News & Insight

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...

22 March 2013

The NHS is arguably the greatest gift that the Labour movement gave the British people and its destruction is a betrayal of the English nation. Since 1945 the United Kingdom has enjoyed a national health system free for all at the...

22 March 2013

A generation ago, school leavers chose to go to university giving considerable thought to what they would enjoy studying for three years and perhaps less thought to where it might lead them in terms of a career. In the majority...