ShortList 2 – This week’s highlights

From @LabourList

This is the LabourList ShortList, bringing you a weekly summary of the best content on the site over the last week and keeping you up to date with some of the current thinking in the Labour movement:

The Tony Wright interview:
Charged with heading up the Commission on Parliamentary Reform, Tony Wright, MP for Cannock Chase, sits down with Alex Smith to discuss the expenses scandal and his group’s work on improving Parliament.

“Labour is camped out in middle England drinking Liebfraumilch in a Holiday Inn in Watford”:
Jon Cruddas on the Labour leadership, the econmic crisis and liberalism.

PPC Profile: AnnaJoy David
AnnaJoy talks about Scarborough and Whitby and her experience of building a movement with Weller and Bragg under Red Wedge.

Norwich North election day:
LabourList brought live updates from the ground on polling day.

James Purnell launches his new project:
Labour needs to return to first principles, says the former Work and Pensions Secretary.

James Purnell live chat:
And then his first stop is to LabourList, to answer readers’ questions in a Live Web Chat.

Why am I on the left?:
LabourList editor Alex Smith gets to grips with Purnell’s first question.

The hypocrisy of the right:
In his popular Economics Matters column, Duncan Weldon says it’s the opposition that engage in the Politics of Envy.

A passionate message, a true message, a winning message:
This is the Gordon Brown we want to see more of: speaking about his abhorance of poverty and his commitment to social justice at home and abroad, without notes, for 17 minutes.

Afghan Presidential candidate Obama-ises his campaign:
Mark Hanson looks at how Ashraf Ghani is recreating the Obama web strategy to inspire Afghanistan’s new democracy.

Labour Conference – time for a change?:
Mike Ion says Conference should go to the big cities across the UK.

A new approach to housing?:
LabourList economist Chris Cook says co-ownership offers a simple, apolitical approach to one of the most intractable problems of our time: affordable, high quality and sustainable housing for all.

Time to rally around Gordon Brown:
Gordon became PM as Labour’s most towering figure and he still is, writes the New Statesman’s James Macintyre.

We must do more than just funnel state schoolers into the professions:
Social entrepeneur and schools networker Jake Hayman on what must be done to begin real social mobility in this country.

There is an alternative to the unjust Freud-Purnell welfare package:
Economist Duncan Weldon draws out his plan for Welfare Reform.

This House is a cicus:
Ralph Baldwin looks at the dismal failure of the Parliamentary Standards Bill.

PLUS: Vote in the Total Politics top ten blogs poll:
Well, with content like this it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?