trade unionist. What impressed me most about him was his comradely warmth, abundant energy...
The ILP and social change
The ILP’s Weekend School took place in Scarborough at the beginning of May. BARRY WINTER outlined the ILP’s perspective and explained why it had to change. There are four major points that need to be made about the ILP’s perspective. First, in the early 1990s we came to recognise that we had to remake...
Cook’s report
The ILP’s ‘Conversation of the left’ was held in Leeds on 8 May 2004. Martin Cook reports. This meeting was a deliberately low key ‘conversation’ with no big name speakers and a set of themes on the future of the left and our attitude to the Labour Party. The organisers seemed a bit disappointed...
Introduction
Independent Labour Publications (ILP) is an educational trust, publishing house and pressure group committed to democratic socialism and the success of the democratic socialist Labour Party. The primary aims of its publications are to contribute to political analysis and the development of democratic socialist perspective and policy; to help stimulate a debate within the...
A socialism for our times
Independent Labour Publications (ILP) is an educational trust, publishing house and pressure group committed to democratic socialism and the success of a democratic socialist Labour Party. The ILP was formed in 1893 as the Independent Labour Party, which became a co-founder of the Labour Party at the beginning of the 20th century. Today we...
A few thoughts on ‘anti-Americanism’
ALISTAIR GRAHAM responds to Alex Miles’ attack on left wing anti-Americanism. I’m at something of a loss about how to respond to the article by Alex Miles (‘An Anti-Americanism of Fools’, Democratic Socialist, Winter 2006/07). While I would not want to disagree too much with the central thesis of his piece, I did wonder...
Leaders not into the future
Does Labour’s change of leadership reflect anything more politically profound than a change of personnel? HAZEL HAED asseses the evidence. Gordon Brown’s long and painful wait to assume the top spot in British politics is now coming to an end. After enduring Tony Blair’s farcically long goodbye, Brown was shorn of the need actually...
Into the cracks of the system
Matthew Brown reports on a weekend of political discussions at the ILP’s annual get together in Scarborough Back at the beginning of May, just two days after Labour limped back into power for a third term, the ILP held its annual get together for members and Friends to discuss the state of the world...
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...