The Labour right and the Labour left never was one of the great romances. Ever since the couple plighted their troths on 15 February 1906, theirs has always been the very exemplar of loveless marriage. Little wonder that both partners have been guilty of flirtation – and sometimes adulterous couplings – at repeated intervals, for […]
Posts Tagged ‘Social Democracy’
Labour is at a crossroads – socialism or austerity?
May 27th, 2015 by Peter Rowlands.Labour must understand why it did so badly in the election, as it is unlikely to be able to mount a successful campaign in the future if it doesn’t. Much has been written already, although we await a full analysis in terms of voting patterns and movement by age, class, gender etc., but from what […]
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“Mr Cameron, keep your mitts off my NHS”
Sep 26th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Unfortunately, I missed Harry Leslie Smith speaking at the Labour Party conference but the truth and the electricity survive in this recording. The words which perhaps have almost more importance as a warning for Labour Party members than for the Tories are these: As I stand here today, my heart is with all of those people from […]
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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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On Bradford, anti-imperialist Labourism, social democracy and real Labour values
Apr 1st, 2012 by Andy Newman.George Galloway’s victory in Bradford West for the Respect party is enormously significant. It is important for Labour not to fall for idea of George as a manipulative maverick, because that betrays a patronising contempt for the electorate who chose to vote for George Galloway. So Ed Miliband and Iain McNichol are absolutely right when they say:
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The perils of party reform, Progress-style
Mar 5th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.The key to reforming the party structure and putting the party back into power, according to Progress, is “putting the community at the centre of the party” with an emphasis on recruiting registered supporters, community organising and selecting Labour candidates through primaries. As David Miliband put it: “We need to expand our reach by building […]
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What David Miliband’s intervention really means
Feb 3rd, 2012 by Owen Jones.Those of us who have suggested David Miliband’s latest political intervention may have – let’s say – ulterior motives have received a bit of flak. Must he stay silent just because any public pronouncement may be misconstrued by the media? Why can’t he contribute to the debate about the party’s future like anyone else?
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The temporary popularity of Euroausterity
Nov 22nd, 2011 by David Osler.Just months ago, Spain was convulsed by the M-15 mass movement, which mobilised hundreds of thousands of protestors against the appalling privations facing the nation’s youth. Last weekend, it returned a centre-right government. That’s not the whole story. The hard left alliance Izquierda Unida doubled its vote to poll 7%, although that is still well […]
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PASOK, PSOE: the suicide of social democracy
Nov 7th, 2011 by David Osler.After three decades during which the centre left first adapted to neoliberalism, and then adopted it wholesale, it is sometimes difficult to establish what exactly social democracy stands for these days. All of the major European parties that occupy this political space initially came into being to articulate working class demands, and were nominally committed […]
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If David Miliband is the answer, its a bloody stupid question
Mar 13th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.It says something about the rather dismal condition of both British politics and journalism, that this week there was an amount of liberal fluttering over a speech at the London School of Economics by former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who was beaten by his brother for the Labour leadership. Here is Miliband’s thesis; it is that […]
