The vocabulary of the Labour moderniser is narrow and confusing. To start with there’s the word “moderniser” itself, denoting members of a kind of desperate tribute band to the original mid-nineties New Labour gaggle. “Reform” is another favourite – it’s a polite word for “destruction”, or at the very least wholesale privatisation. Welfare “reform”; public […]
Posts under ‘Ideology’
Who are the ideologues now?
Jul 27th, 2015 by Bryan Gould.It is a truism of today’s political analysis that, over the three or four decades since the onset of the so-called “free-market” revolution that swept across the western world, the centre of political gravity has moved substantially rightwards. Most of those of middle age or younger will have grown up, after all, in a world […]
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Moderates and extremists: What is the Labour Left today?
Jul 23rd, 2015 by James Elliott.The near-deafening media hysteria over Jeremy Corbyn, variously described as a ‘veteran’, ‘hard left’, and always ‘hirsute’ socialist candidate for Labour leader reached new levels this week, with Progress dragging out Tony Blair to tell 43% of the party that they needed a heart transplant if they want Corbyn to be leader. Owen Jones has […]
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A Corbyn victory is not only possible, it is our only hope
Jul 23rd, 2015 by Andy Newman.Let us be clear what the Tory welfare bill will mean. If the parents of more than two children are precipitated into claiming benefits through a change in circumstances, like redundancy, a partner leaving them or being bereaved, then their children will suffer. If you are a women with, say 4 children, in a violent abusive […]
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Labour must again be a moral crusade or it is nothing
Jul 22nd, 2015 by Bryan Gould.Nothing more starkly demonstrates the parlous state of the Labour Party than the failure of its leaders (and almost all of its would-be leaders) to resist cuts in benefits that will drive many thousands of the most vulnerable into deeper poverty and despair. No one prepared to look at the evidence can doubt that the […]
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The worst thing about Osborne’s budget isn’t the cuts – it’s their popularity
Jul 20th, 2015 by James Elliott.Once George Osborne delivered the first Tory budget since 1996 the British Left predictably took to the internet – and in some cases to the streets – to protest against what was a vicious attack on living standards, the unemployed and disabled people by a government less than a quarter of people voted for and […]
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Understanding Jeremy Corbyn’s support
Jul 17th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Is Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour leadership pack? According to unattributed private polling, yes he is. As we know, polls are never wrong. But what is undeniable is the mass support his candidacy is attracting, and some people are starting to get a touch worried. Yet where has this groundswell of support come from, and […]
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Greece: not “reforms” but a triumph of ideology over common sense
Jul 13th, 2015 by Bryan Gould.As the Greek crisis unfolds, we are constantly informed by the world’s media that the European power-brokers will agree to a further bail-out only if Greece implements a programme of “reforms”. Most people will see this as confirming their understanding of what the crisis is about. The Greeks, it seems, have mismanaged their economy; so […]
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The Left needs to unpack what “Electability” really means
Jul 4th, 2015 by Max Leak.The candidacy of Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour Party leadership has stimulated the party’s old debate surrounding the Left and “electability”: supporters of the Islington North MP claim that elections are won by a clear and confident statement of one’s ideas, whilst opponents universally claim that elections are won, always and in any circumstance, by […]
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The Not-So-Strange Death of Scottish Labour?
Jul 2nd, 2015 by Michael Muir.When the time comes to construct the pantheon of Scottish Labour leaders, Ken Macintosh MSP will surely stand shoulder to shoulder with Jim Murphy at its highest point. To Murphy’s visions of speedy boarding for veterans and booze at football games, Macintosh has, in the past few weeks, added two radical insights of his own: […]
