Some interesting observations from The Independent’s Steve Richards on British Labour’s excessive caution and centralisation of leadership. that seem very relevant to the ALP. First referring to hopeful suggestions from the new British government about prison reform as part of a general evaluation of New Labour’s ‘reformism’:
The end of British Labour?
Not going well for British Labour as it desperately evokes the memory of past achievements. There are other examples recently of once major political parties collapsing to third (or less) party status: Israeli Labour or the Polish social democrats are examples. Is the problem with British Labour that its institutions and practices reflect a past […]
1.5 cheers for New Labour
British Labour is certainly in dire electoral trouble and there will be many on the left pleased exercise a posthumous revenge on Tony Blair. Yet the Blair-brown administration despite its flaw was a labour government even if of a strongly right-wing stamp. It was to a degree inevitable that there would be a reaction […]
Social democratic decomposition
Gosta Esping-Andersen developed the concept of ‘social democratic decomposition’. Inspired by the differential success of the anti-tax populist right in Scandinavia in the 1970s he argued that the policies of a social democratic party in government could impact not only on its day to day popularity but more fundamentally on the party’s social base. Adam […]