About Open Left

Open Left is engaging with Labour’s leadership candidates and challenging them to open up their debate beyond the boundaries of the Labour Party. Open Left doesn’t want to see Labour’s leadership election become a beauty parade or a contest of personalities. Open Left wants Labour’s next leader to be elected on the strength of their ideas, not based on the differences in their character.

Open Left is asking the challenging questions about Labour’s record in Government to identify unfinished business and new areas of reform. Open Left is seeking to rediscover the Left’s idealism, pluralism and appetite for radical ideas. The project is engaging with the new generation of MPs elected in the 2010 cohort and the voices of the Left beyond the party: in the wider labour movement, in the cooperative movement, amongst voluntary and community organisations and the left-wing blogosphere.

Open Left has conducted a major post election poll of 45,000 voters with YouGov to discover voters changing attitudes to social issue, the role of the state, levels of public spending and taxation and the brand reputations of the major political parties. The poll allows Demos to compare the outlook of voters Labour lost since 2005, with the ones they retained at the last election. The full poll results will be published in September by the Open Left project.

Open Left is also asking activists, campaigners and strategists why Labour lost the last election to understand what lessons the left needs to learn in order to be able to govern again. Open Left is part of a plurality of debate of ideas from across the family of the Left, whether people identify with a political party or not. We welcome debate about political values and goal, and don’t presume to have a monopoly of knowledge about how to bring about effective and enduring change.

Richard Darlington is Head of the Open Left project whilst Graeme Cooke is on sabbatical.

Richard Darlington was Special Adviser to Labour’s General Election Coordinator and Secretary of State for International Development (Douglas Alexander MP). Richard has worked at three Whitehall departments, as Special Adviser to Ruth Kelly at the Department for Education and Skills and as Senior Press Officer at the Department of Trade and Industry.

He was Director of Communications for Creative Partnerships at Arts Council England and Media Manager at the Institute for Public Policy Research. Richard has also worked at the TUC, T&G and NUS.

He holds a Masters Degree in Critical Theory from the University of Sussex.

To contact Richard click here.

  • Demos at Labour Party Conference

    Click here to see a list of Demos events at Labour's Annual Conference in Manchester from 26-30 September.

  • Labour Leadership Race

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    Open Left doesn’t want to see Labour’s leadership election become a beauty parade or a contest of personalities. Throughout the contest Open Left will be engaging with the candidates, challenging them on the strength of their ideas and encouraging them to open up their debate beyond the boundaries of the Labour Party.



    Click here to read about the Hustings of Ideas.
    You can watch the event here. You can listen to the event here.



    Click here to read David Miliband's speech to Open Left at 'The Future of Labour' event on May 28 2010



    Click here to read the Q&A with Ed Miliband

  • About Demos

    Demos is a London-based think tank. We generate ideas to improve politics and policy, and give people more power over their lives.
    Go to Demos

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  • Open Left launch





    Australia's new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, writes for Open Left about what being on the left means to her. Click here to see what she thinks.

  • Contact Us

    openleft@demos.co.uk


    For an archive of Open Left project press, see here.

  • Open Left Project

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