Tag Archives: progressive london

LibLink: Lembit Öpik – Notes on a progressive decision

Lib Dem MP Lembit Öpik has written an article for the Progressive London blog based on his speech to their recent conference on the topic, The Tories are not Progressive. Lembit reveals himself to be a “left-leaning libertarian” with deep scepticism that the Tories under David Cameron have actually changed. There’s lots of eminently quotable material, but here’s just a few excerpts:

I’m a practical kind of person. I don’t like the high levels of dogma which seems to attach itself to party politics and elections. There are good people in every political party, and no major grouping is

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | Leave a comment

Henry Porter: “Labour is about as conservative as my grandmother”

The question of which political party might have the best claim to the title of the most progressive force in British politics has been much debated here on the pages of LDV recently – Alix Mortimer posed the question, Yes, but is it progressive?, Mark Pack enquired into the motivation of Progressive London here, and I questioned the Tories’ attempt to reclaim the word here.

In his Guardian blog today, Henry Porter surveys the progressive scene – here are his judgements:

The Tories:

It is true that Conservatives have said they will scrap both the third runway and ID

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | Leave a comment

Progressive London: hello over there!

Oh look, Progressive London’s round-up of blog coverage for Saturday’s conference doesn’t include this. Hmm…

Posted in London | 3 Comments

Progressive London: a front to elect Ken Livingstone?

Yesterday Progressive London held a day-long conference in, appropriately enough, London. The organisation was created by Ken Livingstone following his defeat in the last London Mayor election with the stated aim of building a broad coalition of people who share progressive views and oppose Boris Johnson and his policies. (Alix wrote an excellent post earlier today on the thorny question of quite what progressive means.)

Why did Ken Livingstone found Progressive London?

Ken Livingstone himself has been keen to present the organisation as being neither a Labour front nor a front for a future bid from himself to become Mayor once again, as for example in his interview with The Guardian, timed to coincide with the conference:

The “once and future mayor,” as Livingstone has been known to describe himself, rebuts the suggestion that Progressive London is a five-syllable synonym for the Re-elect Ken campaign and his planned journey back to his natural habitat of City Hall.

Posted in London | Also tagged , , and | 12 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Hywel
    @paulwalter They will do that anyway. Such Labour attack leaflets rarely have much allegiance that nuanced truth. If you are going to be a liberal party th...
  • Andy Hinton
    I can't think of any good reason why a liberal party worth its salt would make abstaining on a kick-the-marginalised amendment from the Tories a three line whip...
  • Jennie
    Big hugs for CJ And a hearty two fingers to those sacking her and their flimsy crappy reasons for doing so...
  • James
    If this is true, then it seems both a ludicrous over reaction and an indication of how unimportant women and equalities are seen to be. One would hope that not ...
  • Tom King
    I fail to see 1) how voting against a Conservative amendment could possibly be dancing to their tune 2) why it precludes also opposing Labour's bill in its enti...