debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
In 2009 Jon Cruddas and Andrea Nahles published a short pamphlet, Building the Good Society and with the support of Compass and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation it has been debated across Europe. A study by Goettingen University cites this Good Society debate as the most influential current in European Social Democracy. Three years later we [...]
Socialism is what Labour governments do. So famously spoke Herbert Morrison, senior Labour cabinet member and deputy leader of the Labour Party in 1945. On one level, 65 years later, Morrison’s words look paternalistic at best and plain arrogant at worst. It was socialism done to the people. But it was a sound bite that [...]
After its defeat in May, Labour moved to elect a new leader. It was just the beginning of the overhaul that centre-left politics needs if Britain is to build the good society. Just seven months ago, Labour suffered a defeat of epic proportions. It was its worst performance since 1918, barring the loss it suffered [...]
The left’s response to austerity, thus far, has been necessary but far from sufficient. Social democrats have to challenge the cuts agenda because they will make growth less likely and impact on the poor hardest. That work must go on. Not least, the left must refocus on the bankers and financialised capitalism. This is the [...]
It is so depressingly inevitable. Obama, like Clinton, Blair and Brown before him, like in Rudd in Australia, like the Swedish social democrats, like every example of centre-left government the world over – we seem incapable of building a progressive and sustainable movement for change. Sure Obama can recover from the mid-term disaster. He can find his feet, stabilize [...]
Five years ago, twenty or so social democrats in and around the British Labour Party, politicians, academics, journalists and activists sat in a seminar room in a college in London’s Regents Park. The topic of debate was how to describe the Good Society. The discussion led to a Compass publication in 2006. Fast-forward five years [...]
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