MATTHEW BROWN reports on the left’s response to the government’s spending review and Jon Cruddas’s call for Labour to embrace the ‘good society’. There have been many responses to the coalition government’s emergency budget and comprehensive spending review, those from the left ranging from the timid “too much, too soon” sound-bite of the uninspiring...
The mess we’re in
Soundings’ ebook, Britain’s Broken Economy – and how to fix it, is an essential read for anyone interested in a left alternative to UK capitalism, says BEN TURLEY. For political reasons, Britain’s Broken Economy does not touch on the structuraldeficit or engage with arguments about the sustainability of public expenditure. This is because the...
Party democracy: what the candidates say
One of the most important issues in the current leadership campaign is how to rebuild the membership of the Labour Party. Thousands may have joined since the Conservative-LibDem coalition came to power but the party lost many thousands over a long period of time before then. One (among many) reasons for this decline is...
The Future Left
BARRY WINTER considers the prospects for the left after the 2010 election. He argues that any future centre left alliance must include socialists, and that the politics of the city can play an important role in reconnecting the left. ‘Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have...
The Candidates’ Manifestos
The Dronfield Blather blog has run a three-month campaign to get manifestos from the Labour leadership candidates. This week it published the responses of all five Labour leader hopefuls. ‘On 16 June we commenced a campaign to get the candidates in the Labour Leadership Election to issue what we called “Manifestos of Intent”,’ says the...
A galaxy but no stars
WILLIAM BROWN reports from the Compass annual conference where the Labour left considered the post-election political landscape In a conference hall not so far away, the labour left gathered on June 12th for the Compass annual get together. Launching this year’s event, optimistically titled ‘A New Hope’, Compass chair Neal Lawson set off on...
Towards an ILP Perspective
The following is a statement – ‘a modest perspective’ – prepared by the ILP’s National Administrative Council for discussion at the 2010 ILP Weekend Seminar, ‘After the Election, What Next for the Left?’, to be held in Scarborough on 5-6 June. We hope it will stimulate comment and debate here on the website, at...
Cutting Public Debt: Economic science or class war?
We must reject the lies and misrepresentations in this phoniest of elections, says HUGO RADICE This week’s major intervention in the election campaign has surely been the call by the Institute for Fiscal Studies for the major parties to ‘come clean’ about their strategies for reducing the public sector debt, if elected. The IFS report...
After the election, what next for the left?
What will the election mean for the left? Where will it leave the Labour Party? How should the ILP respond? Whatever the results we will want to talk about it. If you do too, come to the ILP’s 2010 Round Table Seminar in Scarborough on 5/6 June. Admission is free and accommodation is available...
Disaffiliation and its aftermath
For all its fascinating detail and insights, IAN BULLOCK wants more from Gidon Cohen’s The Failure of a Dream This account of the ILP in the 1930s begins with an outline of the party’s history during the seven years between leaving the Labour Party and the outbreak of war. The second chapter looks at...
Desperate times
Could this be the last Labour government? DAVID CONNOLLY looks at the Compass group’s call for electoral reform The left wing pressure group Compass has an impressive record of campaigning on a wide range of issues, attempting, with some success, to challenge the neo-liberal agenda that shapes much of government policy. Whatever the outcome...
The Failure of a Dream
A recent book provides a “just about” convincing argument that the ILP’s decline in the 1930s was not an inevitable consequence of disaffiliation. CHRISTOPHER HALL reviews Gidon Cohen’s welcome attempt to fill a gap in ILP history The history of the Independent Labour Party from its foundation until it was disaffiliated from the Labour...