Tagged news

Reading the Mandelson memoirs you could be forgiven for wondering whether politics had anything to do with voters at all.

This month Compass is delighted to publish an excellent Thinkpiece entitled Digital Citizenship and Inclusion: A Social Democratic Agenda. This Thinkpiece is by Phil Ramsey who currently writing his thesis on New Labour and the Public Sphere at the University of Ulster.

It has been a momentous fortnight in British politics, dominated by Andrew Rawnsley's allegations of bullying by Gordon Brown, whose style of politics and behaviour was further put under the spotlight by Alistair Darling's remarks that ‘the forces of hell' had been unleashed upon him by No. 10.

The left in Greece has the chance of making a real difference, even if in highly adverse circumstances, and has a policy that combines openness, democracy and sustainability. This article poses the question of whether in Britain the left is capable of taking notice.

Parliament is back but for Labour and the wider centre-left it feels like nothing has really changed. Certainly the opinion polls haven't. Labour urgently needs to change the game and in this context its own party conference can only be seen as another wasted opportunity.

In just 10 days our high-profile Summer Lecture 'The Future of Social Democracy' is now fully booked: delivered by Dr Jon Cruddas MP the lecture will take place from 6pm - 7.30pm on Tuesday 8 September 2009 at the LSE Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, Aldwych, London WC2A 2AE. You can still request to be put on the reserve list for a ticket.

Norwich North is yet another bad result for Labour and another self inflicted wound. When so many MPs across the parties who played the expenses system remain unaccounted for, why was Ian Gibson singled out? It was either cock-up or conspiracy.

Jon Cruddas has today written an interesting article for debate on Comment Is Free on equality and the future of the left as part of the launch of Demos' new Open Left project. It's well worth a look.

You wait ages for a crisis to arise, and then a stack of them come along at once. But the multiple crises that Britain is now experiencing have a common thread running through them: the relationship between markets and capitalism, on one side, and society and democracy, on the other.

If these election results and the political events of the last week don't wake up the Labour leadership, nothing will. Both are truly shocking. Worse still, they are largely self-inflicted.