A Free Left Blog

It has often been said that while the right has won the economic battles of the last few decades, the left (in its various liberal and pseudo-liberal forms) has conclusively won the social war. This seems incontrovertible in Western Europe and America at least. I won’t go into the political triumph of economic liberalism here because: 1) it’s not what I’m talking about here and 2) it’s a bit technical and boring. But it’s good to reflect on social liberalism’s success, which is largely the story of a basic positive and righteous progression of politics from ‘not-so-good’ to ‘a lot better’. In Britain we are much better off, or perhaps better to say we are more civilised , for the reforms and changed social attitudes that have come with the triumph of social liberalism during the last Labour governments. From free museums admission, the ‘ right to roam’ , free bus travel for pensioners and civil partnerships for gay couples, we have been freed up to live our lives more how...

Margaret Thatcher’s comment that ‘ there is no such thing as society ’ has a totemic significance on the left. It serves as the trademark of an uncaring, right-wing ideologue who believed in selfishness as opposed to solidarity and community, to the extent that she didn’t even recognise the ties that bind us in society. The thing is – and this is coming from a lefty – she was actually right. The infamous phrase was uttered in an interview for Woman’s Own in 1987, in which she said : “ Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first .” She said it in full a little later: “ There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us...

The novelist Doris Lessing has been called a ‘feminist icon’ but had some withering words for modern-day feminists before she died last year. At the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2001, she said: “ What I really can't stand about the feminist revolution is that it produced some of the smuggest, most unselfcritical people the world has ever seen. They are horrible ." She added: " It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests . " Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did ." I have had my fair share of shouty abuse from feminist mobs online and can certainly sympathise with what Lessing says, even though I would pull away from calling all of these people ‘awful’; indeed they are often perfectly pleasant when separated from this side of their politics. It is ofte...