Fabian Society

Labour in 2012 will also be shaped by the particular politics and personality of Ed Miliband.

Since becoming Labour leader Ed Miliband has successfully opened several new national political debates, from the ‘squeezed middle’ to ‘responsible capitalism’ and concern about diminishing opportunities for the rising generation.

These essays explore where this politics could take Labour – and there is a striking coherence, radicalism and optimism about the future they see.

After the 1970s it was inevitable that the Conservative party would move away from the tight relationship between business, state and unions of the postwar consensus, but it was Margaret Thatcher who made it Thatcherite. In the 1990s Labour was bound to be centrist; but Blair and Brown gave New Labour its distinctive shape.

The politics of pension reform is just as important as the policy itself. In this pamphlet, Richard Brooks and John Denham argue that the government must get the politics right if it is to achieve what has eluded its predecessors and establish a pensions settlement which endures for future generations. Brooks and Denham set out…