High turnout is good. It is an unequivocal Good Thing. In fact, it is perhaps the only social good to which all democrats – at least technically – aspire, because it affirms our faith in our chosen system; a metric for the distance we stand from chaos. In other words: reach a turnout of zero, and you’re no longer a democracy. At the same time, for those of us who have worked at the political coal-face as staffers, the detail [...]
News
What on earth is going on with London Labour Party?
It was an open secret in the Labour Party that for the last year London Labour had been almost entirely subsumed to the Ken Livingstone campaign. Once the campaign ended – win or lose – that would have to change. Sadly it seems that rather...
Quote of the day: Jon Cruddas’s life sentence
Labour’s new policy chief on his relationship with the Labour Party: “Labour, for me, is also a tribal thing; it is my team. To back through thin and thin; a life sentence. A source of an ongoing tension, between both hope and despair. The...
Johnson vs Johnson? Will Alan run for mayor in 2016?
A couple of weeks ago we took a look at some of the names being linked with a tilt at the Labour nomination for the 2016 London Mayoral race. But it seems that one prominent name may have been missing. The auumption was that after choosing not to stand...
- McNicol’s revolution – 100 new candidates and 200 new organisers
- Bristol Mayor – the shortlist
- Labour’s shadow cabinet and opposition front bench – in full
Comment
How can unions give more people the power they need to get what they want?
The latest figures on Trade Union membership released at the end of April were sobering reading for trade unionists and the wider labour and progressive movement. Amongst other things, the figures revealed that the impact of the government’s cuts programme...
Nick Clegg’s talk of social mobility is just words
As a former NUS president, I know the value of post-16 education. I know what role the education sector plays in not only increasing the life chances of individuals and communities but for our society and economy as a whole. That is why Ed Miliband was...
What should Labour’s organisational priorities be?
For the first time since the Iraq War in 2003, Labour does not feel in crisis. Ever since then we have had disputes over the ideological and policy direction of the Party, around both interventionism overseas and public service reform at home, and over...
Video
Jack Straw on his time gossiping on trains with Rebekah Brooks
Lib Dem Lords clash over Lords reform
Whatever you say today Ed – it can’t be worse than this
Today Ed Miliband is speaking to the Royal College of Nursing. But whatever he says today, it can’t be worse – or more untrue – than Cameron’s “classic” speech to the...
- Ed Miliband’s Speech at Progress Conference
- Former First Sea Lord on government’s fighter plane “shambles”
- Miliband’s Queen’s Speech response – government’s priorities are a “mystery”



