All the evidence shows voters want Labour to shift to the left — but initial signs from Andy Burnham are worrying on that front, cautions DIANE ABBOTT
A FEW days after the Independent Group (TIG) of MPs formed in the Commons, the Liberal Democrat strategist Mark Pack tweeted “who will be TIG’s Bill Rodgers?” It was an interesting question.
Despite having spent a year in formation with meetings at luxury hotels the breakaway MPs appeared without a proper name, no policies, no membership and no structure. Their cheerleaders in the media argue all these will appear over time.
The SDP which was formed in 1981 was a rather different and more substantial matter. On its founding day the Limehouse Declaration was published outlining its basic principles. Its roots went back much further than that though.
Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
JAMIE DRISCOLL explains how his group, Majority, plans to empower working people to empower themselves
The charter emerged from a profoundly democratic process where people across South Africa answered ‘What kind of country do we want?’ — but imperial backlash and neoliberal compromise deferred its deepest transformations, argues RONNIE KASRILS


