This has to be a General Election fought like no other. If we fight it the old way, the Tories will win a massive victory – not just for themselves and the interests they represent, but for the hardest of Brexits. We have to fight differently. We have to fight together. We have to fight...

Read the full publication 'The Progressive Alliance: why the SNP needs it' here The refusal of the May government to countenance any differential deal for Scotland post Brexit now means we are counting down to the next referendum on Scottish independence. Winning that will be our top...

Our Past and Present Reality

Although the Labour Party has existed for over a century, only once have we actually come from opposition to win a convincing parliamentary majority. No, it was not in 1945, when Labour had been part of the wartime coalition government for 5 years already. The only...

This article is aimed at outlining a strategy to create authentically progressive communities, and help them to spread values such as social justice within society. Through the creation of progressive communities, individuals would have the possibility to perform social roles that are consistent...

Most misunderstandings concerning basic income arise from exaggeration about what a basic income can or ought to achieve. This is illustrated in reasonable points raised by Ruth Lister in her recent piece in this series. For me the basic income addresses some fundamental problems in...

At the end of the film Terminator 2 Sarah Connor looks across the New Mexico desert and says ‘there is a storm coming’. That storm is here. The aftermath of Storm Doris is nothing compared to the aftermath of the political storm sweeping our country.  Last night it tore through Labour in...

I was for a time a serious competitive middle distance runner, nurtured on the mantra of the great Franz Stampfl who coached Bannister to the four minute mile: “Go on until you want to die .. and then .. sprint.” Success coming out of despair.

Does the current political situation drive us...

After Thomas Paine published Agrarian Justice in 1795, it was for a long time thought to contain one of the earliest proposals for a form of basic income. He proposed a grant for young households and pensions for all over 50. But Thomas Spence went the whole way and proposed an unconditional...

Life is not a level playing field. From our birth to our death, each of our journeys is never quite the same. Nature and Nurture play a fundamental role in our lives. From our birth place to our caregivers, our physical and mental genetic make-up and the lottery which we call life. If we were...

Democracy occupies a special place in our hearts. Conceived in Ancient Greece, debated over in the Magna Carta and fought over in the English Civil Wars; the right of the demos - the people - to have their say has always been a cherished ideal. A political system devised for power sharing is...

Here we go again – another blow to our fondly-held beliefs about democracy! This book not only repeats many of the criticisms of democracy made in Democracy for Realists by Achen and Bartels, but actually argues that we should ditch democracy in favour of another form of government – not...

England, 2017 It’s 5:15am and the alarm goes off. My husband Daz is very disciplined in the morning and leaps out of bed to pull on his hoody and road-smelling hi-viz trousers. He’s off to Banbury to lay 80 tons of tarmac footpaths. The number of jobs Daz’s boss sends his gang to do has...