When we come to look back at the history of the NHS over the current decade, with closure of local services causing anguish across the country, we may see this as the time when we were bound overly tightly to the idea that the clinician always knows best. Indeed, this government’s blind faith in the …

In an interview with Progress last year, Labour’s shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle called for East Coast trains to remain in the public sector in the long term. At the time this represented a shift in the party’s policy. When the previous operator National Express collapsed in 2009 and the government took responsibility for running …

The publication of the Francis report on the scandal at Mid-Staffs has prompted a grown-up debate with both the coalition and Labour giving considered responses. Both parties rightly promised to avoid a river of new regulations but key differences in approach nevertheless emerged. The report, it must be said, offers some devastating verdicts on past …

There is a quiet revolution going on in England’s schools. They have discovered that implementing controversial Labour legislation on trust schools and academies, coupled with the coalition’s manic passion for the latter, does not mean that school communities must be divided, isolated or divorced from accountable local authorities and other community institutions. The Cooperative Schools …

Recent reports have reminded us that around one in four primary schools currently have no male teacher. It’s not a new problem but, until recently, the efforts to improve the entry of men into the profession were struggling, and a sense of fatalism seemed to have taken hold. Where children are affected by separation of …

At worst, Labour looked conservative and swayed by producer interests in its final stage in government and early years of opposition. Today, Andy Burnham positioned the party as a powerful agent of change, based on the vision of ending fear of old age. In so doing, he avoided some of the mistakes made by the …

Following the much-criticised police and crime commissioner elections on 15 November, controversy and recrimination abound. Post-election analysis reveals considerable public disquiet about both the concept of PCCs and the conduct of the elections. The Labour party, which opposed the legislation, must learn the important lessons from this fiasco and prepare its own policy in time …

1 December marks the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. The aim of the report was to change welfare as voters had known it. Seven decades on it hasn’t quite turned out like that. Both William Beveridge, and, more importantly, Clement Attlee, were clear that welfare should be both based on and be driven by …

The Purple Papers and Steve Van Riel’s chapter on Public Services and Political Choices rightly emphasise that there are no pain-free options for public services in the future. They accurately describe the risks and trade-offs which a future Labour government would have to navigate. Van Riel is right to point out that pretty much any …

Those hoping for insight at conference into Labour’s future health policy were left clear about the party’s animosity to the Health and Social Care Act but none the wiser about what would animate it in government. Will Labour find a moral purpose on health as it seems likely to do on social care? The party …