News & Insight

11 April 2013

At the moment, there is widespread consensus that fundamental changes are required if the failures at Mid Staffordshire are to be avoided. The NHS must find a way to respond to the Francis report and deliver high quality and safe...

10 April 2013

The ‘predistribution’ of income is the latest economic policy tool that Ed Miliband has found to try and own the future of how we create a more equal society. The guiding economic tool of the Labour party since its inception...

9 April 2013

The state has an important role to play in building a good society and we should defend it. Of course it cannot be an uncritical defence; there's much that is wrong with how the state functions. Hence the notion of...

8 April 2013

According to what one could call the ‘golden age narrative’, social democracy is a political ideology that came to fruition in the post-war decades but has since run up against its limited shelf life. This narrative plainly does not fit...

5 April 2013

Localism tends to be viewed by many on the left with suspicion. For Tories, localism can be a convenient shorthand for rolling back the state, while for Lib Dems localism offers useful ideological flexibility to take different positions in different...

28 March 2013

Here is a question I encounter all too often as Shadow Minister for Culture: how do you value a library? There are a few ways of doing it. You can look at profit and loss: by that measure libraries, along with...