Ed Miliband is taking some very big risks with his proposals for the union link today. Open selection primaries, which the Blairites are pressing for, are a nonsense if it means members of the general public, the majority of whom are not Labour supporters, are permitted to choose a Labour parliamentary candidate from a list […]
Posts Tagged ‘Political Strategy’
If Labour doesn’t change course, the next election will be closer than it should be
Jul 1st, 2013 by Michael Meacher.At my constituency’s monthly General Committee meeting this weekend, the mood was more despairing than any I can remember. They simply cannot understand how the party leadership can be accepting time after time whatever callous and unjust cuts Osborne throws at us – bedroom tax, withdrawal of benefit for the first seven days of unemployment, […]
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Two Eds and the fallacy of being “tough” – even if it costs more
Jun 26th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.This is Ed Miliband’s speech to Labour’s national policy forum in Birmingham on Saturday. You can also read it here. The tough message is because when George Osborne stands up next week and announces his cuts in day to day spending, we won’t be able to promise now to reverse them because we can only […]
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Equality comes with shift of power to the people
May 10th, 2013 by Richard Leonard.People are discontented, disaffected and hungry for change. The so-called consumer society robs us of our universal humanity and our environment of its natural balance. Living standards are squeezed to offset the falling rate of profit. Women’s work in particular continues to be systematically undervalued, with the poorest of the poor hit hardest of all. […]
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Why the unions need to steer the political mainstream to the left, not abandon it
Apr 30th, 2013 by Andy Newman.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 […]
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Ed needs to work out where disunity comes from, and let the party decide its direction
Apr 25th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.It is true that “Len McCluskey does not speak for the Labour Party” as Ed Miliband’s spokesperson put it last night. Nor (anymore) do Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn, David Blunkett, John Reid, or Tessa Jowell, who have between them been subjecting Ed to persistent attacks, without regard to the impending local elections. But the unnamed shadow […]
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Len McCluskey: the Left needs you
Mar 5th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.There are two ways to look at Len McCluskey and his campaign for another five years as General Secretary of Unite. One is to look at his record within Unite and the TGWU before it, and at his future plans for the direction of Britain’s biggest union. What will he do for his members? And […]
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Left Unity and presenting a clear Left alternative
Feb 27th, 2013 by Kate Hudson.Britain faces two more years of disastrous coalition policies, but no coherent left political alternative is being presented. This has led a number of people from disparate parts of the left to come together to found a new website www.leftunity.org, to discuss what is necessary and possible for a left alternative, and to learn from […]
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Owen Jones on austerity, class and the prospects for capitalism
Feb 18th, 2013 by Newsdesk.In the first of their Radical Voices interview series, Anticapitalists.org spoke to Owen Jones about austerity, class, ideology, and the socialist alternative in the 21st century. The Anticapitalist Initiative describes itself as “a network that enables anti-capitalist activists to debate current political issues. Where possible it aims to unite these activists to fight against capitalism, […]
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We need a Socialist Campaign for Labour Victory
Jan 22nd, 2013 by Andy Newman.There is no doubt that Owen Jones’s column in the Independent is an asset for the left, reaching a wide audience. His latest proposal is modest but correctly calibrated I think. After reflecting on the seemingly terminal crisis in the far left group, the SWP, Owen suggests that the era of the Leninist sects is […]
