If Labour wants to shore up its traditional vote base, it should dramatically distance itself from the decision to go to war in Iraq; it should renew a balanced focus on fairness and equality; and direct greater campaigning efforts at the sections of the electorate on which it has traditionally relied ... This, crucially, need not be at the expense of broadening the party's electoral appeal
The lessons of power
Editorial // Martin McIvor
What kind of party - what kind of movement - what kind of governing project would be rooted and resilient enough to advance the ambitious agenda the leadership candidates are now promising?
Origins of Lib-Lab division
Feature // Andrew Thorpe
The Liberals’ turn to the right is less remarkable than some are claiming. Ideological and organisational obstacles to Lib-Lab cooperation have deep historical roots.
A view from the Liberal Democrats
Feature // David Hall-Matthews
Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats should be making quiet efforts throughout this parliament to ensure that a coalition between them is at least possible after the next election.
Left liberalism: principles and prospects
Feature // Stuart White
A discriminating approach to the state identifies both where its authority is needed to secure social justice, and where its power is properly limited for the sake of individual freedom.
Interview: Post-election progressive dilemmas
Feature // David Marquand, Ben Jackson
With the fraught relations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats now at the centre of political debate, few are better placed to comment on the present conjuncture than David Marquand.
The challenges of opposition
Feature // Jane Green
Lessons from recent research into electoral behaviour, campaign strategy, and opposition party recovery and change.
A radical agenda for local government
Feature // Ed Turner
If we want to rebuild Labour’s councillor base, we will need to repoliticise the role of local government.
London Citizens and the Labour tradition
Feature // Stefan Baskerville, Marc Stears
Learning from London Citizens doesn’t mean embracing the ‘Big Society’, but remembering Labour’s traditional focus on relationship, place, and organisation.
London Citizens - a response
Feature // Jonathan Rutherford
The current interest in London Citizens offers a political opening for democratic and organisational reform within Labour. But the uncritical eulogising of it invites a more critical appraisal.
The progressive potential of online organising
Feature // Hannah Lownsbrough
Online activism must take its place alongside the wider progressive movement in the UK in offering people the chance to make politics matter again.
The politics of deficit reduction
Commentary // Rachel Reeves
This government have chosen an approach to deficit reduction that is damaging to growth and highly regressive. The underlying motivations are not economic, but political and ideological.
Fairness and future generations
Commentary // Lisa Nandy
The long-term impact of the agenda that has been pursued since the election will be to create a more polarised society and entrenched generational disadvantage. What is the left’s alternative?
Foreign policy: developing a progressive alternative
Commentary // Emma Reynolds
The Tories’ reduction of our interests to promoting UK plc, and emphasis on purely bilateral relations, underestimates Britain’s role and standing in a multipolar world.
Immigration and the election
Essay // Don Flynn, Rob Ford, Will Somerville
Immigration was one symptom of a wider breakdown in communication between Labour’s elite and its base. The answer is more intensive local engagement, not more restrictive migration policies.
Financial reform: a Keynesian agenda
Essay // Duncan Weldon
The financial reform agenda remains open for Labour to seize. A solution to the dominance of finance capital would ensure it works as the ‘servant’ of industry and labour.
Wanted: a new theory of the state
Essay // Simon Parker
The next leader will have to adapt Labour’s political and public management philosophy to the Coalition’s likely legacy of a smaller, more decentralised kind of government.
After ‘new Britain’
Essay // Gerry Hassan
The ‘New Labour nation’ morphed into a celebration of the British global class, the winners and the haves. What difficult questions would an alternative national story have to address?
Ross McKibbin: Parties and People
Review // John Callaghan
Was Labour’s eclipse of the Liberals from 1918 to 1951 inevitable?
Jane Waldfogel: Britain’s War on Poverty
Review // Gregg McClymont
A US academic’s assessment of Labour’s attempt to end child poverty.
Erik Olin Wright: Envisioning Real Utopias
Review // William Davies
Redefining socialism from scratch: ‘social power’ beyond state and market.
