DOREEN MASSEY and MICHAEL RUSTIN are the founders and guiding lights behind the Kilburn Manifesto, one of the most cogent analyses of neoliberalism and the state of the left. Here they provide a brief reflection on the general election and what it means for the future of social democracy. At the closing of the polls...
Why Mhairi Black is Right
In case anyone missed it, here is a link to “the great maiden speech” made by the SNP MP, Mhairi Black. ERNIE JACQUES is among those who believe Labour should support her call for a parliamentary coalition against the cuts....
Labour Campaigners call for ‘Manifestos of Intent’
Labour campaigners are calling on leadership candidates to issue ‘manifestos of intent’ outlining their likely policies and putting their politics on public show for voters’ to consider. HARRY BARNES explains why they are needed and calls for urgent support. ...
Labour’s Future Under Scrutiny
The Labour Party’s future is coming under scrutiny from all angles at the moment with articles, papers, analysis and discussion meetings focused on what went wrong on 7 May and what Labour should do now....
Former MP Calls For ‘Manifestos of Intent’ From Leadership Candidates
Former Labour MP Harry Barnes has called for Labour’s leadership candidates to issue ‘Manifestos of Intent’ to explain their intended programme and help members decide who to vote for....
Labour’s Fightback Will Be Harder Than We Can Yet Imagine
David Cameron may have returned to Downing Street with a thin majority, but Labour must not kid itself. Coming back from this defeat will be very hard. The road to recovery will be far tougher than the route Labour has just tried and failed to plot, argues ANDREW HARROP....
Why Labour Needs to Change
Like many on the left, the election result came as a nasty shock to JONATHAN TIMBERS. Yet despite the desperate outlook, he believes a future Labour government is possible if the party becomes a very different kind of organisation. Some on the left say they do not expect to see another Labour government in their...
Co-op Members Urged to Keep the Party Link
The Keep it Co-op Campaign is urging Co-operative Group members to vote against proposals to sever the group’s 98-year-old relationship with the Co-op Party at this Saturday’s AGM in Manchester....
Labour’s Housing Problem
ERNIE JACQUES argues that Labour’s ‘curate’s egg’ of a manifesto is a long way from being social democratic or balanced. It’s a confused approach exposed most clearly by its housing policy. While there are undoubtably progressive nuggets in the Labour Party’s manifesto, which sets it apart from the nasty party, it is nevertheless remarkably timid...
Judging Labour’s Manifesto
HARRY BARNES casts his scrutinising eye over the details of Labour’s election manifesto, and concludes that it contains the seeds for a progressive government. At the 2014 Labour Party conference a document entitled National Policy Forum Report 2014 was adopted. My own summary of its contents appeared on my blog and covered 16 separate items....
Chartist Unveils its Anti-Austerity Manifesto
In a period awash with party election manifestoes, the left magazine and campaign group, Chartist, has unveiled its own manifesto for “a properly democratic socialist alternative to austerity”. Chartist’s 2015 manifesto is a revised version of one published by its editorial board in 2007 – “the year before financial capitalism fell in on itself”. “Capitalism...
Labour Calls on Members to ‘Keep It Co-op’
The Labour Party has called on its members to support the Co-operative Party’s ‘Keep it Co-op’ campaign, warning that its historic relationship with the co-op movement is under threat due to Co-operative Group proposals to break the political links....