New 'left-wing' think tank....

[Fedayn]

Centre for Labour and Social Studies. aka CLaSS

I know PCS and UNITE are backing it, but some of the names, well a lot of them on the Advisory Panel lead me to think the word 'middle' has been left out.....

 

[articul8]

Are PCS backing it? Don't see any of their names on the Advisory Panel, and their appears to be a pretty narrow orientation to Labour - plus Polly Toynbee, Sunny Hundal, Frances O'Grady, Zoe Williams

Seems like a missed opportunity to me. Am sure Owen Jones is a decent sort but don't think he's any great mine of innovative socialist thinking.

 

[love detective]

Looks like he's on a salary for it as well?

 

[emanymton]

FFS Polly Toynbee!

 

[articul8]

Looks like he's on a salary for it as well?

a retainer probably - he's doing pretty nicely all told.

 

[butchersapron]

a retainer probably - he's doing pretty nicely all told.

You could always ask your boss, given her position in the thing.

 

[Fedayn]

Are PCS backing it? Don't see any of their names on the Advisory Panel, and their appears to be a pretty narrow orientation to Labour - plus Polly Toynbee, Sunny Hundal, Frances O'Grady, Zoe Williams

Seems like a missed opportunity to me. Am sure Owen Jones is a decent sort but don't think he's any great mine of innovative socialist thinking.

Yeah, it was mentioned at conference PCS were backing it.

 

[articul8]

Slightly surprised by that - hope they influence it to move to the left of where it appears to be planting its flag.

 

[articul8]

You could always ask your boss, given her position in the thing.

She's not my boss!

 

[Fedayn]

Slightly surprised by that - hope they influence it to move to the left of where it appears to be planting its flag.

I suppose it depends on what they mean by 'backing'. PCS aren't exactly loaded at present so 'backing' might mean political support as opposed to financial.

 

[butchersapron]

Slightly surprised by that - hope they influence it to move to the left of where it appears to be planting its flag.

She's not my boss!

Ok, your collaborator. And if this is where the left-wing one of you is...

 

[where to]

from job title it looks like his role is more about pushing the findings and promoting it through the media than the actual research and thought side, which i agree he would be poor at (regardless of politics).

imo what is needed far more than think tank pish is an anti-neo liberal taxpayers alliance type organisation: ten people trawling the internet and making FOI requests that set a different narrative than the dominant neo liberal one of the last 5-30 years. media would not run so easily with stories, but what TPA have realised and made massive easy wins from is that the press are lazy and/or understaffed, and love a really simple cheap ready made hit-job story.

 

[articul8]

Ok, your collaborator. And if this is where the left-wing one of you is...

I think she's involved in the hope she might influence it and act as a counter-weight to the more liberal elements. In any case having an open, diverse, pluralistic space p) is not necessarily a bad thing. Although as I've said I've got reservations about how it's shaping up. And I don't think she's the only or most left wing "one" of us.

 

[Random]

I think she's involved in the hope she might influence it and act as a counter-weight to the more liberal elements.

What would be the best-case scenario for you and her, from her influencing this group?

 

[butchersapron]

The best they will be able to achieve - and i do hope they can - is produce good quality material that others can then use. The already published stuff is pretty much the bog-standard stuff available from any number of other sources (including most of the lead members) already. But please do not try and kid yourself that what is essentially an informally closed shop of professionals talking to other professionals is, or ever can be, "an open, diverse, pluralistic space". It's aimed at winning leading strata of the union influenced or union tied MPs in the labour party to a general soppy left perspective. That's it.

 

[articul8]

That it starts to open up questions beyond just putting a bit of flesh on a Keynesian "plan B", that it's prepared to develop critical perspectives on current Labour policy, that it's willing to ask why their is such a collapse in faith in traditional "democratic" instituions, etc.
At the moment it's looking like Compass only without people from the Greens and Lib dems involved.

 

[articul8]

It's aimed at winning leading strata of the union influenced or union tied MPs in the labour party to a general soppy left perspective. That's it.

Yes I think that's exactly what it appears to be. I'm not sure that it had to shape up like this. That's where the involvement of a non-Labour affiliated union like PCS being involved could have been really useful.

 

[butchersapron]

That it starts to open up questions beyond just putting a bit of flesh on a Keynesian "plan B", that it's prepared to develop critical perspectives on current Labour policy, that it's willing to ask why their is such a collapse in faith in traditional "democratic" instituions, etc.
At the moment it's looking like Compass only without people from the Greens and Lib dems involved.

Half of them are secret bloody lib-dems - Will Hutton, Hundal, Toynbee,

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Yes I think that's exactly what it appears to be. I'm not sure that it had to shape up like this. That's where the involvement of a non-Labour affiliated union like PCS being involved could have been really useful.

What in the PCS analysis marks it out from the labour left/McDonnell/professional left? And if there is anything what about it is useful?

 

[articul8]

Actually, having McDonnell involved would be a much more encouraging sign - a damn site better than some of those involved.

Half of them are secret bloody lib-dems - Will Hutton, Hundal, Toynbee,

SDP types, yep. But they'll be axed if they drift off the "vote Ed" message.

 

[Jean-Luc]

That it starts to open up questions beyond just putting a bit of flesh on a Keynesian "plan B",

Why no Keynesian plan will work (skip to 6' 43"):

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Actually, having McDonnell involved would be a much more encouraging sign - a damn site better than some of those involved.

SDP types, yep. But they'll be axed if they drift off the "vote Ed" message.

Surely the fact that Own Jones is on the payroll indicates campaign group involvement?

Serwotkas policy officer used to work for McDonnell and the only other serious current is the SP. I'm struggling to see the point you are making.

 

[articul8]

Owen's involvement doesn't suggest anything specifically about LRC or campaign group involvement. True he originally had that sort of background, but he's now a sort of all-purpose general Labour leftist. From the advisory panel I don't see much evidence of PCS involvement - I would guess someone like Hugh Lanning is personally supportive.

If you had forces that weren't tied to Labour involved - people like PCS/Serwotka, RMT, NUJ, UCU, NUT people (ie. from the TUCG convened by McDonnell) then it would start to have a different sort of orientation.

 

[ViolentPanda]

FFS Polly Toynbee!

Maybe, given the roll call, they should call themselves "The Nu-Fabian Society"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Owen's involvement doesn't suggest anything specifically about LRC or campaign group involvement. True he originally had that sort of background, but he's now a sort of all-purpose general Labour leftist. From the advisory panel I don't see much evidence of PCS involvement - I would guess someone like Hugh Lanning is personally supportive.

If you had forces that weren't tied to Labour involved - people like PCS/Serwotka, RMT, NUJ, UCU, NUT people (ie. from the TUCG convened by McDonnell) then it would start to have a different sort of orientation.

We can all hear your gears turning.

 

[treelover]

The best they will be able to achieve - and i do hope they can - is produce good quality material that others can then use. The already published stuff is pretty much the bog-standard stuff available from any number of other sources (including most of the lead members) already. But please do not try and kid yourself that what is essentially an informally closed shop of professionals talking to other professionals is, or ever can be, "an open, diverse, pluralistic space". It's aimed at winning leading strata of the union influenced or union tied MPs in the labour party to a general soppy left perspective. That's it.

Didn't the IPPR start off claiming it was left of centre, then ended up promoting welfare to work, etc and the abolishing of Incapacity Benefit, Hilary Wainright and co also tried to set one up, but it seemed to disappear. Then again, a LOC think tank is sorely needed, not because they are a good thing, but because that is who the media go to for their content these days as Where To points out...

 

[treelover]

Actually, having McDonnell involved would be a much more encouraging sign - a damn site better than some of those involved.

SDP types, yep. But they'll be axed if they drift off the "vote Ed" message.

yes, JM has strong financial experience as finance director of the GLC, gone a bit quiet recently though...

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Owen's involvement doesn't suggest anything specifically about LRC or campaign group involvement. True he originally had that sort of background, but he's now a sort of all-purpose general Labour leftist. From the advisory panel I don't see much evidence of PCS involvement - I would guess someone like Hugh Lanning is personally supportive.

If you had forces that weren't tied to Labour involved - people like PCS/Serwotka, RMT, NUJ, UCU, NUT people (ie. from the TUCG convened by McDonnell) then it would start to have a different sort of orientation.

Orientation to what? TUSC? For what purpose?

You aren't making sense.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Didn't the IPPR start off claiming it was left of centre, then ended up promoting welfare to work, etc and the abolishing of Incapacity Benefit, Hilary Wainright and co also tried to set one up, but it seemed to disappear. Then again, a LOC think tank is sorely needed, not because they are a good thing, but because that is who the media go to for their content these days as Where To points out...

The problem with that resides in the nature of what a "think tank" is and does. At core, nowadays they're about feeding policy ideas into parliament, and they don't have too many scruples as to where the ideas come from, because at root all the parties are tied to the same neo-liberalist assumptions and are on a political path that's been coverging for at least a decade and a half.
Very few think-tanks are independent enough to evolve ideas for policy that fall outside f their political comfort zone, so instead we have a plethora of shit-kickers such as Demos and Iain Duncan Smith's risibly-named "Institute for Social Justice".

 

[danny la rouge]

Owen Jones on class:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...he-political-wing-of-the-wealthy-7601024.html

We're governed by the political wing of the wealthy. That's not the view of a Socialist Worker headline writer: it's mainstream public opinion. According to a poll for The Independent earlier this week, two out of three voters think the Tories are "the party of the rich". Inevitably, that's partly because the majority of the Cabinet are privately-educated millionaires who would not look out of place in a 19th-century government. That's why George Osborne (the St Paul's-educated heir to a 17th-century baronetcy) slapping a tax on pasties – popular cheap nosh – strikes such a nerve. "It may sound trivial – but it is becoming symbolic of a divide between working people and a rich elite" – again, not the Socialist Worker, but the otherwise loyal Tory rag, The Sun.

His solution?

a political opportunity has presented itself to Labour. Ed Miliband is no Harry Perkins, but Labour has flourished most when the Tories' secretive links to the wealthy and powerful have been exposed – over News International, the banks, and now the "Cash for Cameron" scandal.

As Tory financiers and business people continue to stage their "Very British Coup", Miliband could rediscover Labour's purpose – and provide the same service for working people that the Tories do for our ever-wealthier elite.