DAVID CONNOLLY reviews a recent collection of essays that examine Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and seek to map out a possible future for the Party. I recently overheard a conversation in a café in Chester-le-Street that illustrated an on-going problem – namely that despite the many and varied travails of the May government, Labour...
Labour to Look at Alternative Ownership Models
A report on Alternative Models of Ownership will be discussed by the Labour Party at a conference in central London on Saturday 10 February....
NHS in Crisis: Day of Protest
Health Campaigns Together and The People’s Assembly have called a Day of Protest on Saturday 3 February in response to the worsening crisis in the National Health Service. ...
Standing Without Clapping – Assessing Corbyn’s Labour
Labour’s position now looks similar to its 1945 stance, but we live in an entirely different nation and a much altered world. HARRY BARNES considers what the ’45 government achieved and what Corbyn’s party can learn from those years....
Labour Saves Itself, and Restores Hope
Labour’s unexpected ‘success’ in last week’s general election has been greeted with relief and joy across the left. But we need words of caution as well as cheers, says WILL BROWN, for there is still much to do to turn this opportunity into a real transformative victory. Given what seemed possible a few weeks ago,...
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...
Unbalanced Britain: Education, Inequality & Labour’s Response
Labour and co-operative responses to the crisis in the education system is the subject of the ILP’s next Unbalanced Britain meeting in Sheffield on Saturday 4 March. With speakers Melissa Benn and Julie Thorpe, the seminar will examine how changes to the education system have increased inequality and widened the gap between the privileged few...
Radical Solutions to the Housing Crisis
Housing and planning expert Duncan Bowie has produced a blueprint for Labour Party housing policy in a new publication that argues for an integrated approach on land, taxation, planning and public investment to provide radical solutions to the growing crisis....
Unbalanced Britain: Benn to put Education in the Spotlight
Education will come under the spotlight at the ILP’s next Unbalanced Britain seminar on 4 March when writer and campaigner Melissa Benn will speak about the Labour Party’s response to the last decade of education reforms....
New Labour and the Roots of Labour’s Crisis, Part 2
HARRY BARNES continues his investigation of the state of Labour, looking at the failures of the Miliband leadership, the basis for Jeremy Corbyn’s triumph and the prospects for party unity. I have never met Ed Miliband and only went to hear one or two of his platform speeches. However, I do feel that he was...