LabourList survey: Rigging the system, Tory rebellions and Brexit

This week sees zero government business in the Commons. The only divisions are on Labour’s Opposition Day business and backbench bills. Are the Tories avoiding votes because they are scared of their backbenchers siding with Labour? The parliamentary calendar is empty because Theresa May kicked the next stage of the Brexit Bill into the long grass for fear of a rebellion. Considering the sweeping powers the bill gives to ministers, are the Tories trying to escape scrutiny of their approach to […]

The boom years model of growth was morally and practically bankrupt

By Colin Hay

In a context in which we have been long told that “we are all in it together”, to ask for inclusive growth might not seem to be asking for very much. Who could object, after all, to the idea that any growth dividend arising from our (admittedly) still meagre recovery should be evenly shared?  Indeed, isn’t such a commitment logically entailed by the very suggestion that we are all in it together – shared pain; sharing gain?  Put like this, inclusive […]

George Monbiot: Keynesianism is dead. We need a radical reboot of our economy

By George Monbiot

The ideology Labour confronts has penetrated so far into our lives, and has been so thoroughly internalised and reproduced, that we have found it difficult to see, or even to name. This ideology is neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the doctrine that human society should be defined as a market, its social relations reimagined as commercial transactions, to discover a “natural hierarchy” of winners and losers. Any attempt to limit competition or change social outcomes is treated as hostile to liberty. Trade […]

Labour’s anger over “unfair and undemocratic” boundary review which would abolish Corbyn’s seat

By Peter Edwards

A key ally of Jeremy Corbyn has condemned plans to cut the number of MPs and redraw the parliamentary map as “unfair and undemocratic”. Cat Smith criticised the latest proposals from the Boundary Commission, which would cut the size of the Commons by 50 t0 600, amid concerns the Tories would be the main beneficiaries. The reforms, published this morning, are a revival of David Cameron’s plan to cut the cost of politics which were shelved in 2013 after his […]

Selina Todd: Four new bank holidays will start Labour’s transformation of how we work

By Selina Todd

One of the elements of Labour’s 2017 manifesto that made me cheer was the pledge to create four new bank holidays. But it was too often treated as a cherry on the cake, rather than the kernel of an idea that could help us transform the excellent but discrete elements of the Party’s programme into a coherent, ambitious, socialist offer. After 20 years of appealing to the ‘middle class’, both Tories and Labour floundered after the recession when it became […]