The future of the Labour Party hangs in the balance. Its fourth consecutive defeat has finally severed its relationship with its traditional core vote in the ex-industrial regions of the North and Midlands. It drifts, unmoored from its old national coalition and without a new one to replace it.
Read moreAll Hail Good King Boris
With one throw of the dice, Boris Johnson broke the Brexit interregnum. After three years of frantic inertia, he resolved the impasse through transforming the class basis of the Conservative Party. In doing so, he has renewed his party for a generation and ripped into the Labour heartlands …
Read moreFrom Woodstock to Brexit: the tragedy of the liberal middle class
This article was originally published by the New Statesman in December 2019: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/12/woodstock-brexit
What has happened to the middle class? Being middle class in Britain was once defined by a safe, lifelong career, a 25-year mortgage and an invariable allegiance to the Conservative Party.
Read moreA Christmas and New Year Letter from Maurice Glasman
This has been a very painful year. The election of the 12th of December marked a decisive rupture of Labour from the working class and an acceleration of our transformation into a European Progressive Party based in our big cities.
Read moreJon Cruddas MP: In Defence of Paul Embery
Paul Embery is a friend of mine; born and raised in Dagenham and proud of it. He is also a hero, a firefighter and for twenty years an active member of the FBU. However Paul faces being kicked off the FBU national executive and debarred from holding office for two years.
Read moreProgressive Politics Has Been Left Behind
Blue Labour welcomes political debate. The journal Political Quarterly has been promoting an essay by Jon Bloomfield in which he explains the ‘fallacies of Blue Labour’ and his progressive alternative to them. Here’s a response to it.
Read moreLet’s Bring Back Cakes and Ale Socialism
Few people would immediately associate the modern Left with a spirit of delight and celebration. The popular image is of purse-lipped puritanical preaching, interspersed with a good dollop of hypocritical Bollinger bolshevism – quaffing a nice glass of something cold and sparkling with one hand while finger-jabbing at the plebs’ pleasure in bacon sandwiches, fags and booze with the other.
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