This post was first given as a speech to members of Oxfordshire Compass by Compass Director, Neal Lawson on 12th April 2025. Winning office is never enough, we have to…
22 Apr, 2025
Labour
15 Apr, 2025
‘The Anti-Democratic Tyranny of the Office For Budget Responsibility’
A decades-long trend of outsourcing democratic decisions to unaccountable institutions like the OBR is leading Britain towards ruin. Last week’s Spring Statement decision to cut the benefits of the weakest…
26 Mar, 2025
Spring Statement: ‘Rachel Reeves Must Remember What Labour Is Actually For’
Unless the Labour party reconnects with its founding economic mission, they will merely lay the ground for a Nigel Farage Government. Who would want to be in Rachel Reeves’ shoes,…
17 Mar, 2025
Donald Trump, Keir Starmer and the Myth of Liberal ‘Returnism’
If liberal centrists on both sides of the Atlantic simply keep waiting for politics to return to “normal” they risk a very rude awakening. Every so often an esteemed liberal…
07 Mar, 2025
Anneliese Dodds’s Principled Resignation Should Be a Warning for Keir Starmer
The International Development Secretary’s departure was overshadowed by world events this week, but it risks having a much longer lasting impact on the Government’s fortunes. Despite the global implications of…
04 Dec, 2024
Can this be a progressive moment of change for Britain and Labour?
The election of the first Labour Government after fourteen years of Tory rule is a huge moment - as is the scale of its challenges; the state of society, public…
11 Oct, 2024
The Labour government must do more to prove its commitment to constitutional reform
Despite winning a huge majority in parliament a few months prior, Prime Minister Keir Starmer went into last month's Labour Party conference facing slumping party morale and growing unpopularity. With…
02 Oct, 2024
Taken as Red
Compass members can receive 30% off all variants of Anushka Asthana's Taken As Red until 3rd November at midnight. Find out how at the bottom of this blog post. Join…
18 Sep, 2024
Labour’s ‘no-choice’ narrative exposes the contradictions of its governing project
Constantly emphasising your passive inability to make choices feeds conspiracy and fuels disaffection – so why does Labour under Keir Starmer keep returning to this favoured excuse? When Foreign Secretary…
10 May, 2024
John Smith – Remembering A Great Labour Leader
John Smith, who sadly died thirty years ago, is paradoxically a past Labour leader who is both highly revered but also often overlooked. He held the leadership for just under…
20 Mar, 2024
Scotland’s centre-left politics and the dynamics of the Labour-SNP divide
UK politics and the UK political system are broken. Every week political discourse finds new lows of invective fuelled by a failing Tory Government wanting to weaponise division, racism and…
28 Feb, 2024
50 years on: Lessons from the February 1974 election
On this day half a century ago, Britain went to the polls. The political script today isn’t the same today, but lessons can still be learnt. Back then the Tories had…