Democracy, collective action, and the state: an exchange
Renewal - ISSN 0968-5211
Volume 19 Number 3-4 (2011)
Democracy, collective action, and the state: an exchange
Mark Stears, Tim Horton pages -
Abstract
From: Marc Stears
To: Tim Horton
Dear Tim
I hope you share my sense that this is an exciting time to be thinking anew about Labour and the priorities of the British left. There is an energy about Labour at the moment which is both sorely needed and stimulating to see.
It didn’t necessarily seem as if it would be this way a year ago. The Labour leadership race did not really generate any great sense of debate or new direction in the Party. Perhaps it was just too muted because of the fact that the two leading candidates were brothers or perhaps it was because we were still all too stunned by the election defeat. But now I hope we will both agree that there is a sense that the Party is finding a direction again. Ed Miliband is also providing effective leadership both on short-term issues and on the long-term challenges facing Britain.
Where perhaps we might disagree is in the role that so-called ‘Blue Labour’ has played in this re-energising of the Party.
It seems to me that, for all of its faults, the debate that has surrounded ‘Blue Labour’, and that emerged from the e-book that launched that debate, The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox, has contributed significantly (Glasman et al., 2011). It has helped the Party find a new agenda and re-connect with parts of the public that had become distanced and detached during the last years of the previous Labour government.
To cite this article
Mark Stears, Tim Horton (2011) Democracy, collective action, and the state: an exchange, Renewal, 19(3-4 ), -