News & Insight

1 December 2015

This year marks 60 years since the loss of the 1955 election and the subsequent publication of the Harold Wilson report into Party Organisation. Labour’s organisation was at ‘the penny-farthing stage in a jet-propelled era’ was the conclusion he famously...

1 December 2015

Contrary to the impression given by some sections of the UK media, everybody in the Labour Party wants to prevent Isis, or any other extremists, from harming UK citizens. So, is an increase in Western bombing in the Middle East,...

26 November 2015

Few of the chancellor’s recent financial statements have passed without a big housing announcement. They follow a familiar pattern. Big numbers are trailed overnight. “Osborne the builder” headlines follow the next morning, accompanied by pictures of the chancellor in a...

25 November 2015

From the Guardian, the FT, the Spectator and the Sun it is the same refrain: the tax credit cuts are a choice not a necessity. Even George Osborne’s own backbenchers now agree that he did not need to target the...

24 November 2015

In 2013 the Fabian Commission on Future Spending Choices set out its proposals for the 2015 spending review. The commission identified three trade-offs which any chancellor must face – the balance between the present and the future; between tax and...

23 November 2015

Making the case for public spending - a report published by the TUC and commissioned from the Fabian Society - warns that severe spending cuts are already undermining public service quality, and that if the Chancellor doesn’t rethink his plans...