“I think we made mistakes in the eighties. With hindsight, I don’t think we helped ourselves. We allowed ourselves to be marginalised; we were too unforgiving of people who some saw as betraying our principles and didn’t give them a way back. My view has always been that if you don’t take the mainstream of the Labour Party with you, you’re going…
Keir Starmer’s arrival as leader of the Labour Party will, of course, shift many of the political co-ordinates. Labour’s institutional setting will look different under a new leadership. But the case Labour has staked out in the last four years – opposing austerity, raising taxes on the richest, supporting a far wider role for the state in the economy – now, under…
For all the talk of big tent politics, the term ‘Soft Left’ has become a tent so large that it has collapsed in the middle, and runs the risk of smothering those inside. Given that we at the Social Review are often accused of being the Pravda of the Soft Left, it is perhaps worth setting out a clearer definition of what…
Why democratic reform must be at the heart of Labour’s programme for government After December’s election defeat there is a clear need for all candidates to engage in a clear, honest and thoughtful assessment of Labour’s current electoral and political situation. The ongoing leadership contest must include a serious discussion of how to remake and renew Britain’s democratic institutions. We’ve so far…
When I was a teenager, I was – like many – ricocheting from phase to phase. One of these was a truly terrible atheist phase, where I made the following argument in Religious Studies class: ‘If Christians sincerely believed that Heaven was as good as they say, why would they all not just nuke everything, in order to get there more quickly?’ In…
As a Corbyn fan, second referendum remainer and a member of the metropolitan elite (whether real or imagined), I am bracing for the incoming tide of blame after the result last week. In the last couple of days I have felt painful and true sadness like never before. Before this gets washed away with the introspection to come, I want to remember…
As a left-wing, secular Jewish member of the Labour Party, I have recently been noticing a particular pattern of behaviour from Labour activists and members on social media. Like many party members, I have been avidly following the Democratic primary in the US, and like many party members, I’ve followed Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist, since his insurgent campaign for the…
Some political quotes stand the test of time. One of my favourites and most-quoted comes, unsurprisingly, from the late, great, Tony Benn. When faced with those with any kind of power, he encouraged us to ask five important questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable?…
