Martin Bright

Is the Left Waking From Its Slumber?

A rather impassioned piece on unemployment from Polly Toynbee in yesterday’s Guardian made me realise that there are a number of people on the liberal-left in Britain thinking very hard about the implications of the global recession.

“Has the horror of it all struck Westminster with full force?,” asks Polly? I think they are beginning to, but the problem is that they are stuck in the politics of the late-1990s census, which had us all triangulating like mad. All the clamour for an apology from the Prime Minister stems from a desire for him to atone for all our sins. It was difficult not to embrace the market when the market seemed so cuddly. What we mistook for comforting girth turned out to be the flabby product of over-indulgence.

But this is not the time for self-flagellation.

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