Mark Perryman provides a seasonal round-up of the best books to cheer up the radical spirit.  From #chaoticbrexit to the triumph of Trump via the summertime Labour coup. 2016 will be a year to forget for many  who cling on to an optimism that a better tomorrow remains not only necessary but...

Human rights are central to understanding – and arresting – the rise in right-wing populism. Farage, Trump, Le Pen and their fellow travellers gain strength from the poverty, inequality and unfairness experienced by millions of working and middle class families. Their experience is sometimes...

A string of by-elections on Thursday demonstrate the potential and the pitfalls of a progressive alliance across the UK. The clearest conclusion is that this is complex. Richmond is miles away from Sleaford, in every sense, and it would be too easy to see Telford and Tonbridge as similar. The...

I cannot have been alone in my reaction to last week's Autumn Budget announcements from Philip Hammond in which the government promises that underpinned the austerity agenda for the last six years were at last pronounced officially dead. What I couldn’t stop thinking about was the huge toll...

Politics has been grim for a long time. But today we woke up with a smile. The Tories, UKIP and the candidate they backed in Richmond Park were defeated. He was defeated by a margin so narrow that we can say the Progressive Alliance made a difference. The politics of hard Brexit and soft...

I want to address two issues: to review the Richmond Park “revolution”, its implications and the lessons learned; and secondly to offer practical help to Labour CLPs to enable them to   help develop a Progressive Alliance aimed at achieving the election of a sustainable left of centre...

The Right (yet again) takes advantage of the crisis The Left is in retreat or unable to break through. And there is more to come. These reversals have taken place in the context of a profound crisis of neoliberalism.  Inequalities have grown over recent decades, made worse by the 2008 Crash...

Christian Wolmar is standing as Labour candidate for Richmond in the December 1 by-election caused by Zac Goldsmith’s resignation. This may be a worthy cause. But please, Mr Wolmar, please, I beg you: stand down as left wing candidate and let Sarah Olney try to win the seat from...

Ahead of  the England vs Scotland game Mark Perryman  responds to FIFA’s Poppies ban The last time England played Scotland in a competitive match at Hampden Park was also in November, 1999, it was preceded by none of the manufactured row about whether the teams should have poppies...

So long as we operate on the premise of an abstract and immanentist national unity, political parties and the false economies upon which they operate will thrive. It is finally election day in the US and soon the drawn out, often intolerable, play of American electoral politics will come to a...

When will we ever learn? Brexit, as terrible as it was, was not the wake up call to the progressive sentiment. Now we have Brexit x10. The victory of Donald Trump. But what do we expect when we stand establishment candidates who helped create the conditions for Trumpism? Clintonism and Blairism,...

We had over 60 people come along to the Compass meeting on Thursday 20 October, with a range of perspectives, political leanings and opinions on how to affect change. One issue that preoccupies the residents of South Barking (Thamesside) above all others, and it’s not the one you might...

‘The context for a World Without Poverty’ is a paper that is part of a series for a project that the Webb Memorial Trust (WMT) and Compass conduct together to develop a Theory and Practice of Change for a World Without Poverty. The aim of this project is to look at how poverty can be...

In our world, dominated by neoliberalism, we feel that human beings know perfectly well the best way to pursue their own self-interest. But the huge power of conditioning, exerted by mass media on individuals, when it comes to deciding which products they need or which politicians they should...

This piece is a response to John Mills’ challenge, ‘We need to rebalance the British Economy‘. In her first big party conference speech, Britain’s new prime minister rode the wave of populist revolt that swept Britain before 23 June, 2016. “This is our generation’s moment” she...

Almost as quickly as Zac Goldsmith announced his resignation this week, talk turned to the other parties in the race: should they clear the way for a candidate with a better chance of beating him? Within hours, we had articles about ‘progressive alliances’ – pacts of left-of-centre...

The question of a Progressive Alliance is now on the political agenda. Calls for an anti-tory alliance are heard from figures as diverse as Corbynite MP Clive Lewis, Corbyn aligned journalist Paul Mason and elements in the SNP, Plaid and notably the Greens. Compass supports saying “thousands...

In the weeks and months following the 23rd June, there has been no shortage of insightful commentators queuing up to explain the root causes of the Brexit vote. Most of us on the left have grown weary of sitting through seemingly endless meetings in small airless rooms while a journalist or...

A progressive alliance isn’t something we build for the future, but something we can create right now. Zac Goldsmith has given us a chance in Richmond Park – we must take it. Today Compass is issuing the following statement calling on Labour and the Greens to give the Liberal Democrats a...

The left lives in two worlds at exactly the same time. In one world the left is in a grave existential crisis. This is the left of the 20th century. This left will do its good things to you and for you, and you will be grateful, so that you vote for it again. And so it goes on. This is the left...