GARY KENT reviews Liz Davies’ recent book on the politics inside new Labour. Liz Davies is an embittered traitor spilling the beans on party business. Or she has done us all a service by blowing the whistle on new Labour’s “twists, turns, machinations and doublespeak” and the “paranoia and pointlessness” of the party’s ruling...
The malaise of powerlessness
MICHAEL MEACHER MP argues that political power is more concentrated than at any time for a century. We need a new political governance. Do we have any influence over those who govern us? After two million marched against the war, the issue that has brought this to a head is, of course, Iraq. But...
Save the Labour Party
Save the Labour Party is one of a number of initiatives that have emerged to challenge the Labour Party leadership’s politics and practices. BARRY WINTER joined 30 other members at its public meeting and AGM in Manchester on 29 November last year. Tony Lloyd MP Tony Lloyd expressed concern about the lack of young...
Save the Party … for Gordon Brown
JONATHAN TIMBERS finds the STLP heading up some depressingly familiar left wing cul-de-sacs. Earlier this year, Barry Winter and I attended a Save the Labour Party (STLP) members’ meeting in Manchester at which Michael Meacher spoke. There were calls in the meeting for a leadership election. Meacher politely and gently explained that any attempt...
In search of the good society
Jonathan Timbers skirted the fringes of Labour Party conference in September listening to versions of the good society The Good Society is the first of three short books from Compass following its consultations with members, left-wing academics and experts on policy priorities for radical social democrats in Britain today. I perused its 100-or-so pages...
Thirteen wasted years
Former MP HARRY BARNES offers his own take on Tony Blair’s time in office, and his thoughts on Labour’s future. Few of those who voted for Tony Blair in the Labour leadership contest of 1994 knew or cared about his new Labour project. It was sufficient for the centre and right-wing of the party...
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...