New publication: Labour’s Future

5 August 2010

Soundings and the Open Left project at Demos have published a new ebook entitled ‘Labour’s Future’ This e-book offers a series of short essays about Labour’s future and sketches out what common ground might exist as the basis for political renewal.

In May we brought together 50 people associated with different political perspectives to discuss the future of Labour. A number of papers were presented and Jon Cruddas and David Miliband gave responses.

The aim was to explore what common ground might exist and the prospects for a political axis around which to build political renewal. This e-book offers a series of short essays from participants that reflect the debate and scopes the common ground for Labour’s future.

James Purnell writes: “Labour needs to be bold reformers of both the state and the market. New Labour ended up being only the former. Indeed, it is because we were too hands off with the market that we became too hands on with the state.”

David Lammy writes: “We must get beyond a conversation in which New Labour types speak only of lost support among C2s while idealists lament the betrayal of the working class. The truth is more complex – and more challenging – than either of these diagnoses.”

Neal Lawson writes: “That is where the Big Society is on to something. The state does crowd out. It does make us dependent and powerless. The left was stronger when it relied on a range of autonomous, civil-society, none-state organisations such as mutuals, friendly societies and trade unions.”

The ebook is Edited by Jonathan Rutherford and Alan Lockey

Please email openleft@demos.co.uk with any enquiries.

Contributors:

Philip Collins, Sally Davison, Jeremy Gilbert, Stuart Hall, David Lammy, Neal Lawson, Doreen Massey, Anthony Painter, James Purnell, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Rutherford, Marc Stears, Allegra Stratton, Heather Wakefield, Stuart White

Published jointly by Soundings (www.soundings.org.uk) and Open Left at Demos (www.openleft.co.uk)

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