Category: Blog

Blog
Martin Yuille

Pragmatism: The Vision We Need

Critics of our Labour government say it has no “vision.” Starmer, they say, has abandoned hope in favour of cold pragmatism. Labour should have a vision that brings hope to people and not crush hope with hard matter-of-factness. This criticism is erroneous. The error may arise from a lack of

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Blog
Helen Garrod

Looking Back on Progress with Helen Garrod

I was there (almost) at the beginning of Progress. In those first days in 1996 it was Derek Draper and Kate Dixon; then I turned up, initially as an intern, to process the backlog of magazine subscriptions and somehow stayed. I remember my “interview” with Kate as not really an

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Blog
Progress

Britain needs a new tax settlement for the age of AI

Consider the following scenario: a marketing executive takes on a large new client and needs to scale up their advertising operations. They face a choice between two options: they can employ a person, or they can pay a subscription for an AI agent. But our tax system means the playing

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Blog
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter MP

Electoral Reform is the Key to Social Democratic Renewal

We are reaching a tipping point. Around the world, democracy is under assault from a combination of disinformation on social media, an emboldened far-right, and economic inequalities fuelling dissatisfaction with the status quo. Outdated institutions are dying hard and fast, and Westminster’s voting system is one of them. Academics and

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Blog
Adam Langleben

On Peter Mandelson

There is no point pretending otherwise: the last few days have been bruising. The name on everyone’s lips is Peter Mandelson. Among many others from the New Labour era, he has had a long association with Progress, and for that reason alone it would be dishonest to dodge the issue

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Blog
Gary Kent

Building a decent left and backing the Iranian revolution

Ninety years ago, the Spanish civil war pitted an elected popular front government against Franco’s fascist forces actively supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Take a look at Picasso’s famous painting of the Nazi bombing of Guernica now displayed at the UN. Left-wingers urgently pressed the UK’s Conservative Government to arm

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