How do social democrats change things? The traditional method has been to win elections, inhabit the state, pull the levers of the state and hey presto – social democracy. Here in the UK this approach is magnified because of our awful first past the post voting system, but most social democrats would rather not share […]
Five Radical Ideas For Beating Inequality
Scratch the skin of any social democrat and s/he bleeds equality. Because of structural weakness we water the concept down into social justice or fairness or we try and dress equality up with more complex ideas like ‘capabilities’. The problem is that we aren’t getting it, indeed we’re moving further away from it. The great […]
Zygmunt Bauman: A Beacon Of Hope In The Darkness
I don’t know what to do. A world that was getting darker suddenly turned pitch black. Zygmunt Bauman is dead. The towering intellectual colossus of our times and yet such a frail, slight and humble human being is gone. He lived an amazing life and was an amazing person. The brilliance of his mind and […]
Social Democracy Without Social Democrats? How Can The Left Recover?
UK Labour has suffered another bad set of election results. But the failure of Labour is not the fault of the Corbynites or the Blairites. Social democracy is in crisis the world over: obliterated in Greece, failing in government in France and in retreat almost everywhere else. Nowhere are social democrats ideologically, programmatically or organisationally […]
Why We Must Fight For A Different Kind Of Europe
The pistol has now been fired for so many debates we are so badly prepared for. The future of Britain, the future of Europe, the future of Britain in Europe and maybe the future of both without each other. For once in over 40 years the people of Britain, all of its people, are being […]
Towards A Social Democracy Based On Facebook Culture
If you were a European social democrat looking to Labour for light at the end of the left’s long and dark electoral tunnel last month then you would have been disappointed. But any cursory glance under Labour’s bonnet and a quick kick of the tyres would have told you this vehicle was never going to […]
Surfers Without Waves – Is Social Democracy Dead In The Water?
Is social democracy already dead and like the proverbial headless chicken are we simply running round the yard on instinct before we topple over for good? If social democracy is still alive, it’s hard to know how or why. Let’s look at the evidence. No social democratic party anywhere in the world is on the […]
A Bridge To A Good Society
This site, along with the FES and Compass, has long championed the notion of a good society. It is a desirable world that is much more equal, democratic and sustainable. But the problem was the desirable never felt feasible. We might have wanted to get there – but no one really knew how. That is […]
Europe As A Good Society
It’s not a coincidence that the crisis of social democracy is happening at precisely the same moment as the crisis of Europe. That’s is because Europe only has a future as a social democratic project and social democracy can only now thrive at a European level. It means the dual crisis isn’t cyclical or temporary. […]
Europe And The Good Society: Where Are We Now?
Every time we analyse European social democracy the challenge is both more daunting and more exciting. From the publication of Building the Good Society by Andrea Nahles and Jon Cruddas to Europe & the Good Society: After the Crash by Thorben Albrecht and myself everything has changed. But things have now changed again. Events in Cyprus and the struggles […]
Britain and Europe
I write as someone who is on the British left – someone who sees the destructive capacity of capitalism before I see its dynamism. Someone who sees the separation of power from politics and politics from power being the over-riding feature of the last 30 years. Someone who believes in the fabulous potential of people […]
Social Democracy and the State
The state occupies a central place in social democratic thinking. It is the vehicle through which policies are delivered. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the growth of the modern state was a forerunner of the social democratic movement. Today, it is impossible to think about social democracy without considering the role of the state. But the relationship is not without […]
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