Author Archives: Reuben Thompson

Opinion: Why emulating Ramsay MacDonald may be Gordon Brown’s only hope

By Reuben Thompson | Tue 9th September 2008 - 7:20 pm

There’s little argument now that the situation of Gordon Brown looks at best precarious – no reader of this article will need reminding of the Tories’ enormous poll lead, the infighting within the Labour party, or the perilous economic situation in which we find the nation. If Mr. Brown and his party are to avoid a rout on the scale inflicted on the Conservatives by his own party’s victory in 1997, then he is going to have to do something radical. A change at the top is practically out of the question – Labour now have nobody left with the …

Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments

Beating Labour and the Diversity Agenda

By Reuben Thompson | Tue 10th June 2008 - 10:15 am

The recent London elections made it very clear that, if the Lib Dems are to avoid becoming the victims of a mighty squeeze at the next general election, we are going to have to do more to engage with disenfranchised Labour supporters, and worry less about trying to take seats off the resurgent Tories.

Although we have scored notable successes against Labour (Hornsey, Brent, Manchester Withington, etc.) in recent years, they have not been of the number or scale of our victories over the Tories in the latter part of the 1990s.

This means that we need to adopt a …