I’m guest editing the New Statesman – and I’m asking for your Labour manifesto proposals

By Alastair Campbell

As you may be aware, I recently bowed to the democratic demands of my Facebook and Twitter friends, and agreed to accept an invitation to guest edit the New Statesman.

The New Statesman hasn’t always been my favourite reading – when I was in frontline politics, I found it sometimes interesting, occasionally irritating, often irrelevant. And no doubt there are some regular readers for whom I would not be Number One choice as guest editor.

But the magazine has an important place in the history of the ideas debate on the left, and it continues to hold a significant place in the political and media landscape. So I hope that for the week I’m in charge, with the help of the usual NS team, we can put something together that’s interesting, provocative and makes a contribution to the progressive debate.

As well as the articles I’ve already commissioned, one of the pages will be handed over to ‘LabourListers’ and others to finish the phrase: ‘if I could get one sentence into Labour’s manifesto for the next election, it would say this…’

I want to do this because, for all that the Tories may be ahead in the polls, and taking that position for granted, I think the battle of policy ideas still has more energy on the left than the right, and I hope this page will reflect that.

I’ll get the ball rolling with a couple of ideas, then the space below is yours for suggestions:

I would like to see compulsory voting for general and local elections. And I would like to see an end to charitable status for private schools.

Alastair.

To feature in Alastair’s edition of the New Statesman, please leave your Labour manifesto suggestions below.