Tuesday 22 September 2009

Fabian Review out now

The Fabian Review Party Conference Special is out today. A few things have already been mentioned on the blog and on our website - our polling that shows women are turning towards the Tories, Mary Riddell's interview with Douglas Alexander, and Peter Kellner's controversial article on why Labour must prepare for defeat.

There is plenty more inside the magazine. Sunder outlines a strategy for how Labour should use the 200 days between Conference and the election campaign. This is the theme of the cover too:


How Labour should use power informs quite a few pieces on the different election battlegrounds: New Statesman political correspondent James Macintrye looks at how electoral reform can win back lost progressives; Dan Paskins on how action on child poverty could help in key marginals; Yvette Cooper says that the country still needs Labour values; and Liam Byrne, Oona King, Richard Reeves, David Blunkett and Ken Morgan amongst others offer ideas for specific policy initiatives for the next 6 months.

We also aren't ignoring the elephant in the room: the Tories. The left is starting to engage in a more serious way about what the Cameron project really is and whether it actually means anything to the rest of the party - and there has been a lot of debate here on Next Left about Phillip Blond and his Red Tory project. We posed some questions to Phillip and to ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie to try and get a handle on who is actually running the Conservative Party - whether Labour is legitimate in saying Dave's mask will slip (or indeed has slipped) to reveal the same old Tories, or whether the 'progressive Conservatives' are on to something more substantial, which requires a more nuanced and engaged respose from the left. See Adrian Teal's illustration of 'the battle for the Tory brain' below:
(Used with permission of Adrian Teal - any enquires about image reproduction rights please contact adrian@tealcartoons.co.uk)

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