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•A Guardian Book of the Day•The defeat of socialist firebrand Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2019 confirmed Tony Benn's famous retort'the Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it.'For over a hundred years, the British Labour Party has been a bastion for working class organisation and struggle. However, has it ever truly been on the side of the workers? Where do its interests really lie? And can we rely on it to provide a barrier against right-wing forces?Simon Hannah's smart and succinct history of the Labour left guides us through the twists and turns of the party, from the Bevanite movement and the celebrated government of Clement Attlee, through the emergence of a New Left in the 1970s and the Blairism of the 1990s, to Corbyn's defeat and his replacement by Keir Starmer.This new edition is updated throughout, with a new final chapter and conclusion bringing the story up to date.

A plan to win for the British left, from the co-founder of MomentumOur Bloc is a blueprint for a new combination of left-wing forces in Britain. James Schneider proposes a movement-party organisation that acts in society and in the Labour Party, through which party members, social movements, trade unions and socialist-inclined MPs could coordinate their political work. He adapts Chantal Mouffe's theory of left populism to set out how the bloc could popularise socialist ideas and bend the parameters of politics towards its demands.Socialist perspectives are now rarely heard in mainstream public debate, after five years under Jeremy Corbyn when the left had some success in shaping political discourse. There is a large base of potential activists and an even larger section of the population available for mobilisation, but no central force to unite and organise them.Calls to ‘stay and fight'against Keir Starmer's failing leadership of the Labour Party are inadequate: socialists need a platform from which to do it. Schneider presents his Left Bloc as a pole of attraction for everyone seeking fundamental economic, social, political and environmental change. In this incisive book he sets out a plan for the next ten years: to build power, weaken our opponents and prepare ourselves for the next surge.

'A limpid biography at its finest... interesting and necessary'Oliver Rhodes, Reaction When Keir Starmer won the Labour Party Leadership election in April 2020, the expectation was that he would quickly become a fierce Leader of the Opposition. Instead, his performance was not as sure-footed as his supporters had hoped for, or his opponents feared. Nigel Cawthorne attended Starmer's grammar school a few years before him (and David Walliams). He goes in search of the man behind the headlines, the lawyer who was covered for almost three decades by a gown and horsehair wig in one of Britain's most cloistered professions.'Good on his legal career, and … grammar school… new to me.'Andrew Sparrow, Senior Political Correspondent Guardian

Book of the Day – The Guardian'Well-researched … well-written … even-handed … balanced.'– Baroness Hoey, The Critic'Red Knight is well written and researched and, I think, pretty fair.'– Daniel Finkelstein, The Times'Ashcroft has done his research and he does tell us important things about Starmer.'– The Independent'Well-researched, fair and objective … Lord Ashcroft's book is a great aid to answering questions [about Starmer] and posing a few more.'– TCW'Comprehensive.'– The Tablet'Surprisingly sympathetic.'– MoneyWeek ••• Sir Keir Starmer has played many parts during his life and career. He went from schoolboy socialist to radical lawyer before surprising many by joining the establishment, becoming Director of Public Prosecutions, accepting a knighthood and then, in 2015, standing successfully for Parliament. At Westminster, he was swiftly elevated to the shadow Cabinet, and in April 2020 he became the leader of the Labour Party. Michael Ashcroft's new book goes in search of the man who wants to be Prime Minister and reveals previously unknown details about him which help to explain what makes him tick. Starmer was the architect of Labour's second-referendum Brexit policy, which was considered a major factor in its worst electoral defeat for nearly a century. Is he the man to bring back Labour's lost voters? Is he the voice of competence and moderation who can put his party back on the political map? Or is he just a member of the metropolitan elite who is prepared to say and do whatever it takes to win favour? This meticulous examination of his life offers voters the chance to answer these vital questions.

This book provides a novel account of the Labour Party's years in opposition and power since 1979, examining how New Labour fought to reinvent post-war social democracy, reshaping its core political ideas. It charts Labour's sporadic recovery from political disaster in the 1980s, successfully making the arduous journey from opposition to power with the rise (and ultimately fall) of the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Forty years on from the 1979 debacle, Labour has found itself on the edge of oblivion once again. Defeated in 2010, it entered a further cycle of degeneration and decline. Like social democratic parties across Europe, Labour failed to identify a fresh ideological rationale in the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Drawing on a wealth of sources including interviews and unpublished papers, the book focuses on decisive points of transformational change in the party's development raising a perennial concern of present-day debate – namely whether Labour is a party capable of transforming the ideological weather, shaping a new paradigm in British politics, or whether it is a party that should be content to govern within parameters established by its Conservative opponents. This text will be of interest to the general reader as well as scholars and students of British politics, British political party history, and the history of the British Labour Party since 1918.

Stuart Hall was one of the most insightful and incisive critics of the Thatcher era. In this essential selection of his essays during the period, he elaborates both how Thatcher's rise to power exploited weakness in the left, but also how the left itself can refresh itself in the shadow of defeat. This collection is as vital today as it was in 1988. Through the essays Hall shows how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. This ranges through the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of'regressive modernization'.In response he elaborates a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.

This is an open and frank account of how someone from a railway family in a small East Midlands town went on to become a Cabinet Minister serving in the Ministry of Defence as Britain conducted difficult and demanding operations in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. It sets out his political career from his earliest days knocking on doors for the Labour Party through to his becoming a Euro-MP, an MP for eighteen years and a Cabinet Minister for almost ten years. It describes his careers as an academic, lawyer, politician and in international business, as well as his commitment to conservation and protecting the environment.

In post-war Britain, left-wing policy maker and sociologist Michael Young played a major role in shaping British intellectual, political, and cultural life, using his study of the social sciences to inform his political thought. In the mid-twentieth century the social sciences significantly expanded, and played a major role in shaping British intellectual, political and cultural life. Central to this intellectual shift was the left-wing policy maker and sociologist Michael Young. As a Labour Party policy maker in the 1940s, Young was a key architect of the Party's 1945 election manifesto,'Let Us Face the Future'. He became a sociologist in the 1950s, publishing a classic study of the East London working class, Family and Kinship in East London with Peter Willmott in 1957, which he followed up with a dystopian satire, The Rise of the Meritocracy, about a future society in which social status was determined entirely by intelligence. Young was also a prolific social innovator, founding or inspiring dozens of organisations, including the Institute of Community Studies, the Consumers'Association, Which?magazine, the Social Science Research Council and the Open University. Moving between politics, social science, and activism, Young believed that disciplines like sociology, psychology and anthropology could help policy makers and politicians understand human nature, which in turn could help them to build better political and social institutions. This book examines the relationship between social science and public policy in left-wing politics between the end of the Second World War and the end of the first Wilson government through the figure of Michael Young. Drawing on Young's prolific writings, and his intellectual and political networks, it argues that he and other social scientists and policy makers drew on contemporary ideas from the social sciences to challenge key Labour values, like full employment and nationalisation, and to argue that the Labour Party should put more emphasis on relationships, family, and community. Showing that the social sciences were embedded in the project of social democratic governance in post-war Britain, it argues that historians and scholars should take their role in British politics and political thought seriously

Tony Blair was the political colossus in Britain for thirteen years, winning three elections in a row for New Labour, two of them by huge majorities. However, since leaving office he has been disowned by many in his own party, with the term'Blairite'becoming an insult. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in 2015 seemed to be, if not an equal, at least an opposite reaction to Blair's long dominance of the centre and left of British politics. Drawing on new contributions from most of the main players in the Blair government, including Tony Blair himself, Jon Davis and John Rentoul reconsider the history and common view of New Labour against its record of delivering moderate social democracy. They show how New Labour was not one party but two, and how it essentially governed as a coalition, much like the government that followed it. This book tells the inside story of how Tony Blair worked out, late in the day, his ideas for improving the NHS and school reform; how he groped towards, and was eventually defined by, a foreign policy of liberal interventionism; how he managed a difficult relationship with his Chancellor for ten years; and how Gordon Brown finally took over just as the boom went bust and the New Labour era came to an end. Rentoul and Davis reveal how the governing tribes dealt with each other in the New Labour years: not simply the'Blairites'and the'Brownites', but the'temporary'ministers and the'permanent', under-reported civil servants who worked alongside them. Many of the arguments that raged within and around the Blair government of 1997-2007 remain very much alive: reform of public services; the right course for the divided Labour Party; and the Iraq war. The Blair Government Reconsidered aims at a balanced account of how decisions were made, to allow the reader to make up their own mind about controversies that still dominate politics today.

The return of British socialism: Where does it comes from? Why now? And where is it going?The remarkable advance of'Corbynism'did not emerge from nowhere. It is the product of developments in socialist and working-class politics over the past forty years and more. The Thatcher era witnessed a wholesale attack on the post war consensus and welfare state, through a regime of deregulation, attacks on the unions, privatisations, and globalisation. However, at the same time, there has been a persistent resistance to the growing powers of neo-liberalism - yet this side of the story is rarely told as it was considered to be a history of defeat. Yet out of this struggle emerged a thoroughly modern socialism. This book is essential reading for those who want to know where Corbynism comes from: the policies, personalities and moments of resistance that has produced this new horizon. This includes the story of power struggles within the Labour Party, and the eventual defeat of New Labour. The movements outside it - trade unions, feminists groups, anti-fascists activists, anti-war protestors - that have driven the policies of the movement forward. And the powerful influence of international groups that have shaped the potential for a global progressive politics.

During the summer of 2018, numerous members of the Labour Party were accused of anti-Semitic behaviour by their detractors. The controversy reached fever pitch amid claims that the Labour Party had become'institutionally racist'under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and that the prospect of a Corbyn-led government posed an'existential threat'to Jewish life in Britain. Shrouded in confusion, hyped by the media, whether these accusations were true or not got lost in the mix. This book clears the confusion by drawing on deep and original research on public beliefs and media representation of antisemitism and the Labour Party, revealing shocking findings of misinformation spread by the press, including the supposedly impartial BBC, and the liberal Guardian. Bringing in discussions around the IHRA definition, anti-Zionism and Israel/Palestine, as well as including a clear chronology of events, this book is a must for anyone wanting to find out the reality behind the headlines.

Shortlisted for the Political Books Awards'Best Parliamentary Memoir 2018'Austin Mitchell is a political maverick. For thirty-eight years he was a fly in the parliamentary ointment, a recurring itch on the body politic. A maverick may annoy the whips, threaten party discipline and challenge the solemnities of Parliament. Troublemakers they may well be, but the Commons would certainly be a duller place without them. However Mitchell's dissidence wasn't all bitterness without volume control. Rattling the cage, swimming against the tide, pursuing honourable causes and, of course, fighting for his constituency, Grimsby, proved a rewarding career in itself. Confessions of a Political Maverick succeeds in uncovering the realities behind the pretentious parliamentary facade of tradition and the stuffy complacency of Britain's failing political class. Dissenting from the peculiar and highly particular conformity of career politicians dedicated to climbing the greasy pole can be a lonely role, but it can also be fun. It certainly was for Austin Mitchell.

‘Liam is one of Britain's most brilliant young writers. He was ridiculed for believing a Corbyn-led Labour party could inspire people – but ultimately completely vindicated. If you want to know why the youth surge happened, this is an absolute must-read.'Owen JonesThe 2017 general election saw Jeremy Corbyn inspire young people to demand a new kind of socialism. Now, from the heart of the Labour Party, Liam Young asks how this new movement can help secure a fairer and better society for all. When Jeremy Corbyn decided to stand for the Labour leadership in 2015, Liam Young - then just 19 years old - knew this was a watershed moment for the party and for young people across the country. He joined Corbyn's campaign and was soon writing for the Independent and the New Statesman, explaining how the new leader would energise the youth vote and bring forward a new kind of politics. While many commentators questioned Corbyn's actions, Young wrote about how his policies would work and be hugely popular. He harnessed the power of social media and is emerging as one of the most influential voices on the left for his generation and beyond. When the general election results of 2017 came through, he was not surprised by the surge in support for Corbyn's Labour.Rise is not only a superb insider account of how the youth movement in the Labour Party galvanised a nation that will appeal to readers of books by Owen Jones and Paul Mason, but it is also a manifesto for the future and a call to action for anyone who believes it should be possible to create a better Britain.