Free Milk : a blog

Thankfully, someone has finally said it. Labour needs to find an alternative response to the Coalition's cuts rather than just opposing them as though cuts under Labour were inconceivable. Yesterday, Pat MacFadden's Fabian lecture began to articulate the argument that Labour needs to make before voters wi... Topics: Con-Dem Nation , Economy , Labour , Politics More

I was at Ed Miliband's launch of his leadership bid at the Fabian conference on the weekend. One of the points Ed made was that Labour Party was sometimes guilty of believing that membership was about no more than delivering a leaflet. It is not hard to see why a party which had been out of power for 18 years might regard an outward-looking campaigning mode as a useful way forward, and a retur... Topics: Community , Labour , Politics More

I've been reflecting a bit this last week on what is going on around us at the moment and having stood as a Labour candidate in the election for Beaconsfield, wondered how the election prepared us for the outcome we now have. We seem to have ended up with a PR outcome without a PR election - we campaigned on the zero sum game basis of a conventional election, and the voters didn't believe any... Topics: Con-Dem Nation , Labour , Politics More

I am really proud to be a mentor on The Young Foundation's UpRising programme for young leaders in East London and this week, in the middle of the election campaign, I was really delighted to see the fantastic response to the public Question Time with local politicians, which m... Topics: Community , Local government , Politics More

It is a long time since I’ve read a piece with as many references to “the working class” as Philip Blond’s speech on launching the new Tory think-tank ResPublica last week. He seems to have the same relationship with the “working class” as A-level history students might have to the Chartists or the Levellers – ... Topics: Community , Democracy , Economy More