Like thousands of Labour activists I have been busy in last few weeks campaigning in the county council elections. I have been out leafleting in the small towns of Chippenham, Corsham and Devizes, where the party is seeking to consolidate the good progress made in last year’s Police and Crime Commissioner elections. At the grassroots, Labour Party [...]
Posts under ‘Ideology’
Why the unions need to steer the political mainstream to the left, not abandon it
Apr 30th, 2013 by Andy Newman.
The Thatcherite agenda lives on more for Blair than for Britain
Apr 16th, 2013 by Bryan Gould.The poll conducted by You-Gov Cambridge and published this week in The Guardian shows that the British are more ready than the Americans, French and Germans to affirm their continued belief in the values of fairness, compassion, and concern for others, and to look to their government to act in line with those values. The [...]
The Thatcher-introduced settlement is now under pressure as never before
Apr 15th, 2013 by Jon Trickett.I was elected to Leeds City Council during the miners’ strike, perhaps the defining domestic event in her period of office, became leader in 1989 and tackled head-on her assault on local government and communities, most notably the poll tax. All who were politically aware at the end of the 1970s understood the relevance of W B [...]
Margaret Thatcher: the woman who killed conservatism
Apr 15th, 2013 by David Osler.Margaret Thatcher stands in the same relationship to the last five leaders of the Conservative Party as James T Kirk does to subsequent captains of USS Enterprise; they represent ideal types against which the fan base can haughtily dismiss other holders of the same job title as irredeemably insipid. So powerfully does she dominate the [...]
An extended silence from Mr. Blair would now be welcome
Apr 14th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Tony Blair obviously cannot get over being ousted from the premiership and ejected from British public life. First he attacks his successor Gordon Brown and boasts immodestly that he would have done better at the 2010 election (a very open question, though Labour would certainly have done better in 2010 with neither of them). Then [...]
Was Blair the ideological child of Thatcher?
Apr 11th, 2013 by Andy Newman.To steal a joke from the late John Sullivan, Tony Blair’s tribute to Baroness Thatcher sounds like a eulogy to John the Baptist from Jesus. However, while it may be difficult for some on the left to accept, particularly those of us who ten years ago were fulminating against the crime of Blair’s war on Iraq, [...]
After Philpott: Labour should make a positive case for welfare
Apr 8th, 2013 by David Osler.The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, as the Kevin Spacey character argues in The Usual Suspects, is convincing the world that he doesn’t exist. Given our government’s success in persuading the electorate, millions of claimants included, that it doesn’t need the welfare state, I’m starting to suspect that Old Nick numbers among Lynton Crosby’s sources [...]
Labour must end a culture, not just a recession
Apr 6th, 2013 by Barney McCay.Monday 1 April 2013. Remember that day. With drastic changes in nearly every area of Britain’s Welfare State, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll engulf the history books of the future. For a start, legal aid has been slashed. So in addition to the pain that losing your job, going through a divorce, or [...]
Now’s no time to ditch Labour
Apr 4th, 2013 by Conrad Landin.“Responsible capitalism.” It’s a phrase that rolls off the tongue with great ease nowadays. Claimed by Ed Miliband as he attacked “predator” energy companies, media groups and banks, it was seen as a huge Labour success when the term spread across the political spectrum. At least Labour is no longer “intensely relaxed” about people getting [...]
The inspiring figure who renewed and revived socialism
Mar 7th, 2013 by Ben Folley.Hugo Chavez must be remembered for his leading role in transforming the lives of millions of people. Chavez’s stand for democracy and equality, his commitment to social justice and his opposition to western militarism over the past ten years or so has been part of my political awakening and inspired a new generation on the [...]
