The art of politics

In exploring ways of constructing an insurgent intellectual project, there are some lessons to be learned from Blairism. New Labour thinkers were, at least at first, interested in a sustained engagement with new ideas, and understood the importance of a broad sense of project, based on serious intellectual foundations. Jon Cruddas describes how Ed Miliband and others around him tried to create this sense of project for a differently inflected project, based on the idea of One Nation Britain, including some ideas from the Blue Labour group. He discusses how they then tried to connect these ideas to the messy realpolitik of election slogans and party management - two key tasks for any Labour Party leadership. Cruddas reflects on the mistakes made by the Miliband leadership, but argues that there is much to learn from reflecting on both its mistakes and successes.