The Compass lecture given by Jon Cruddas attracted a lot of coverage last week. But there was a familiar hole in the heart of his plan for the left, says Matthew Brown Whatever else you might say about Compass, the Labour left pressure group, those people certainly know which way is north when it...
A challenge remaining
Judging by the Compass conference in June, the left has yet to develop a coherent political strategy, says WILL BROWN Lenin is not a figure one immediately associates with the soft left yet there he was on a giant screen at the front of a packed conference hall proclaiming ‘The victory of ideas needs...
A million on the march
GARY KENT reports on a nine day fact-finding trip to meet trade unionists in Iraq It rarely makes the news here but a million trade unionists are on the march in Iraq. A new network of non-sectarian union federations, professional associations and civil society groups has emerged in Iraq, having been brutally repressed by...
Labour’s illusory reforms
DEXTER WHITFIELD argues that by marketising our public services Labour is eroding democratic accountability The Labour government has launched a series of ‘reforms’, which place a new emphasis on market-based modernisation of public services. Democratic accountability and transparency will be further eroded. Although there is euphoria for ‘citizen engagement’ this is participation limited to...
Marketisation and its effects
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...
Impassable impasse?
As the Northern Ireland peace process lurches into another crisis, PAUL DIXON asks, what next? When the IRA announced its ceasefire in September 1994 it was always difficult to see what kind of agreement could be reached between loyalists and republicans. The propaganda war and real (physical) war between unionists and nationalists over the years...
Pushed into enemy hands
One of the sad aspects of Labour’s farcical London mayoral selection contest, argues BERNARD HUGHES, is how the leadership is turning even some of its closest friends into foes. When Glenda Jackson announced on 19 January that she would ballot her constituency party on how she should cast her second vote in the London...
London Labours
DAVID CONNOLLY wonders what happened to Tony Blair’s once passionate support for one member one vote. In his book, The Unfinished Revolution, the new Labour strategist Philip Gould comments on the rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown at the time of John Smith’s death in 1994. Of Blair he says that “it was...
Republicans and the choreography of peace
The Good Friday Agreement has been described as “Sunningdale for slow learners”, reports PAUL DIXON. So how have the Republican leaders managed to sell it to their supporters? The peace process is back on track but still precariously balanced. The Good Friday Agreement is far from safe and probably won’t be for the next...
From third way to one way
DAVID CONNOLLY ponders the latest examples of new Labour style democracy. With the best will in the world it is difficult to take Philip Gould seriously. Anyone who has read his book The Unfinished Revolution will know that his political starting point is a deeply felt hostility to the Tories. He is genuinely desperate...
Theatres of conflict
JONATHAN TIMBERS rallies to remember the October revolution and spends a day at Millbank and Number 10 – all in one very bizarre week in November. When Harold Wilson said ‘a week is a long time in politics’, perhaps he should have added that sometimes an hour can seem even longer when you’re stuck...
Underground manoeuvres
ANN BLACK sees the forces of conservatism flourishing behind the closed doors of the National Policy Forum. Five years ago I attended my first conference. I haggled over benefits and human rights in compositing meetings, on equal footing with union grandees and delegates from constituencies across the country. Because of that participation, those contacts,...