Back to the Future: On the British liberal left’s return to its origins (original) (raw)

The Conservative Party and new media : a comparative history, 1951-1964 and 2005-2012

Royal Holloway, University of London, 2013

This comparative history seeks to understand the impact of new media in the Conservative Party. It does this with the analysis of case studies of original empirical research that are used to form cultural histories of the party 1951-1964 and 2005-2012. Both periods were characterised by significant techno-cultural advances in Britain in the form of television and the internet, respectively. This thesis asks, firstly, what role the advent of television played within the party, 1951-1964; and, secondly, what role the I would like to convey my sincere appreciation to my Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Currents of Neo-Liberalism: British Political Ideologies and the New Right, c. 1955-1979

English Historical Review, 2016

This article investigates the emergence of neo-liberalism in Britain and its intellectual relationship with each of the three main British political ideologies. The article distinguishes between different currents of neo-liberalism that have been absorbed into British political thought, and shows that this process to some extent pre-dated the electoral success of Thatcherism in the 1980s. The article further suggests that labelling recent British political discourse as unvarnished ‘neo-liberalism’, while at times analytically useful, simplifies a more complicated picture, in which distinctively neo-liberal ideas have been blended in different ways into the ideologies of British Liberalism, Conservatism and even Labour socialism. The article therefore turns the spotlight on a more obscure aspect of the making of British neo-liberalism by exploring how politicians and intellectuals of varying partisan stripes generated policy discourses that presented neo-liberal ideas as an authentic expression of their own ideological traditions. Perhaps the most surprising finding of this article, then, is that neo-liberalism, although frequently characterised as rigid and dogmatic, has in fact proved itself to be a flexible and adaptable body of ideas, capable of colonising territory right across the political spectrum.

Culture Wars: the media and the left in Britain, 2nd edition

2018

Culture Wars investigates the relationship between the media and politics in Britain today. It focusses on how significant sections of the national press have represented and distorted the policies of the Labour Party, and particularly its left, from the Thatcher era up to and including Ed Miliband’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s leaderships. Revised and updated, including five brand new chapters, this second edition shows how press hostility to the left, particularly newspaper coverage of its policies on race, gender and sexuality, has morphed into a more generalised campaign against ‘political correctness’, the ‘liberal elite’ and the so-called ‘enemies of the people’. Combining fine-grained case studies with authoritative overviews of recent British political and media history, Culture Wars demonstrates how much of the press have routinely attacked Labour and, in so doing, have abused their political power, distorted public debate and negatively impacted the news agendas of public service ...

Post-liberalism: the new centre-ground of British politics

Brexit and support for anti-establishment insurgencies suggest that British politics is moving away from the old left-right opposition towards a new divide between the defenders and detractors of progressive liberalism. As the essay suggests, progressive liberalism differs significantly from both classical and new liberalism. It fuses free-market economics with social egalitarianism and identity politics. Both the hard left and the radical right reject this combination and want to undo a number of liberal achievements. British politics is also moving in a post-liberal direction. In the economy, post-liberalism signals a shift from rampant market capitalism to economic justice and reciprocity. In society, it signals a shift from individualism and egalitarianism to social solidarity and fraternal relations. And politically, it signals a shift from the minority politics of vested interests and group identity to a majority politics based on a balance of interests, shared identity and the embedding of state and market in the intermediary institutions of civil society. This essay argues that post-liberalism is redefining Britain’s political centre-ground in an age where neither progressive liberalism nor reactionary anti-liberalism commands majority support. First, it charts the ascendancy of progressive liberalism over the past quarter-century. Second, it contrasts anti-liberal reactions with post-liberal alternatives before exploring why earlier iterations of post-liberalism failed to gain traction with the political mainstream. Third, it provides a discussion and critique of Theresa May’s post-liberal conservatism, notably the tension between free-market globalisation and free trade on the one hand, and the support for national industry and the indigenous working class, on the other hand.

The Left in Britain in the Twentieth Century

International Labor and Working-Class History, 2000

The eleventh annual conference of the Institute of Contemporary British History was held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, July 12–16, 1999. The first day was largely concerned with British Marxist and socialist movements; the second concentrated on the trade unions and comparative perspectives; the third and fourth days focused on the Labour party; and the conference concluded with a day on the future of the Left. The conference was male-dominated to about the same proportion as most university departments in Britain, but the age range of participants was broad and involved doctoral students as well as professors. Only two papers were presented on women in the labor movement, and although participants addressed issues concerned with identity and ethnicity, there was nothing directly concerned with imperialism or immigrants from Britain's former colonies and their British-born offspring.

Back to the Past: Notes towards a Conservative Revolution

Back to the Past: Notes towards a Conservative Revolution, 2023

Preliminary draft version of my paper to be presented at The Conservative Critique of Liberalism Workshop, to be held on 19th-20th January, 2023, at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. Workshop organized by Dr David McGrogan of Northumbria Law School and Dr Martin Beckstein of the University of Goettingen.

Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956

2014

"Against the Grain" is the first general history of the British far left to be published in the twenty-first century. Its contents cover a range of organisations beyond the Labour Party, bringing together leading experts on British left-wing politics to examine issues of class, race and gender from 1956 to the present day. The essays collected here are designed to highlight the impact made by the far left on British politics and society. Though the predicted revolution did not come, organisations such as the International Socialists, the International Marxist Group and Militant became household names in the 1970s and 1980s. Taken as a whole, the collection demonstrates the extent to which the far left has weaved its influence into the political fabric of Britain.

'The Break-up of the Political Ice Age': The Legacy of the First New Left in Britain, 1956-1970

"The study discusses the relationship between the first New Left in Britain in 1956 and the later, more widely recognised, New Left movement that appeared in the 1960s. Drawing on key contemporary arguments from scholars such as Paul Blackledge, Madeleine Davis and Michael Kenny, the paper contends that the first New Left was more than a failed attempt to transform British politics and the Labour movement of the 1950s and sixties, and, despite previous historical criticism, did not disappear in 1962 after changes within the New Left Review. Through an engagement with archival material and New Left journals, this study discusses how the movement, as it first appeared in 1956, amounted to a revival of a radical intellectual culture in Britain that was crucial to the political and cultural changes of the sixties. "