The Labour leadership debate has posed some fundamental questions about Labour’s future, how it relates to the wider electorate and the purpose of the Party itself. It is vital that these political divisions do not cause irreparable damage to its future....
Britain’s Post-Election Blues
DOREEN MASSEY and MICHAEL RUSTIN are the founders and guiding lights behind the Kilburn Manifesto, one of the most cogent analyses of neoliberalism and the state of the left. Here they provide a brief reflection on the general election and what it means for the future of social democracy. At the closing of the polls...
Labour’s Future Under Scrutiny
The Labour Party’s future is coming under scrutiny from all angles at the moment with articles, papers, analysis and discussion meetings focused on what went wrong on 7 May and what Labour should do now....
Class Set Out What’s at Stake at Election 2015
The Centre for Labour and Social Studies has published a new election guide on the issues of work, pay and unions as part of a series of pamphlets highlighting what’s at stake in the parties’ policies for working people....
Commit to Publicly-Owned Services, Labour Told
The We Own It campaign is lobbying for the Labour Party to include a Public Services Users’ Bill in its election manifesto, and calling for all supporters of publicly-owned services to put pressure on Labour’s shadow minister for procurement, Jon Trickett....
GMB Welcomes Labour’s Election Pledges
The GMB union has welcomed the Labour Party’s election pledges to put working people and trade unionists at the centre of the 2015 general election....
Labour Needs to Push its Progressive Electoral Programme
HARRY BARNES has analysed Labour’s electoral programme and believes it starts to ‘open the door’ towards democratic socialism. He’s also provided a readable 16-part summary for those who haven’t yet ploughed through the 200-page document. ...
Labour’s ‘New Approach’ Outlined by Cruddas
“Labour stands for big reform without big spending,” writes Jon Cruddas in the preface to his new pamphlet on the party’s recently completed policy review, a publication published today that claims to set out “Labour’s new approach in a time of financial constraint”....
A Petition for People’s Public Services
We Own It, the anti-privatisation campaign, has launched a public petition calling for a new Public Service Users Bill “to give us a say over our public services, put our needs first and make outsourcing companies transparent and accountable”....
Tony Benn, the Labour Left ‘and all that’
BARRY WINTER reflects on Tony Benn’s personality and politics, interweaving his own memories of the period as he considers the left’s failures in the 1970s and ’80s and the lessons for those seeking progressive change today. Few people in contemporary politics have attracted such public affection as Tony Benn. In spite of years of vilification...
Can Labour Learn to Trust People?
Left of centre think tanks Compass and Progress are joining forces at the end of April to host a discussion on Labour’s approach to public sector reform with Jon Cruddas, coordinator of the party’s policy review process....
Tony Benn: The Left’s Flawed Figurehead
The sad death of Tony Benn has prompted comments and reflections from across the political spectrum. JONATHAN TIMBERS argues that while he was a hero to many, he was also a disastrous leader of the British left whose naive optimism and socialist nostalgia contributed to its decline. I am saddened by news of the death...