Tag Archives: Will Hutton

The Observer: Why the Euston group offers a new direction for the left

A disparate set of left-wing thinkers meeting in a London pub has reopened an essential debate on the nature of democracy

To be on the left is to be both temperamentally inclined to dissent and to be passionate about your own utopia, which can never be achieved. Condemned to disappointment, you rage at the world, your party and your leader.

Relative peace comes when the right is in power and the left temporarily sinks its differences before the greater enemy. But to survive in office, the left leader must keep utopian factionalism at bay and that means making your followers understand hard realities and tough trade-offs and selling them the ones you make yourself.

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