A Free Left Blog

At its most basic level, the left’s core problem when it gets into trouble (as now) is falling into expecting those who don’t take responsibility for themselves to be the responsibility of those who do take responsibility for themselves. This is rather than expecting people who don’t take responsibility for themselves to start taking responsibility for themselves. You can broaden this out to cover countries and societies: that on the left we expect that those who don’t govern themselves decently and effectively should be the responsibility of those who do take responsibility for themselves. (Our version of colonialism there, and with the irony that we then blame those who do take responsibility for themselves for being indecent and immoral when they don’t take it on for others).   The victim mentality is an offshoot of this more basic stance, with victim status putting you under the responsibility (again, ironically) of those who are apparently making you the victim. T...

This article was originally published on LabourList on 15th March 2011. Freedom and democracy are not things that the Labour Party does altogether well. The party leadership election and Tower Hamlets mayoral contest represent the tip of an iceberg of dissatisfaction and anger for many members concerning internal democratic processes. As for freedom, the word barely gets a look-in in Labour circles except when talking of foreign countries. In the Labour Party, we are not alone in this. Britain as a whole is in something of a rut when it comes to democracy. Participation in elections and in political parties is way down over time, and faith in democratic politics badly damaged. When it comes to freedom, many of us take for granted basic freedoms of thought, speech, conscience and movement. On the liberal-left, the political wind has blown in some mysterious ways, to the extent that some self-styled liberals have developed an alarming tendency to aggressively shout do...