Now is the time for a real debate about the future of the Labour Party and its decisive role in British politics. Labour needs to restore trust, build confidence and reconnect with voters. The way to achieve this is to provide an objective critique of Labour's record in office and consider openly and honestly what the future is for Labour. This book brings together the ideas of prominent figures on the left and right of the Party including MPs, Peers and activists. Contributors of the book...

"Education, education, education" has become an obsession for politicians and the public alike. It is seen as an economic panacea: an engine for growth and prosperity. But is there a link between increased spending on higher eductaion and economicgrowth? Professor Alison Wolf takes a critical look at successive governments' education policy and challenges many of the tenets of received wisdom: there are no economic reasons for spending more on higher education in order to stimulate growth....

Recent events such as the Brexit vote and the 2017 general election result highlight the erosion of traditional class identities and the decoupling of class from political identity. The majority of people in the UK still identify as working class, yet no political party today can confidently articulate their interests. So who is now working class and how do political parties gain their support?Based on the opinions and voices of lower and middle income voters, this insightful book ...

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE... BANKING? DRUG REGULATION? NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT? PROSTITUTION? PENSIONS? It's no secret that a myriad of long-term problems facing our society are not effectively dealt with by our current system of government; indeed, many are simply set aside and disappear completely from the short-term political agenda. Why? Because they are 'too difficult' to solve. From immigration to welfare reform, from climate change to media regulation, the biggest issues consisten...

Nick Tiratsoo and Jim Tomlinson describe and assess the Labour Party's development of a policy of improving industrial efficiency. They concentrate on the debates and initiatives of the wartime period and subsequent implementation of policy under Attlee. The book modifies existing historiography in two ways - it shows that the Labour Party of 1945-51 was concerned mainly with industrial modernization, not with creating the Welfare State, and it tackles the consequently necessary re-evaluat...

Brexit – a revolutionary moment in British politics. Voters in long-forgotten English towns made their disenchantment clear, overwhelmingly voting to 'take back control' from a remote and defective economic system. Despite this decisive message in 2016, the concerns of these forgotten towns have continued to be all but ignored.David Skelton grew up in Consett, a north-eastern town where the steel industry has deep roots. When the steelworks closed almost forty years ago it lost eve...

A collection of stimulating essays exploring the wide-ranging debates surrounding the relationship between business and society in 21st century Ireland.Wide-ranging, diverse and thought-provoking contributions from leading business researchers, economists, sociologists and political scientists from Ireland and abroad probe five central themes: the making and unmaking of the Celtic Tiger; governance, regulation and justice; partnership and participation; the nature of Irish borders ...

'Jane Holgate is a brilliant thinker' - Jane McAleveyIn Arise, Jane Holgate argues that unions must revisit their understanding of power in order to regain influence and confront capital. Drawing on two decades of research and organising experience, Holgate examines the structural inertia of today’s unions from a range of perspectives: from strategic choice, leadership and union democracy to politics, tactics and the agency afforded to rank-and-file members.In the ...

The 2015 election result was a disaster for progressives in British politics, delivering a majority Conservative government at Westminster. And the outlook for the next election is not auspicious either, particularly amid the aftershocks of the momentous 2016 EU referendum result and with possible boundary changes in the offing.There is a growing recognition, however, that cross-party cooperation among the progressives could reinvigorate politics and inspire a credible alternative ...

Our sense of history shapes how we think about ourselves. One of the distinguishing features of the left in Britain is that it holds to a remorselessly bleak and miserabilist view of our recent political history -- one in which Margaret Thatcher's election in 1979 marked the start of a still-continuing fall from political grace made evident by the triumph of a free market get-what-you-can neoliberal ideology, dizzying levels of inequality, social decay, rampant individualism, state authori...

The Richer, The Poorer charts the rollercoaster history of both rich and poor and the mechanisms that link wealth and impoverishment. This landmark book shows how, for 200 years, Britain’s most powerful elites have enriched themselves at the expense of surging inequality, mass poverty and weakened social resilience.Stewart Lansley reveals how Britain’s model of ‘extractive capitalism’ – with a small elite securing an excessive slice of the economic cake – has created a two-century-...

The Labour Party is at a crossroads. Following its ejection from government, the reasons behind Labour's defeat have been hotly debated - but where to go from here? On the benches of opposition, with ample opportunity to consider how best to travel the path back to power, leading Labour figures are delving into the party's revisionist tradition to find an answer. The challenge now is how to return to the party's core principles, and it is to this challenge that The Purple Book offers a fir...