Tony Judt’s Manifesto for the Left

Anyone who cares about political debate should read the essay by the historian Tony Judt in today’s Guardian. It is an astonishing piece of work which argues for a renewal of social democracy in response to the failure of the New Labour experiment (which Judt considers as evidence of the redundancy of the philosophy of Thatcherism so willingly embraced by Blair and Brown).

You may quibble with the detail — Judt remains over-sentimental about the public sector — but it is a challenge to received wisdom in all strands of dominant contemporary political discourse. 

He captures what many of the liberal left feel here:


“It’s difficult to feel optimistic about the upcoming election. Voters are invited to choose between two major parties: one – New Labour – that has governed for the past 13 years and is responsible for the political and financial crisis facing the country; the other – the Conservatives – who are largely to blame for “breaking” the society they now promise to fix.