Introducing the Good Society debate Jon Cruddas MP Andrea Nahles MdB European social democracy needs a fresh start. In the wake of the most severe economic crisis in decades it has become clear that social democrats have not paid enough attention to the development of a real political alternative to the dominant free market orthodoxy. When the demand

Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford: After the nadir of Corfu, New Labour must build a new politics, and housing is on the front line

ROLL calls of great thinkers, from ancient Greeks to trendy continental PoMo merchants, probably do not constitute a staple of pub conversation in his Barking and Dagenham constituency. So if nothing else, Jon Cruddas deserves credit for name dropping so many star philosophers and economists in his speech on the renewal of social democracy earlier

Worth checking the series of short perspectives from different authors on the future of social democracy being run by Social Europe Journal, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. This debate follows the “Good society”, a paper by Jon Cruddas MP and Andrea Nahles from the SPD. There are some contributions from people familiar to the

There's a very revealing interview in today's Independent with Jon Cruddas. He's fairly critical of Gordon Brown's reaction to the economic crisis throughout the interview and keep's saying that David Cameron is doing well. To his credit he does give some suggestions as to what Brown should now do. Two things strike me about this. Cruddas has a habit of popping up at incon...

I give you John Cruddas MP. "Labour now has an historic opportunity to seize the political high ground. The era of selfish individualism is on the wane. The electorate is increasingly concerned with social insurance, safeguarding living standards and ensuring social stability and ecological sustainability. From stranded holidaymakers to pension holders, to those falling ill, they are discovering t...

Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford: The government's bank bailout scheme is not working – it's time for society to reassert itself over the market economy

The financial and economic mayhem of the past 18 months has been a crisis for the right. Nationalising banks that have lent irresponsibly was not part of any laissez-faire script. The prevailing economic model of the past 30 years has run out of road, just as the post-war social democratic model ran out of road after three (far more successful) decades in the mid-1970s. But it is a non-sequitur to...

I don't share Jon Cruddas' politics but I was shocked to see the way Alex Hilton - a Labour Parliamentary Candidate - has described him in a comment here on Labour Home. The attacks on Cruddas' political opinions are fair comment, but for Alex to say this "In fact, I think Cruddas is the Labour politician most reminiscent of Oswald Mosley, he is dangerous, and should be kept away from power at all...

Rumours have reached me of a falling out between Jon Cruddas MP, Compass' leading voice in Parliament, and Neal Lawson, the organisation's guru. Jon Cruddas, whatever his sometimes wrong policy calls, is a Labour Party man through-and-through in the best sense, and apparently takes exception to the wholesale embrace of Lib/Lab broad tent politics in Neal's latest article in the Guardian, which was...