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The Abundance of Caution: an authoritative essay by Anthony Barnett sets out the case against 42 Days

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The next left -Life after the Labour Party: Gerry Hassan sees a historic opportunity for the emergence of a post-New Labour left.

Scottish Labour, where's the coffee?: Gerry Hassan assesses the prospects for Scottish Labour and its new leader.

Lesson for the Left from Chile to Britain: Hassan Akram offers a global perspective on Labour's malaise.

From Milibland to Johnson land?: Jeremy Gilbert argues for Labour without neo-liberalism.

Magical thinking on Britishness: Anthony Barnett critiques Liam Byrne on fraternity.

Rule of law at risk: Geoffrey Bindman calls for a turn away from the marketisation of government.

A new Bill of Rights for Britain?: Guy Aitchison analyses Parliament's proposed new Bill of Rights.

Miliband - by our rights we will know you: Claire O'Brien puts forward a new progressive vision for Labour.

Recapturing liberal Britain: David Marquand challenges Labour's constitutional orthodoxy.

Miliband and the Liberal Democrats: James Graham on the case for realignment.

What is Labour's British story?: Writing from Scotland, Gerry Hassan widens the OurKingdom debate on Labour's future.

This is not Brown's crisis but Britain's: David Marquand says social democracy is bust and Britain may be too.

The Challenges for Miliband's Progressive Fusion: Fabian Society head Sunder Katwala responds to David Miliband.

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England, Britain and multiculturalism: an OurKingdom exchange

A mild awakening?, England's turn? by David Goodhart

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The Obama effect

Anthony Barnett, 6 - 11 - 2008
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Anthony Barnett (London, OK):  In a brief post in the Times David Lammy MP, the Minister for Skills, who met Obama some years back at Harvard writes about the impact of his election. He says,

In the end politics is not the art of the possible: far from it. It is the art of making things possible.

There is a very important issue here with New Labour. Indeed, Lammy was the first member of the government to engage with the argument about the political class (we reproduced it in OK) and has a broader understanding of this than Hazel Blears. But traditional, Clinton-loving, triangulating New Labour had a very different 'practical' approach. He reports,

I came back from America and told people that I believed the first black president was already waiting to step forward. They thought I was mad.

Who could those 'they' be, I wonder!

 

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Justin Pickard said:

Thu, 2008-11-06 13:33

Of course, even if true, the phrase "[t]hey thought I was mad" has certain pop-cultural undertones.  Presumably, Lammy is some kind of mad scientist.

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