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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/live/2016/sep/09/are-you-mourning-the-loss-of-fabric-join-our-live-look-at-the-week
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| Does the left have a future? Join our live look at the week | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.49pm BST | |
| 12:49 | |
| You’re discussing that question of the week – here are a few of your comments so far: | |
| Of course the left has a chance. | |
| What's the alternative - just let everything happen and slowly erode away everything that has been achieved by the left in the past, you know, funny lefty stuff like sick pay, maternity leave, weekends, holidays, social care, environmental protection etc.? | |
| Yeah, who needs all that as long as big business can make a fat buck? | |
| England, particularly, is a conservative nation, but one that could never quite become wholly conservative, such as its devotion to the NHS. Perhaps it's now time for it to completely embrace that conservatism and see where it leads? I think it will lead to worse lives for many of us. But that appears to be what the majority of Brits want. So why fight against it? | |
| "The break-up between social democracy and the new radical left" | |
| Is the best thing ever to happen, if you think right wing, Free Market extremists should be left to gut, a Century of left wing advances in our Societys. Notably: in free Health care & services for the poor, elderly, disabled, or the other most vulnerable groups in society. By spiltting the left, it reduces it to powerless impotent fury: anyone who does not think the left must win elections, to stop this wilful vandalism of our societys is the problem, not the solution. | |
| The left absolutely does have a future.. but the Guardian needs to stop attacking it. | |
| What has "become" the left in recent years (identity politics > all) is now discredited and thankfully in decline. | |
| The Guardian can either support this, or it can continue its own decline into irrelevance and bankruptcy. | |
| Click on the comments to scroll directly to them, or get involved yourself below. | |
| 12.24pm BST | |
| 12:24 | |
| Question of the week: what will the left look like in the future? | |
| John Harris | |
| After reading his long read this week one reader asked John Harris to expand on what he thinks the alternatives for the future left are – so where it can go now? Is Labour dead? What would a new party look like? Here is his response. | |
| The most basic point that arises from what my piece says is that the revival of the political left, here and across the world, is probably going to be a long haul. The break-up between social democracy and the new radical left (e.g Podemos in Spain, elements of Syriza in Greece, many of the forces behind the Bernie Sanders campaign) has only just happened. Debate and thought about how much economies have changed and what the left should do about it is still in the foothills. | |
| If you want a sense of what a long political haul looks like, start with the historian Paul Addison’s book The Road To 1945. My stock example of what it deals with is that campaigning for universal Child Benefit began in 1917, and it arrived nearly 30 years later. The same will apply to a Universal Basic Income (or UBI), which I think has to be the core of any new left politics – given that it addresses insecurity rooted in technology, and holds out the prospect of automation being a liberating rather than a destructive force. Ditto the fight for Proportional Representation. This isn’t to say that elections in the meantime aren’t worth fighting, but that the left should be thinking strategically, and understanding what an onerous task it faces. | |
| As to which political forces will be involved as this goes on – who knows? Personally, I have a sense that the Labour party as we know it is probably finished. The current battle over its control will be one chapter in a series of ruptures: over time, you’ll probably see elements now seen to be hostile to each other coming together, and others falling away (for flavour of this, look at some former New Labour insiders and supporters who support UBI and PR, or the people working creditably hard for Jeremy Corbyn whose politics are a bit more forward-looking and radical than his). There will also be lots of people involved from beyond Labour, which is why I think one of the most interesting initiatives right now is the Progressive Alliance idea being pursued by Compass, which involves Labour people, Greens, Lib Dems, people from the SNP etc etc. | |
| This is a time when politics is changing in front of our eyes, and uncertainty rules. My own belief is that the values of equality, solidarity and a world beyond the market will endure. But what form they will take is still to become clear. | |
| Updated | |
| at 12.27pm BST | |
| 12.23pm BST | |
| 12:23 | |
| Does the left have a future? | |
| John Harris | |
| Below John Harris comments on the biggest questions that came to mind when writing his long-read on whether the left has a future. | |
| One of the biggest themes in the piece was about the changing nature of work, the roots of that change in technology, and the idea that in a world of temporary employment and the gig economy, work can’t be the main way we give people security and stability. Does that match people’s understanding of how their lives are headed? Does a word like “worker” carry much weight any more? And a final one: the most talked-about way of dealing with all this is a universal basic income, which I personally think will have to be the core of any viable left politics in the future. What do people think? | |
| 12.09pm BST | 12.09pm BST |
| 12:09 | 12:09 |
| The week's most read | The week's most read |
| Sarah Marsh | Sarah Marsh |
| Everyone is going wild for Apple’s new iPhone and the fact it comes with wireless headphones. Consumers are perplexed by Apple’s new iPhone 7 AirPods because of one obvious oversight: that cord is there so they don’t get lost. | Everyone is going wild for Apple’s new iPhone and the fact it comes with wireless headphones. Consumers are perplexed by Apple’s new iPhone 7 AirPods because of one obvious oversight: that cord is there so they don’t get lost. |
| Other top pieces include the news that Fabric has lost its licence and will be shutting its doors. As well as this, there’s been interest in the fact Barack Obama cancelled a meeting after the president of the Philippines called him a “son of a whore”. Finally, there was lots of interest in news that the police were called after a school sent dozens of pupils home for wearing wrong uniform. | Other top pieces include the news that Fabric has lost its licence and will be shutting its doors. As well as this, there’s been interest in the fact Barack Obama cancelled a meeting after the president of the Philippines called him a “son of a whore”. Finally, there was lots of interest in news that the police were called after a school sent dozens of pupils home for wearing wrong uniform. |
| Tell us what you’ve been reading below the line. | Tell us what you’ve been reading below the line. |
| 11.58am BST | 11.58am BST |
| 11:58 | 11:58 |
| Welcome! | Welcome! |
| Sarah Marsh | Sarah Marsh |
| It’s time for our Friday Guardian Social – your space to discuss the week’s news and views in real time. We’ll bring you the best stories of the week, with comments from the journalists involved in reporting them, as well as some of the discussions you’ve been having around the site. | It’s time for our Friday Guardian Social – your space to discuss the week’s news and views in real time. We’ll bring you the best stories of the week, with comments from the journalists involved in reporting them, as well as some of the discussions you’ve been having around the site. |
| You can also get in touch by email via matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or sarah.marsh@theguardian.com or fill out our form at the following link if you’ve got any feedback or questions you’d like our journalists to answer. | You can also get in touch by email via matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or sarah.marsh@theguardian.com or fill out our form at the following link if you’ve got any feedback or questions you’d like our journalists to answer. |
| Updated | |
| at 12.39pm BST |