If you wanted any more evidence that the Tories wanted to turn the clock back to about 1930, look no further than this week’s announcement of the Ebacc (the Gove level). Just as my dad (who’s in his 80s) had to complete a school certificate – a bundle of different subjects – 21st century school […]
Posts under ‘Ideology’
Keeping the link: Labour and the trade unions
Sep 18th, 2012 by Mick Whelan.Without trade unions, there would be no Labour Party. Without the Labour Party many of the greatest achievements of the trade union movement would never have become enshrined in law. Despite coming under attack in recent years from both the right of the Labour Party and the left of the trade union movement, the link […]
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Ed Miliband: the impossibility of reinventing revisionism
Sep 16th, 2012 by David Osler.Listening to Labour leaders espouse whatever intellectual fad is currently doing the rounds on the other side of the Atlantic is nothing new for those of us who follow these things. The odds are that Ed Miliband’s advocacy of predistribution will be no longer lasting than Blair’s embrace of communitarianism or Brown’s support for progressive […]
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One Nation Anti-Extremism
Aug 31st, 2012 by Carl Packman.Without naming names, I want to ask left wing people generally what they would think about an organisation that pitches itself against extremism and fanaticism, that has an LGBT division, a Jewish division, holds banners on protests proclaiming solidarity with Sikh groups and women’s rights. One prominent commentator recently told an audience about one such […]
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Happy Birthday Keir Hardie
Aug 15th, 2012 by Carl Packman.The 156th anniversary of the birthday of one of the Labour party’s finest minds, if not the finest, should be a day to celebrate – for without him we wouldn’t have had Attlee, Bevan and Castle and the soul of the party would have been different. The post-war settlement, the NHS, the only woman to […]
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What we can learn from the Olympics – the benefits of state intervention
Aug 13th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.After an unexpectedly brilliant Olympics – 29 golds and 65 medals, unprecedented for more than a century since 1908 – pleading questions are being asked whether it will bring about a transformation of Britain. It will not. It has certainly provided an enormous morale boost for the national psyche and made a naturally self-deprecating and […]
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Red, white, (purple) or blue? Just Labour
Jul 26th, 2012 by Lucy Reese.It was an event I’d been looking forward to for a while – a debate on the future of Labour. The speakers were Owen Jones (needs no introduction), Richard Angell of Progress and Patrick McFarlane of so-called Blue Labour.
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Labour must challenge the canard: public sector bad, private sector good
Jul 18th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Nothing shows more starkly the relentless grip on the public consciousness (and above all the politicians) that the corporate sector has secured than the absurd fixation with outsourcing. It is automatically assumed to be more efficient, more innovative, more dynamic. Sometimes it is, sometimes it all ends in tears and the State has to pick […]
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Government drive for privatisation shows private sector not fit for purpose
Jul 16th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It is a delicious paradox that the one persistent theme in the Coalition’s ideology is privatising everything in the public sector that moves, yet nothing has exposed the inadequacies and incompetences of privatisation so ruthlessly as the Government’s enthusiasm for it. The highlight at the moment is the Olympics security fiasco caused by mismanagement at […]
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The Tories on a road to nowhere
Jun 26th, 2012 by Andy Newman.The announcement of Conservative aspirations to scrap housing benefit for under 25s is yet another example of the thoughtless vandalism of the government, as they degrade the nation’s social infrastructure. Jon Trickett’s recent pamphlet for Compass on the “Conservative Dilemma” is therefore a timely contribution to the debate about why the government acts as it does, […]
