Lord Glasman: Now let’s define what a Future That Works really can be

The price of a successful political action is a constructive alternative.  That is a golden rule of democratic politics.  There comes a point in the public argument when people turn round to us and ask what we would do differently.  The message sent out from Saturday’s march was mixed.  While the message of ‘A Future that Works’ is a great one it is still unclear what it means.  It is absolutely clear what the March was against, cuts in the public sector, it is also clear that the solution, spending more money, does not resonate with the public to the same degree.  It is seen as dogmatic rather than constructive, sectional rather than for the common good.  We have the right slogan but not the right position to back it up.

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Lessons of the Living Wage

Maurice Glasman is speaking today at a Unions21 / Compass event on ‘Negotiating for Economic Democracy’, 1pm-2pm, Cobden 2, in the secure zone of Labour Party Conference in Manchester

For those of us who build their politics around the dignity of labour, the power of association and the centrality of free and democratic trade unions to a good society there are reasons to feel blue. Wages stagnate, work practices are degraded and the status of labour disregarded and yet trade unions do not flourish as the repository of the hopes of a decent life. The tragic paradox we confront is that there has never been a greater need for a robust trade union movement and yet there is continuous trade union decline and an intensification of its marginality where it is needed most, in the private sector.

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