Anthony Painter
Time for an optimistic Englishness
The politics of Englishness has never been satisfactorily resolved. Through the activities of the far right domestically, the rise of Scottish nationalism, and constitutional and economic changes in the EU and beyond, political Englishness is increasingly likely to assert itself. Idealised and instrumental notions of Englishness have been inadequate to the task of defining a real and grounded national identity. Equally, a purely relativistic notion of national identity that relies on the thin symbols of allegiance will be incoherent. Learning from the example of the development of a Scottish optimistic nationalism there is a need for a political dialogue around the fixed, contested, and fluid aspects of Englishness. Such a dialogue will be civic, cultural, constitutional, and will also consider the offer of English citizenship. To fail in this endeavour would be to leave a vacuum which would be filled by antagonistic political forces. That fate can be avoided.

Paul Salveson
English socialism – regional accent?
This paper argues that left politics in Britain and England in particular, needs to re-connect with its 'ethical Socialist' roots in the late nineteenth century and embrace regional diversity. The North of England developed a particularly strong and distinctive Socialism which had cultural as well as economic and political dimensions – the club movement, Clarion cycling, a lively regional and local press and a love of the countryside. It was instinctively decentralist with an equivocal attitude towards the central state.

The paper argues that a modern Socialism needs to re-discover a strong sense of place, at local, regional and national level. Within England, strong powers should be given to regional bodies which would pioneer a new form of democratic politics, rather than promote 'English nationalism'. Whilst gaining inspiration from the ethical and decentralist Socialism of the past, the English Left should develop new forms of citizen engagement and community action and a values-led politics which can appeal beyond our traditional – and shrinking - bases. We need to learn from the experience of comrades in Scotland and Wales who have rejected a centralist notion of the 'British road to Socialism'.

Ken Spours
Democratic localism
The left is in danger of dismissing localism because it sees the only neo-liberal variants of New Labour and now the Coalition. This article discusses three distinct responses to a deep crisis of governance and democracy in the English context – New Labour's centrally managed localism, the Coalition's laissez-faire localism and an emergent democratic version. Democratic localism, located in the new localism debates of the last decade, is based on a rebalanced state - a new culture of national politics and leadership, a strongly networked regional level and a highly participative local. The article goes on to argue that the left should show greater democratic intent by embracing the third version. It concludes by suggesting that there is a critical role for the political party in connecting the different levels of governance and democracy and holding together the twin aims of equity and devolved decision-making".

Kaliya Franklin and Sue Marsh
The benefits scandal
Out of a total planned reduction in public spending of approximately £90 billion, the cuts outlined by George Osborne that will affect sick and disabled people are estimated to total £9 billion – ten per cent of the overall cuts burden. These cuts are so wide ranging that it is impossible in this article to provide a truly comprehensive list of them all, particularly as sick and disabled people are more heavily reliant than most on NHS and local authority services. This article therefore discusses only those cuts directly affecting employment prospects, and points to the irony that these will prevent disabled people from being able to work at a time when they are being urged by government to go out and seek jobs.

Declan Gaffney
Dependency' and disability: how to misread the evidence on social security
The idea that Labour failed to reduce the Incapacity Benefit caseload - a dominant theme in the party's post-election autopsy - is largely a myth, and is based on misconceptions about the geography, age and gender patterns of benefit receipt. In fact Incapacity Benefit receipt fell substantially from 1997 to the present, but disability benefit receipt (which is payable to all people living with disability, whether or not they are unemployed) rose – partly because of demographic factors, but also because of increases in claims associated with mental health and learning difficulties. The key point here is that long-term out of work benefit receipt is increasingly dominated by people living with more severe disabling conditions, and by people caring for the disabled. To construct from this an argument about dependency being responsible for worklessness is to deliberately misread the evidence.

The Feminist Fightback Collective
Cuts are a feminist issue: austerity, reproduction and contestation
This article explores the Coalition government's austerity measures through the lens of social reproduction. Cuts to public services affect the means by which a people are kept healthy, fed, clothed, housed, educated and made into productive workers able to support the economy. But this work still needs to be done. As the cuts destroy the welfare state and restructure existing forms of social reproduction, the burden of labour falls on women. We contextualise the Coalition's cuts within a wider devaluing of social reproduction using 'the home' as a lens for understanding the constellation of social, economic and political processes at work in austerity. We seek to highlight the contradictions of the cuts, which we suggest might become the 'cracks' out of which can emerge a feminist resistance. We seek to think through ways of building on our existing fight against cuts to childcare, to imagine alternative ways of organizing our lives.

Andrea Westall
Breaking down the barriers to a more relational economics
Forms of public service which encourage more mutual relationships between people are being debated and realised in action. But similar approaches to economic policy and practice remain marginal. We are locked intellectually and culturally (both left and right) into a view and reality of isolated businesses, entrepreneurs and employees. This situation limits and distorts our understanding, as well as our ability to think about potential options and futures.

From the mid-90s, discussions around the benefits of connections and linkages between local and regional, businesses, government and intermediary economic organisations, as well as ways of humanising capitalism based on a 'new mutualism', surfaced but faded away. This article argues that we need to better understand why this happened, and remove mental or institutional blockages. It also suggests examples of the wider potential of such approaches, as part of exploring the implications of a more relational economics, as part of a renewed political economy.

Michael Burke
Where did it all go wrong for George Osborne?
It is the Coalition government's policies that are causing economic stagnation, not the wider economic crisis. Under the previous Labour government, the British economy had been expanding moderately following the financial crisis, with recovery being led by public sector expansion which created the confidence for a subsequent private sector expansion. When the Coalition government took office, this policy was reversed, and private sector spending soon followed the downward curve of public sector spending. Far from government spending 'crowding out' the private sector, the opposite is in fact the case: increased government investment 'crowds in' private investment.

Paul Everitt
'Cars not casinos': the manufacturing revival
The UK motor industry is set to play a leading role in the re-balancing of the economy. Strong support and investment from global vehicle manufacturers is helping the UK lead the transition to ultra low carbon vehicles. The government needs to build upon the industrial activism agenda initiated under the Labour administration to encourage sustained investment in R&D, skills and capital equipment. A stronger manufacturing sector can help to build a better balanced economy and fairer society.

Mariana Mazzucato
The entrepreneurial state
The article challenges the minimalist view of the state that is currently driving British economic policy, arguing that a far more proactive role is required if innovation-led economic growth is a priority. The case is made that the role of the government, in the most successful economies and in the periods of highest growth, has gone way beyond creating the right infrastructure and setting the rules. It has been a leading agent in achieving the type of innovative breakthroughs that allow companies (and economies) to grow – not just by creating the 'conditions' that enable innovation but by proactively creating a strategy around a new high-growth area before the potential is understood by the business community (from the internet to nanotechnology); by funding the most uncertain phase of the research that the private sector is too risk-averse to engage with; seeking and commissioning further developments; and often even overseeing the commercialisation of 'general purpose technologies'.

Stewart Lansley
'Regulated' versus 'managed capitalism': the record
From the early 1980s, the British economy became the subject of an all-embracing economic experiment. Regulations were swept away, corporate and top income tax rates axed and markets were given more freedom. Although this shift to 'market capitalism' was applied most strongly in the United Kingdom and the United States, weaker versions were eventually introduced across much of the rich world. This audit of the records of 'managed' and 'market capitalism' shows that on only one count – curbing inflation – can the post-1980 era be judged a clear success. On all other counts, the economic record of market capitalism has been inferior. Growth and productivity rates have been slower, unemployment levels higher. As the proceeds of growth have been very unequally divided, the wealth gap has soared, without the promised pay-off of wider economic progress. Financial crises have become more frequent and more damaging in their consequences.

Published 2011-12-06