I was really pleased to see Paul Cotterill write a reply to my recent article, Selective Memory, on the increased time and financial costs recently added by the organisational subcommittee of the NEC to Labour’s selections process. In the piece I argue that Labour should establish two principles when developing its selection process. First, that …

New rules will not bring more working-class candidates By Richard Angell —Last year’s conference saw Labour adopt a rule change which pledged it to ‘select more candidates who reflect the full diversity of our society … and to increase working-class representation’. In its first meeting of the new year, Labour’s organisation subcommittee of the National …

Every time Labour loses a general election, it does worse the time after. 1983 was worse than 1979, and the same is true of 1955 following Attlee’s 1951 defeat. The only time we bounced straight back was in 1974 and that was on a lower share of the vote than the one that had seen …

Candidates for city mayors face a breakneck selection process While the people of London are choosing whether they want to return Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson to City Hall, the citizens of 10 of the country’s biggest cities outside the capital will be deciding if they too want to have a directly elected mayor. As …

Progress deputy director Richard Angell addressed the International Union of Socialist Youth in Austria yesterday on the legacy of New Labour and next steps for social democracy in an era of no money, and Ed Miliband and Liam Byrne’s work on the ‘new centre ground’. New Labour as a political project was born out of …

We should automatically trigger primaries where party membership falls below a certain threshold, says Richard Angell

Everyone at Progress is saddened and shocked at the untimely passing of our friend and colleague, David Cairns.
 
His hard work for the people of Inverclyde goes without saying, but his work to pursue a better and more progressive politics for the country as whole is what made him so special. His ability to articulate political feeling and ideas was always engaging and often extremely funny.
 
As a MP and former government minister he had a massive impact on our politics but we are all sure he had so much more to give. He will be missed by everyone at Progress but it is politics more widely that will now lack his unique insights and the ideas he had to give as the Labour party looks to the future.
 
Our thoughts are with his partner Dermot, his father John, his brother Billy and all his many friends and family.

Labour's early parliamentary selections in the ‘island' seats are a chance to pioneer a new type of politics

Labour selections are long due an overhaul, but are new proposals a step backwards?

Last night I was with the Labour club at Kent University, a great group of people keen to win back their local council for Labour and fighting to keep us on the southern political landscape. What struck me on my fifth visit to Kent since we lost the general election, is how few others have made the same journey.