Emeritus Prof Christopher MayJul 1, 2025

Stephen Bush (FT) makes the case that:

'Labour’s first year in office has gone so badly because the party never developed a theory for holding office, as opposed to just acquiring it. Time is running out for them to develop one soon enough for it to be of any use this side of the next election'!

Without a clear central political rationale for governance, policy decisions are reactive (to some extent all Govt.s decisions are) but reveal no real guiding principles!

Many will agree!

#politics

Show threadDonald Roy
@ChrisMayLA6 The problem is that #UKLaɓour is unsure what world it is operating in. There are those who see the world as one of #postdemocracy - a term coined by #colincrouch more than a quarter of a century back - in which though formal institutions may remain political parties are reduced to electoral machines at best and policy discussions limited to experts at best but more often lobbyists. #colincrouch saw both the #italy of #silvioberlusconi and the #uk of #tonyblair as examples of this.
Jul 1, 2025 at 10:43amWeb
Show threadDonald RoyJul 1, 2025
@ChrisMayLA6 Others see it as somewhere where the classic social democratic model where a mass party linked formally or otherwise to organised labour still has traction. The case for this has been best set out by #davidbrady in 'Rich Democracies, Poor People' . It seems likely that the #labourparty members, the #tradesunions and most of the #parliamentarylabourparty believe they are living in a #davidbrady world - unfortunately it is not clear whether those in charge in #downingstreet do!
Show threadEmeritus Prof Christopher MayJul 1, 2025

@djr2024

Yes, I've seen the UK typified as poor country with rich elite (who one might add control the political class)... but to be frank, as the GDP per capita data reveal we are no longer the top rank country we often think we are.... now the pessimistic aspect of that is to say we can no longer afford the welfare state we once had, but the optimistic is to see this position as a function not of 'natural' economic forces but actually decades of economic mismanagement which can be changed!