I read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better whilst watching the last two seasons of The Wire and so Chris Grayling’s claims last week that parts of the UK were beginning to resemble the Baltimore portrayed in that TV series did cause me to smile wryly. Grayling’s prescription for [...]
Tag Archives: social liberalism
Money talks: a response to David Boyle
I very much welcome the challenge laid down by David Boyle to the Social Liberal Forum. Indeed, there is very little in it with which I can disagree. In particular, I share the view held by David that the view that ‘everything can be solved by tax and spending’ is mistaken. I strongly believe that [...]
Save us from Fabianism
This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Liberator Magazine (#332). Liberator have kindly allowed us to reproduce this here, along with Matthew Sowemimo’s accompanying article.
We have a new Liberal Democrat think-tank. And when there has been little or no thinking around the party for two decades, that has to be a [...]
Reconnecting with our radical heritage
This article, an adaptation of the speech Matthew Sowemimo gave at the Social Liberal Forum fringe meeting at Harrogate Spring Conference in March, originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Liberator Magazine (#332). Liberator have kindly allowed us to reproduce this here, along with David Boyle’s accompanying article.
Social Liberalism is the mainstream philosophy [...]
In defence of broad church politics
There has been a bit of a debate waging over the past week about “classical (or economic) liberals versus social liberals,” partly due to the launch of the Social Liberal Forum and exacerbated by a recent editorial in Liberator Magazine.
For the record, while the Social Liberal Forum does indeed believe that social liberalism is the [...]
Balancing the Dominance of Market Driven Theories
This article is based on a speech given by Dr Richard Grayson at the Urban Café, Newcastle upon Tyne on Monday 2nd February 2009 (event hosted by Cafe Culture North East).
Here, Richard sets out what he believes are distinct limitations to the market. Richard will assert that there is still a very clearly designed [...]
What is Social Liberalism?
By David Howarth
This article was originally published in Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century. We are grateful to David for allowing us to reproduce this article.
Sometime in the late nineteenth century, liberalism began to divide into two different streams. One stream, which came to be called ‘classical liberalism’, confined liberalism’s ambitions [...]
