The Alternative Debunk: Far-right populism, privilege and coming to terms with change

Britain, as a country, is depicted around the world as the very personification of privilege. We are tea-supping, tradition-adhering, aristocracy-adoring, wearers of bowler hats. There are people in this country who are proud of that depiction.

That isn't really a recognisable image of Britain today. Except for the privilege. At the core of British concept of liberty is privilege: middle class affluence, home ownership, private schools, inherited wealth, the older sort of social networks.

This privileged middle sort have done well out of globalism - well prepared and adapted for the rising demand for high skill, education and flexibility. But in Britain, globalisation has seen both winners and losers.

As the cushioned middle class have gained, the fragile lives of the working class have been threatened. The old dependable industries have gone, deemed to costly. With them has gone job security, in the name of chasing efficiency.

Pressure to be productive has risen, even as security and stability has declined. It shouldn't be a major surprise that since the 1990s a new era of civil rights movements has sprung up, working to unite people and push back.

There is a point of view that it has also forced working class people to be seduced by the hate-filled, divisive, rhetoric of the far right - to get on board with populist movements that scapegoat refugees and immigrants and minorities.

However, the facts don't support it.

The reality: the far right isn't a working class movement. It never has been. In fact, populism tends to be better supported by the petit bourgeosie and the rich - with the backing only of a violent minority of working class people. Far-right populism is, at it's core, reactionary politics. It is the establishment pushing back against reform. It is about the fear of losing status amidst crisis - it is the moderately well off frightened of losing their privilege.

Something held up against this view are the voters who backed the latest President of the United States into office. Their lack of a college education was presented as a fait accompli of poor, white, racist and ignorant, working class men. But the facts paint a more complex picture. It is true that 70% of Fourtyfive's supporters didn't have college degrees - but then 71% of Americans don't have college degrees. And most of his supporters earn over the median income $50,000 a year.

Now, the middle class base of far right populism doesn't mean appeals are not made for support from ordinary working people. In times of crisis, the populist narrative finds fertile soil among people whose interests it does less to serve. It must be tweaked to include the working class in a narrative of privilege, but it remains simple, emotive and effective.

For the far right, and the privileged few who drive it, the impact of neoliberalism must have been a dream come true: post-industrial Britain, Wales and The North, Labour and left-wing heartlands, excluded from the benefits of globalisation - even as it dismantled the basis for prosperity under the old order.

Huge numbers of people left without job security, sometimes even social security. Communities stripped of their resources, their high streets becoming abandoned. All that was left was to exploit their fears and give them scapegoats.

The story is not an original one: of a majority that are going to lose their status and money to a minority, or minorities, courtesy of a discredited establishment - itself painted as a minority that no longer represent this fearful majority. Legitimacy is questioned. Mandates undermined. A web of emotive propaganda aimed at dividing society, turning the affluent in fear against it's fringes, to the benefit of a reactionary few.

This is the core of the narrative that divided and felled the Second Spanish Republic, used to justify a military coup. The toppling of the Weimar Republic. The upholding of first slavery and then segregation in the Deep South by Dixiecrats.

There have been few places, even in these times of a 'far-right populist wave', where populists have secured a broad base of public support - broad enough to make a claim of significant support from working class people. The barrier that seemed to have some significance was 13% - the level of popular support the far-right in Western Europe have struggled to break through. But the rise of authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe, threaten to make the West less an anti-populist bloc than an enclave.

There are more exceptions. The Fortyfifth President in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro as President in Brazil, and the FPO in government in Austria, the electoral success of Lega and M5S in Italy - these are among the few to have made major electoral breakthroughs in the West. But we know Fortyfive's supporters were mostly affluent and middle class. Are the supporters of Bolsonaro, Heinz-Christian Strache, Salvini and Grillo, much different?

In Britain, rising inequality has started to bite even the privileged middle class. Fears about pensions and wellbeing in old age, stress and pressure at work - core fears of the working class - are worrying Middle England. That made them the dominant supporters of Brexit, some 60% of all Brexit voters - to just 17% of Brexiters who were working class. Populism succeeded, with Brexit, in pulling the middle class apart from the working class, and turning them against the liberal democratic political establishment.

Under pressure and fearful of change, it is the middle class who are the movers of the times. The statistics tell us that when the working class face these crises, they don't vote - their feelings of disenfranchisment become inaction.

Yet there is hope in this analysis. There is common cause to be found between the middle class and the working class. They have the same fears and face the same pressures - though one is far more insulated from them than the other, and felt them later. There is a common platform to be found. One that can unite people on what they have in common: a desire for social security, for wellbeing at work and in old age, for a functioning local community - and a desire for opportunity.

The question left for progressives is, what party or alliance will be the vehicle for such a programme? Whoever they are, they need to get to grips with a simple fact: change scares people. Our answer needs to be bring them together in solidarity.

Chancellor Hammond begins constructing the Tories framing for their budget

Chancellor Philip Hammond took to the stage at the Conservative Party conference to tell his party that they had to make the case of capitalism - and must first and foremost always be the party of business.

On the one hand, this was the latest barrage in a war of words within the Conservative ranks - torn by Brexit and the deep reservations of the business community. On the other, it's also laying the groundwork for the budget.

Hammond told the conference that the party couldn't afford to be seen as the party of the status quo. The Chancellor trailed the possibility of some tax rises to increase spending, but warned against trying to match Labour penny-for-penny.

We've heard this before.

The budget is coming up and the party delivering it are positioning their pitch, delivering up framing devices for the media to use in the coming weeks. For the Tories, they cannot afford to lose control of the message.

In recent months, even senior ministers have been defying the government with a whole barrage of comments to the media. It's making PMQs a whole lot easier for Corbyn and forcing No 10 and No 11 to waste their time running around putting out fires.

For instance, when the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) felt the need to express it's dismay about Brexit - and the danger of leaving the EU without a deal - a former government Brexit minister labelled them a 'grave menace' to the UK's prospects.

That's not a good look for a party that sees itself as the true representative of business. No wonder the Chancellor is calling for the party to get back on message. But there's more.

The Chancellor is also dropping little hints that there might be some tax rises - though these aren't yet more than hints - with an eye to some slight increases in spending.

Hammond finally loosened some of the purse strings this year, with a slight relaxing of public sector pay restrictions. But they were only very slightly relaxed and spending measures in the last budget were far below the kind of intervention for which the UK economy is crying out.

The consensus on the economy - and on Brexit - seems to be moving away from the Conservatives. Conceding the possibility of a spending increase lays the groundwork for framing the measures Hammond will announce on budget day.

In previous budgets, Hammond has talked up restricted spending and paying down the deficit only to deliver up, at times uncosted, spending increases - even if only small ones. The order of the day was austerity, but spending was needed.

Now, the consensus is shifting towards much larger public investment than Conservatives are prepared to meet. And so the Chancellor is preparing the ground to present the next budget as one that will deliver responsible spending.

Yet behind the narrative, there is little reason to expect anything but more of the same from the Treasury. Brexit is a hinderance and while the deficit has been reined in, the debt has ballooned under the Conservatives.

And who is going to be happy with Tories raising taxes? The last time Hammond tried to make a major tax adjustment, he had to withdraw his self-employed National Insurance fix within a week of presenting it.

In politics, the next best thing to delivering policies in line with the consensus is to get every believing that you're doing just that - without having to go to the trouble of spending the money. Expect this narrative to build through October.

Budget 2017: Hammond gets a second attempt at Budget 2017, but will he act?

Photograph: NATO Summit Wales 2014 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (License) (Cropped)

On Wednesday, Chancellor Philip Hammond will present his second Budget of 2017. It has been trailed with promises of doing more. But the big question is whether any of the measures will be enough.

Between the growth of wages being anaemic, price rises eating away at households and the private sector not stimulating any positive movement by holding back from investment, it's being argued that Hammond has cornered himself against his own fiscal rules.

The government has made big promises - or at least big announcements, with little that is tangible behind them. The governing reality has frequently been the denial of the existence of a crisis, making excuses or tinkering around the edges.

Consider the big pledges Hammond has made on housing. The Chancellor has refused much needed additional funding, so tinkering measures - such as adjusting stamp duty or loosening restrictions on councils borrowing to build homes - are expected to carry the burden of getting the government to 300,000 new homes a year.

That will mean achieving the completion of around 100,000 extra homes, each year, to reach the target. Which makes it relevant to note that this is, of course, the same pledge that hasn't been met over the last seven years - at times struggling to reach 100,000 at all, never mind an extra 100,000.

These kind of promises, made over and again only to be missed, serve to undermine future pledges to do more. So too, do gaffes like Philip Hammond's Mitt Romney -esque announcement on Sunday that there are no unemployed people (there are).

It hurts the government too, that funding is denied where it is asked for by services, but is magically pulled out of thin air to solve the latest Conservative political crisis - a billion to secure a DUP-Con deal, for example.

The denials, excuses and tinkering extend to other areas. The NHS is expected to be denied the £4 billion in extra funding it's chief has demanded and the existence of a healthcare crisis has been refused.

These attitudes, these tinkering measures, point towards Hammond's approach to the last Budget, which responded to big challenges with a 'steady as she goes' attitude, spending in the millions not the billions.

There are questions still ahead, however, and people who remain vulnerable. What tinkering will help those women, particularly young women, suffering from period poverty? How will tinkering, with cautious suggestions of reducing waiting times, deal with welfare debt traps?

Universal Credit, in the midst of a disastrous rollout, is exacerbating problems - like mounting rental arrears and the simple fact of more than a month without a means on which to live - that are entangled with all areas of life for the most vulnerable.

While the government may be more focused on avoiding any further embarrassments, of which it has had a string lately, by avoiding any backtracks and climbdowns - such as the major reversal on self-employed National Insurance changes back in the spring.

But now is not the time for 'little c' conservatism. Change will perhaps undermine the Conservative position, ever talking of the chaos Labour will unleash by deviating from their fiscal restrictions.

But the Tories failure to match their rhetoric with reality is a party affair. The wellbeing of the people has to come before the wellbeing of the party. It is time to act.

The Fantastic Four reboot would be the perfect opportunity to put Susan Storm front and centre as a much needed female lead

The New Fantastic Four. Photograph: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan & Jamie Bell by Gage Skidmore via photopin (license) (cropped)

This article contains spoilers for a number of major comic book story arcs...

Trailers released for Fox's reboot of the Fantastic Four seem to suggest that the new film will stay pretty much true to its previous iteration. It appears that Reed Richards will once more be the heroic protagonist and Susan Storm will again be the love interest.

If that's the case, it will be hard to see the film as anything other than a missed opportunity. At a time when anti-hero jerks are all the rage and when there is a real clamour for female led movies - particularly comic book movies - it feels like a chance missed to revitalise the Fantastic Four. Why not embrace Reed's more difficult persona and make Susan the relatable lead?

In Fox's previous iteration of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards was made into a kind of lovable nerd, filled with childish enthusiasm for science - and even possessed of a sense of humour. He was obsessive, but not nearly to the destructive levels of the comic books.

This seems to be the result of trying to make Reed Richards the focal point of a Hollywood movie, which appears to invariably demand that the character be made 'accessible' and 'relatable' to the audience. That tends to translate to screen as a male character, exceptional in some way, who despite flaws can be redeemed - much like Wolverine, who Fox put front and centre of the X-Men, making him much less of the violent jerk he is in the comics.

The Reed Richards of the Marvel Comics is, however, a much more detached and obsessive figure. He ignores his wife and children to a significant degree, he can be brash and arrogant, and his utilitarian 'greater good' philosophical approach can take him to some very dark places. In fact, in the mainstream continuity, many of the Reeds on alternate Earths have become supervillains. In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Reed Richards was written to become an outright supervillain - and one the most dangerous.

Even within the mainstream continuity, it can sometimes be hard to see Reed as anything less than a villain. During the Civil War arc, soon to be translated to screen by Marvel as Captain American: Civil War, Richards creates a murderous android that murders one of his oldest friends, his methods alienate him from his friends and even his wife, and he accepts all of it as willing sacrifices, on his part, for the creation of a better world.

Hollywood clearly has trouble with these kinds of complicated heroic characters. But there are tried and tested ways of making the most out of these characters that can be learned from TV. Two of the most memorable are Gregory House, MD, and Sherlock Holmes. Both of these arrogant, difficult and aloof TV characters are central to their respective shows. But they are offset by much more relatable characters, using different approaches.

NBC's House is written with the eponymous character as the one viewers follow. Yet the writers refrain from trying to humanise him. That job is left to the expectations of the viewer, which are frequently disappointed. He is surrounded by much more human, much more relatable characters, that give him frequent opportunities to rise above his mean, cynical and selfish attitudes. Yet he rarely does.

BBC's Sherlock lets the titular character step back, becoming - like the original Conan Doyle character - the subject of the story, rather than the protagonist. For that role, there is Dr John Watson. John is the viewer's window on the world and the filter by which Sherlock's action are interpreted and grounded. This dynamic allows the writers to pen Sherlock in a way that is unrestrained - allowing him to be a full blown sociopath and jerk.

For the Fantastic Four, there is the possibility of following either of these approaches, or combining them. Reed could still be the subject of the story, but there are ready made possibilities that would allow the writers to make someone else the protagonist, through whose eyes viewers see events unfold. That role could go to Susan Storm.

At a time when there is a significant dearth of female superheroes as leading stars on the big screen, Susan Storm is perfect. At her best she is a leader, a scientist, and the most powerful of the Fantastic Four - with powers on a scale that make her, maybe, amongst the most powerful superheroes.

She combines being a mother with being a hero, and is the voice for ethics and compassion, as a foil to the much sterner and colder Reed. In the Civil War arc she is dynamic, an active participant to who rejects her husband Reed Richard's methods. She saves, and later joins, Captain America's rebels from the destructive violence of Reed's murderous android.

Susan Storm also represents somewhat the journey of women on the big screen. She began as as a crudely sexist stereotype, the Invisible Girl - a passive character who was weak, almost, token powers - who was the attractive obsession of male villains and would regularly need saving.

Yet over time she took on more active abilities and a more active role. In the Ultimate continuity, she was promoted to being, herself, an accomplished scientist.

Reducing Susan Storm, a female character who would be a compelling lead in her own right, back to being the pretty love interest for the heroic scientific genius Reed Richards would be a crude and regressive step, not unlike that taken by the characters written for Jurassic World compared to its much more feminist predecessor.

Rebooting a film franchise is an opportunity to do bold new things. The new movie has already taken the positive step of changing up the ethnicity of Franklin and Johnny Storm, increasing representation. Taking the opportunity to give Susan Storm, the female lead, a story arc that makes her more than just a damsel or a prize would be the next big step. A big part of that would be to embrace a darker and more complicated Reed Richards, rather than attempting to shoehorn him into a conventional male hero role - with all of the typical resulting affects that has upon the roles of secondary characters, particularly when they're women.

Cameron's plans for English Votes on English Laws represent Conservative determination not to decentralise power

Photograph: Palace of Westminster from across the river via photopin (license) (cropped)

The Conservative government's plans to introduce English Votes for English Laws where announced today by Chris Grayling, Conservative leader of the Commons (Sparrow, 2015). After a Prime Ministers Questions session yesterday which saw the Prime Minister David Cameron face a barrage of questions from SNP MPs on the matter (BBC, 2015), the Conservatives can not have been expecting a warm reception today.

English Votes for English Laws, under its pretty unfortunate acronym Evel, is a proposal to limit Scottish MPs in their ability to vote on matters that would affect England only, due to those areas having been devolved to the Scottish Parliament (Wintour, 2015).

But what it seems to be, above everything else, is an attempt by Conservatives to forestall Britain's shift towards a federal system, where power would be devolved away from the centre at Westminster - and the more proportional voting systems would likely follow.

Late last year, Cameron promised the devolution of further powers to Scotland, including tax raising powers (Wintour, 2014), but at the same time stressed his intention to pursue the idea that legislation affecting only England should only be voted on by English MPs.

Some, particularly within the SNP, have complained that such a stratification of MPs, with different voting powers on different legislation, would create mounting difficulties (Mason & Perraudin, 2015). Furthermore there has been outrage at how the government is attempting to rush the plans through without the scrutiny of the full parliamentary process (Mason, 2015).

At PMQs, Cameron stressed that his plan for Evel did not involve creating a two-tiered system of MPs, but was the equivalent for England of the devolved decision making already in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Sparrow, 2015).

That opinion exposes an oddity within the British system. In essence, it labels Westminster as, de facto, the English Parliament, to which the other nations seem to simply be invited to attend when matters affecting them arise.

This determination to maintain this particular political system, forcing answers to constitutional questions to fit within Britain's deeply centralised system, even when they will produce unbalanced ways of handling legislation (The Guardian, 2015) - in this case by handing a veto to English MPs - looks to be a sign of just how uncomfortable the Conservative Party is with the clear changes taking place within the UK's political system.

Instead of embracing positive changes to the British system, for which there is mounting support (Mortimer, 2015), the Conservatives have determined instead to pursue a system that alienates those parts of the country who already have some partial federalism, while trying to rule another 50 million people directly from Westminster.

Embracing federalism, based around the regions and nations of the UK and allowing Westminster to evolve into a federal parliament, would be a much neater approach.

Following a close comparison for Britain, as Canada would be despite its smaller population, federalism would allow power to be devolved neatly to provincial assemblies representing the North, the Midlands, the East, the South and London. These could sit comfortably alongside those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, much as Ontario or Alberta sit alongside the quite vociferously distinct Quebec. By reforming along such lines, the confusing dual-purposing of Westminster might be avoided in the process.

Britain already has a complex multi-level political system, of regions and county councils between Westminster and local authorities, long in need of reform. Streamlining that system along federal lines would be a huge step forward that would ensure that, above all, people have the right to a government representative of them and their distinct provincial needs, while avoiding constitutional snarls that are only likely to lead to more alienation and division.

Election 2015: A Shorthand Guide to the 2015 UK General Election

Welcome to our shorthand guide to the 2015 UK general election. This will also act as a master post, a hub from which you can reach our more detailed assessment of the main issues and the policies of the major parties.

• Conservative Party
• Labour Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Green Party and the Left
• UKIP and the Right
• SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Regional Parties
• Party manifesto commitments and the values behind the policies
• What history can tell us about the SNP's future role at Westminster
• Healthcare, public funding and the future of the NHS
• Economics - Austerity, Austerity Lite or an Alternative
• The European Union - is the UK's future in or out

For the first time since 1910, the UK looks like it will elect two consecutive hung parliaments. By denying the two traditional opposing parties the right to dominate, the electorate has opened the floor to a lot of new ideas, from a lot of new parties. Over the next seven days The Alternative will take a look at each of the challengers, in turn, that are hoping to get your vote on 7th May, and over the next month pick apart the big issues up for debate.

The election itself will be fought, once more, under the first-past-the-post electoral system. Voters had the chance to reject and replace the system in a Liberal Democrat backed referendum but - in a low turnout of 41%, about 19m people - the change was rejected by 68% to 32% (BBC, 2011). Voting will take place on 7th May. The votes will be counted as soon as the polls close at 10pm and the result will be announced in each constituency as soon as it is known.

After the counting, the leader of the obvious majority in the House of Commons will be called to the palace and asked to form a government. However, if there is no clear leader then negotiations will begin. There are a couple of options at that point. The first option will be a coalition government between two parties that between them is able to hold a majority. The second will be a minority government, where one of the parties - likely at this point to be Conservative or Labour - will go it alone on an issue by issue basis, with no guarantee that it will be able to pass legislation.

At present, the polls tell us that the Conservatives and Labour look to be stuck in deadlock - both holding around 270 seats, each about 50 short of a majority. With the Liberal Democrats looking unlikely to keep enough seats to tip the balance one way or another, a minority government looks at present to be most likely - for the first time in the UK since the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s. The other option would of course be a 'Grand Coalition', where the biggest parties representing the Left and Right formed a coalition with each - something not uncommon in Europe, seen from time to time in Italy and in Germany, where the present government combines the conservative CDU with the social democratic SPD. However, the historical differences between Labour and Conservative supporters would make such a deal almost impossible.

Before all that though, the parties will have to convince voters of their ideas, or - as is more often the case - defend their record.

David Cameron, with so many challengers waiting in the wings to contest his leadership, needs nothing less than to secure a majority for the Conservatives. Achieving that will depend, firstly, upon having convinced the public that austerity was absolutely necessary, and that, secondly, it will produce a competitive advantage in the long run that will be generally beneficial.

On 7th May, the electorate will also pass judgement on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, and on coalition government in general. The answer to that question will not come from the success or failure of Cameron, but rather from Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. Whether or not the decision to enter coalition has been accepted by voters will be seen in how much support, and how many seats, the Lib Dems are able to retain - likely regardless of the policies they put forward.

Ed Miliband, meanwhile, has found himself having to answer to the legacy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Labour's results under his leadership will go some way to showing us if his party has managed to shake off the disaffection that saw Labour finally lose its majority in 2010, after thirteen years in office. Votes for Labour will also likely reflect a rejection of Cameron's policies - even if Labour have largely ruled out ending austerity (Whitaker, 2014).

These three, the traditional British parties, will this time be facing some new challengers who have a real chance to upset the established order. UKIP and the Greens, representing the Far-Right and Far-Left respectively, are both polling over 5% for the first time at a general election - making that five parties over 5% in England alone - and Scotland looks sure to be swept by the SNP, so comprehensively as to make them the new third party overall in the UK.

But the only reason any of this will matter is if you vote. Not voting is, as Nick Clegg put it on The Last Leg:

"It's like going to Nando's and asking someone else to put in your order, and then you get something you don't want. If you don't vote, you'll get a kind of government you don't want. So get stuck in there and vote."

If you want change, then you need to vote. Plain and simple. Not voting just leaves others to make big decisions for you, about your life, on your behalf. What will not be simple is figuring out who to vote for to get the change you want. Over the next week The Alternative will post a guide to each of the main parties competing in 2015, and over the next month on the NHS, the Economy and the European Union, filled with links to references, to help you make your choice on 7th May.

Italy shows the UK the dangers and difficulties involved in fixing a broken political system

The UK has once again been forced to let out a rather despairing sigh of exasperation as yet another politician is caught with a hand in the cookie jar (Toynbee, 2015). It is the third such scandal in only a matter of weeks that has called political funding into question. There is an obvious need for wholesale changes in Britain's political process.

The trouble is, changing a political system is a delicate task that is never straightforward. Italy has been caught in this particular trap for decades, and the UK can learn some important lessons from that country's struggle. In short, this kind of cash-for-influence exposé is at its worst only the tip of the iceberg, and at it's best the top of a very slippery slope.

Back in 1994, virtually the entire Italian political party system collapsed around a similar, though ultimately broader, cash-for-influence scandal, known as Tangentopoli (Carroll, 2000). The arrest of Mario Chiesa of the Partito Socialista Italiano in 1992, on charges of Bribery, triggered the tumbling of a whole house of cards. When the party distanced itself from Chiesa with accusations of his being simply a bad seed, he began to provide damning information to investigators regarding the activities of fellow politicians.

Over the next two years, as the Mani pulite ('clean hands') Judicial investigation spread across Italy, more and more politicans were implicated. To try and stem the crisis, the Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato attempted to use the power of decree to alter certain criminal charges for bribery, only for it to be seen as an attempt to extend an amnesty to corrupt politicians (Moseley, 1993).

In the 1994 elections that followed, the four largest pre-scandal parties collapsed and all but disappeared. That year also saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party. Out of the ashes of the old discredited order rose the populist power that has since dominated the last 20 years of politics in Italy - with more than its own fair scandals.

As Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia were symptomatic of Italy's political sickness, so Nigel Farage and UKIP are a symptom the UK's, and Marine Le Pen and Front National are a symptom of France's (Peston, 2015). These kinds of scandals embed themselves within political systems and eat away at its legitimacy. When the cracks show through, and the rotten core is exposed, it leaves access open to an exploitable opportunity. These populist groups - with their simplistic message and solutions, and often scapegoats - seize the initiative.

Since the scandal, in response to the general public outcry, Italy has attempted to redraw its political system several times (Pastorella, 2014).

The first major reform attempted to make individual politicians more accountable, and to introduce more stability to Italy's fractious parties and coalitions, by scrapping proportional representation in favour of first-past-the-post. The second was to give the largest party, in terms of the popular vote, a prize of 55% of seats regardless of the actual size of the majority they had won (Garovoglia, 2013). The first system, led to party fragmentation and frequently collapsing coalitions. The second was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 - essentially for misrepresenting voters by handing out a large electoral prize to the biggest party, or electoral coalition, even when it had won far less than a majority.

A third major attempt is currently under way, but that has already faced criticism across the Left - including from former Partito Democratico leader, and former Prime Minister, Pier Luigi Bersani (La Repubblica; 2015). It proposes to reduce the majority prize, but also to reduce the power of the Italian Senate - a move designed once more to address the fractious nature of Italian politics - and groups on the Left are objecting to this centralising of power and diminishment of oversight.

Despite these attempted reforms, despite the investigations and the political transformations, Italy is still mired as before in the same kind of corruption allegations (Barber, 2013). There are similar concerns about connections between private business interests and political parties, and with the government through the state held ownership stakes. There are even concerns surrounding some of the same figures who were connected to Tangentopoli in the 1990s.

Italy's struggle to reform, against the influence of a tight network of vested interests, is an important lesson for the UK. Failure to reform means feeding a rising populist anti-establishment feeling, that can and may be exploited in ways that threaten both justice and liberty. Attempting reform means taking on wealthy and powerful people, embedded vested interests who have a lot to lose from changes.

The first steps to reform are clear though, even if how to achieve is not necessarily as obvious. A realistic alternative needs to be found for party funding, and outside business interests for elected representatives has to come to an end. The example of Italy shows clearly: if the UK fails to pursue - as a first step - these ideals of political independence, with greater reform to follow, it could leave the country mired in populism and scandal for decades to come:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.'
(Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

Labour warns against splitting the Left, but there could a greater danger in not taking a risk for a better future

With the 2015 UK general election looming, the Labour Party has begun its attempt to shore up support amongst its fringe voters. With polls suggesting that it will be a close run thing, the fragmentation of support across the Left is a threat to the Labour methodology.

Labour's approach has long been about claiming control of the establishment and propping up it up, in order to use its power in support of their goals. Those electoral aims, of propping-up and shielding, are fundamentally contradictory. They leave no room for external compromise or co-operation that might challenge the establishment they hope to use and so requires, and demands, comprehensive majority support. As David Marquand (Bogdanor, 1983) put it about Labour theorist Anthony Crosland:

"Crosland took the traditional structure of the British state for granted, and failed to see that the centralist, elitist logic underlying it was incompatible with his own libertarian and egalitarian values."

Yet, even as it demands monolithic solidarity from voters, the party continues to be blatant in its hypocrisy by remaining as twisted by internal intrigue as ever. Former Brownites, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, struggle amongst themselves, with former Blairites, and also with the more socially conservative voices in the party (McElvoy, 2015). They argue as to which populist policy to throw out next, in an attempt to shore up its wavering support (Ratcliffe, 2015), and they argue over what socialist economics really ought to look like:

"In truth, Balls and Miliband do have different visions of what a progressive economy should look like. Miliband has a fundamentally less approving view of the way markets work than many in the Labour centre ground (a whiff of the idealism of an American east coast seminar room is never far off). Balls takes a more pragmatic view that the best way to advance progressive goals is to allow the markets free reign and cream off revenues to use for social gain." (McElvoy, 2015)

In 2010, Labour warned of the risks of a split vote, caused by those who thought of leaving the party to look for brighter alternatives elsewhere. In the run-up to that election, the Liberal Democrats had appeared like a fresh voice, which spoke of an active and hopeful step forward. Labour, in turn, offered only a stable conservation, centred on the establishment - and they lost a lot of voters, though fear succeeded, at least temporarily, in quelling the tide before it became a flood.

Those warnings from the party and from commentators, in the face of a fragmenting political order, have now turned against the Greens. Former Labour minister Peter Hain has called for the party to come up with policy proposals that will allow the party to cover any potential threat to the solidarity of its support that the more radical Green Party might pose (Wintour, 2015).

In the light of the pressures being placed on the Greens, it is unsurprising that a lot has been made of the apparent announcement that its support for a Citizen's Income will not be in its 2015 election manifesto (Riley-Smith, 2015). In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Green MP Caroline Lucas said that:

"The Citizen's Income is not going to be in the 2015 general election manifesto as something to be introduced on May 8th. It is a longer term aspiration; we are still working on it... The Citizen's Income, as I've explained, is not going to be a red line."

Its apparent absence from the Green Party's campaign was revealed over a series of interviews where the policy was heavily criticised with regards to its cost (Findlay, 2015). While Lucas attempted to play down the party's intentions regarding Citizen's Income, other senior Green Party members have reaffirmed their commitment to putting the policy into the 2015 manifesto (Cowburn, 2015).

However, some of those among the Greens, such as MP Caroline Lucas, seem to be responding to the party's election possibilities with pragmatism. They are looking for the party to gain enough seats to take part in a left-wing coalition, and are setting out, ahead of time, where they draw the line for coalition talks (BBC, 2015).

"What we are going to do is to put forward some radical and visionary ideas which this political system needs so badly. What we are also going to do, with a handful of MPs, is to push Labour in particular to be far more progressive."

That means leading with their more modest aims, to give them the best chance of achieving an agreement. It also means learning from Liberal Democrat mistakes and not committing to things ahead of time, which they may not be able to achieve come May.

However, while the Green Party are making compromises to be a progressive force alongside, and not necessarily instead of or opposed to, the Labour Party, Labour continue to be pushed towards their standard, monolithic, pragmatic response: give us your vote unswervingly and we will save people from cuts and inequality.

The SNP too is now on the receiving end of whispered warnings (Rawnsley, 2015). The rise of Scottish separatism, and of the SNP as a left-of-centre alternative, has Labour scrambling to find a response that allows them to protect the establishment they deem so precious to their goals, while wooing back their disaffected supporters.

Labour remain clinging to their hopes of power in a dead system. They hang on to their two-party, us and them, polarised dynamics, and try to squeeze out the rest of the Left, with negative tactics on the one hand, and populist appeals on the other, and warnings of a need to act practically in response to the system's iniquities, even as they fail to press for reform of those same iniquities.

They encourage a resistance to radicalism within the Left, feeding the fear of loss; the fear of losing the ground claimed inch-by-clawed-inch, year-by-painful-year. Those tactics have motivated continued support for Labour, even as they have failed to secure those hard fought victories with constitutional or economic reforms.

Voters continue to point to the dangers of stepping outside of the safe routine for fear that the selfish other might sneak in and conquer. But there is a longer term danger of failing to reach, than in reaching and falling short. While the Left has hidden away in its Labour bastion, it has been suffering a slow creeping loss. The Left allowed the momentum, the initiative, to be taken by conservative and reactionary forces. The Left, in their fear, have succumbed to a slow shifting, slipping, seeping surrender to an agenda set by the Right.

The question is, after 2010 brought a fresh voice against Labour's stable conservatism, will people fall back into Labour's drudging march, or will they keep looking for new hope with the Liberal Democrats, or with the Greens, or the SNP? Or, can Labour finally turn over a new leaf after one hundred years where each radical step has been accompanied by a conservative one: civil liberties with authoritarian policing, public health with privatisation, devolution with centralised control, popular power turned into an obsession with establishment power?

If Labour is truly committed to the best interests of the Left, it has to learn to co-operate. The support for the Greens, SNP and Lib Dems, as left-wing alternatives, represents various kinds of idealist hopes for the future, all of which have been strangled within a political system that the Labour Party has persistently used against these left-wing oppositions to its own agenda.

Labour need to overcome that bad habit and get behind political reform, to reshape politics so that the Left, in all of its wonderful and diversely fragmented forms, can work side by side.

==========
References:
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+ David Marquand, in Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983. [Buy Now]

+ Anne McElvoy's 'The clash of two Eds raises the ghost of Labour past'; in The Guardian; 22 February 2015.
+ Rebecca Ratcliffe's 'Would £6,000 tuition fees be a vote winner for Labour?'; in The Guardian; 16 February 2015.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Labour needs to be more radical to counter Green threat, says Peter Hain'; in The Guardian; 22 January 2015.

+ Ben Riley-Smith's 'Greens ditch citizens' income from election manifesto'; in The Telegraph; 2 February 2015.

+ Joseph Finlay's 'What Natalie Should Have Said - How to Fund the Green Party's Citizen's Income Policy'; in The Huffington Post UK; 1 February 2015.

+ Ashley Cowburn's 'Green deputy leaders contradict Caroline Lucas: Citizens’ Income will be in the manifesto'; in The New Statesman; 9 February 2015.

+ 'Green leader Natalie Bennett backtracks on terror groups'; on the BBC; 3 February 2015.

+ Andrew Rawnsley's 'Voting SNP is more likely to hand power to Cameron than to Miliband'; in The Guardian; 22 February 2015.

Syriza can learn from the Lib Dems that strange political alliances send an inconsistent message

Following Syriza's victory in the Greek elections, where they fell just short of a majority, they were forced to find a coalition partner in order to govern. Their choice of partner was a right-wing anti-EU party.

For a radically left-wing party like Syriza, that choice of partner is drastically inconsistent with their ideology. Inconsistencies, such as these, in the way political parties present themselves can have dire consequences.

That was a lesson learnt only too well by the Liberal Democrats in the aftermath of their decision to go into government with the Conservatives, and to drop their opposition to tuition fee increases. Now, in Greece, Syriza face that same dangerous path as they agree to receive the support necessary to govern from the right-wing national conservative ANEL party (AKA Independent Greece).

The parties, that sit at completely opposite ends of the political spectrum, with entirely incompatible social politics, are going into government together on the basis of their mutual antipathy towards the European Union and austerity.

In the UK, the Lib Dems and Tories put aside their differences in ideology in the name of pursuing a response to the economic crisis with a shared vision of a smaller state. The controversy was not so much in their actions, or their reasons for doing so, but rather instead a matter of how the Lib Dems had presented themselves beforehand.

Having campaigned as a left-wing alternative party, many people felt that their reasons for voting for the party had been betrayed when they went into coalition with the right-wing Conservative Party.

In Greece, Syriza are walking a similar tightrope. In opposition to conservative economic austerity, and the EU establishment that is supporting it, the party is crossing the ideological divide to work with the ANEL right-wing group.

The fact that there is something that they mutually oppose enough to work together to stop it, says a lot about the confusion over political ideology. For all the emphasis that is put on ideology, allegiance and other forms of social structuring in party politics, groups are reaching across the divides in the name of particular issues.

In reality they are parties with very different reasons and motivations to oppose the EU, with very different alternatives preferred - which makes it a tenuous alliance at best. It is a pragmatic marriage of convenience, an inconsistency that, if Syriza isn't careful, could permanently damage their standing as a party of left-wing ideals.

==========
References:
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+ Gregory T Papanikos' 'With Greece backing the euro but Syriza in government, another election may beckon'; in New Statesman; 27 January 2015.

+ Sunder Katwala's 'Did Nick Clegg betray 2.7 million voters?'; on The Next Left - A Fabian Society Blog; 26 July 2010.

The collapse of the political mainstream will mean more choice, but it will also call for more co-operation

With tomorrow, 27th January, marking one hundred days until the 2015 UK general election, polling figures are showing us something interesting. The main two parties are weakening, falling as low as 30% each, and the third parties, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and UKIP, are all pushing 10% (Clark, 2015).

It is a sign of something seen in many other countries: the established political mainstream is fracturing (Nardelli, 2015). There is an upside: choice becomes a realistic possibility. People will, however, have to prepare themselves for what it will mean to be represented by many diverse parties. The parties they vote for will have to co-operate with other groups to form governments. Coalitions will be necessary.

The Liberal Democrats' choice to go into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 has been seen by many as a controversial betrayal (Harris, 2011), but multi-party politics means multi-party governments. Those alliances often have to stretch across odd-parts of the political spectrum, working with what they find, and not everyone will get all of the things that they voted for, even if their choice makes it into government.

If we are to see greater choice between parties, all with realistic chances of governing, then people will have to get used to the idea of coalitions and the compromises that come with them. The alternative is to keep the partisan two-party system that divests all of the power upon one vision for the country, a method that can often exclude far more than half of the electorate.

The electoral battle ahead between the mainstream parties and the anti-establishment movements is already provoking fears about the impact it will have - fears that it will simply inflame the antagonism and polarisation that feeds nationalists and extremists (Behr, 2015). Fears that pluralism will bring instability, and that it will be exploited by one of the opposing factions, progressive or conservative, to crush their divided opponents.

The response of commentators has tended towards the same old framework (Jones, 2015), justifying the same old tactics: the mainstream parties (in particular Labour) need to head off and crush the small parties (in particular the Greens), and all of it to protect the position of the establishment party and its vague vision, in opposition to that of its old enemy.

But there has to be a better answer. Instead of crushing other groups on the Left, Labour could be co-operating on common issues, forming electoral alliances and creating a space on the Left for healthy debate. The alternative for the Left is more of the same old party system that has driven whole generations away from the political process.

"Political parties maintain their existence because they represent major cleavages which are persistent and long-lasting. These cleavages may be socio-economic, religious, ethnic or political. Political parties are, as it were, an institutional expression of a country's historical continuity, a mirror-image of the conflicts which past generations have found important...

...However, these traditional stances no longer coincide either with social reality, or with the natural division of opinion on political issues. The two major parties, therefore, appear less as cohesive agencies of political representation than as uneasy and incompatible coalitions held together as much by the needs of electoral survival as by common political beliefs." (Bogdanor, 1983)

When the two-party dynamic breaks down, the major parties survive by being big tents for all viewpoints, though none in particular, and dominate their traditional places on the political spectrum mostly through historical allegiance and fear-mongering about the dangers of vote-splitting. Their major concern becomes technocratic government, aiming to govern technically well according to whatever is the dominant economic system of the day, to justify their own suitability to govern. They become a refracting lens, directing and redirecting public political opinion rather than representing it (Bogdanor, 1983).

The Labour Party, as one of those mainstream, big-tent, technocratic parties, are finding themselves beset upon either side by these new political factions - UKIP, representing an older and more nationalistic crowd on the Far-Right, and the Greens, representing those younger and more liberal upon the Left (Helm, 2015; Ford, 2015).

These two parties, UKIP and Green, have two things in common: they represent a general discontent with the old system, and a fracturing of the old dualistic system into a number of separate factions of varied agendas. The old system is losing its grip. Top down control of policy and priorities is no longer in the hands of a single-faction government.

This is a function of a more open and representative democracy. It means many more viewpoints being brought into political debate, with new third parties emerging to drive change on new issues. The victory of the radical left-wing party Syriza in the Greek elections is a testament to what can be achieved in a multi-party system. However, the need of that party to form a coalition with a small right-wing anti-EU party in order to govern is a strong reminder of the compromises that follow.

The collapse of the established status-quo, and the fracturing of the system into a more open form, is far from complete. But more parties, with realistic chances of governing, and the possibility of electoral reform (Jones, 2015), mean that a more representative politics isn't far away. In that new form, the political Left - particularly the Labour Party - will have to adapt and rid itself of its own top down, patronising tendencies inherited from the present system.

The Left will need to find a way to co-operate, and to facilitate the presence of diverse views and fragmented factions. Those diverse groups, divisions and debates have always been a part of how the Left works, and that's fine. Its natural diversity is a positive, not a weakness. Openness to debate and the divisions that come with it are the lifeblood of progress.

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References:
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+ Tom Clark's 'Labour lead falls as Greens hit 20-year high in Guardian/ICM poll'; in The Guardian; 20 January 2015.

+ Alberto Nardelli's '2015 election: five key themes'; in The Guardian; 23 January 2015.

+ Evan Harris' 'The myth of Lib Dem 'betrayal''; in The Guardian; 6 May 2011.

+ Rafael Behr's 'The general election could unleash a new wave of contempt for politics'; in The Guardian; 21 January 2015.

+ Owen Jones' 'How Labour should respond to the ‘Green surge’'; in The Guardian; 22 January 2015.

+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983. [Buy Now]

+ Toby Helm's 'Green surge could hit Labour in 22 election battlegrounds, new study finds'; in The Guardian; 24 January 2015.

+ Robert Ford's 'How Green party surge threatens Labour’s election hopes'; in The Guardian; 24 January 2015.

What are the liberal alternatives to the austerity cuts?

Vince Cable and Nick Clegg, two of the most senior Liberal Democrats, were quick to make their voices heard in response to the Autumn Statement and to the Conservative push for more cuts during the next parliament. The essence of their narrative was simple: the Lib Dems believe that austerity has been pushed as far as it can or should go.

Cable was quick off the mark with a letter to the Office of Budget Responsibility, which called for the OBR to make a clear a distinction between the future policies of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats  (Wintour, 2014). Clegg followed in his wake by stressing that the Tory determination to cut tax was not matched by available funds (Marr, 2014) - meaning more public services would have to go.

The economic analysts seem to agree with them. The analysis released in response to the Autumn Statement stressed that public spending would have to be reduced drastically if the Conservative path was to be followed (Johnson, 2014). And this week the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) announced that its research had shown that inequality is bad for economic growth, and that a redistributive economy is far more conducive to economic success - not to mention beneficial to social welfare (Elliott, 2014).

So what would the Lib Dems do differently?

Well, Clegg says that they are not ashamed of the role they have played in arresting public spending (Mason, 2014), but the party has expressed disagreements over the way forward. While the Conservatives want more and deeper cuts, the Lib Dems think that the realistic plateau has been reached. Instead of more cuts, they want a rise in tax that is controlled to protect the poorest (Lansdale, 2014).

While serving as a practical challenge to the Conservative narrative pushed by the Tories and UKIP, people are unlikely to be inspired by ideas aimed at just keeping a sinking ship afloat. People want an opportunity to make things better - and there are liberal ideas, more radically progressive, that the Lib Dems could push.

Though the modern Lib Dems have been focussed on the idea of reducing the state - with a Gladstonian commitment to capitalism, in opposition to the state - when the old Liberal Party began to modernise in the early twentieth century, the new social liberalism it had embraced opened the party up to the idea that there was a role for the public sector to play, though still with the proviso that it should be reduced wherever possible.

Those deep rooted liberal tendencies have produced ideas, beyond simply reducing state influence, that are more conducive to creating a new era of reform. In the 1920s, Liberals under the guiding hand of John Maynard Keynes produced an in depth report of the British economy that included in its recommendations co-operatives, and democracy in the workplace (Yellow Book, 1928).

'The worker's grievance arises from a sense of the inadequacy of their reward, of their insecurity of livelihood and tenure, and of their lack of information as to the financial results of their work... The present ownership of industry is unduly concentrated and should be diffused as widely as possible among industrial wage-earners. Such diffusion, tending towards the popular ownership of industry, may be effected partly by progressive taxation and restrictions upon the inheritance of large fortunes, but more directly by the stimulation of employee-ownership under schemes of profit-sharing and investment by employees, by the encouragement of popular banking and investment, and by the creation and development of investment trusts. All these processes should be encouraged and, where necessary, regulated by the state.'

These ideas are still woven into Lib Dem policy proposals. Nick Clegg has previously called for a move towards a 'John Lewis Economy' (Clegg, 2012), with companies embracing workers holding shares, and party members have argued that co-operatives should be at the forefront of the Lib Dem economic policy (Donaldson, 2013) - as they are in the preamble to the party constitution.

Now could be the time to start bringing those ideas to the forefront. Co-ops represent a huge step forward, giving people more autonomy in their working lives and spreading the profits of their labour more equitably. If the Lib Dems are to see the aims of the authors of the 1928 Yellow Book report fulfilled, to ensure that individuals may enjoy life more abundantly, co-operation is going to play a key role in achieving them.

Support for the Greens and the SNP is forcing change on the British Left

If the years since the 2008 economic crisis have shown us anything, it's that people are discontent with the old order. In the UK, as well as elsewhere, governments have struggled to manage sinking economies and it has led to crashing confidence in central national authorities (Nardelli, 2014).

In Britain this has shown itself in the slow but dramatic collapse of the two-party system. Across Britain voters first switched, in modest numbers, to the Liberal Democrats, as the largest left alternative to a Labour Party that had become a towering behemoth of establishment power (The Guardian, 2010).

That switch created the first true multi-party system in Britain since the Second World War. However, when the Lib Dems gathered too little support to achieve much other than mildly shackling the Conservatives in a coalition, their voting support fractured (Kirkup, 2014). Failing to defend certain of their key policies from Conservatives depredations have sent supporters fleeing to find new havens.

In Scotland, the SNP have been the main beneficiaries of the Lib Dems being sucked into the whirlpool of mistrust of establishment political parties, and of voter's loss of trust in Labour  (Carrell, 2014). The SNP have established a reputation as a more than just a single issue separatist party, and have attracted a number of left-wing voters looking for a new left alternative, with policies like nuclear disarmament, free higher education and progressive taxation (Brooks, 2014).

Across the rest of Britain, the Green Party has been slowly building support (Walsh, 2014). The party has persistently set itself apart from the other main parties, supporting policies like the citizen's income. Green parties are organised right across the European continent, and are close to being the first truly federal European party, but have yet to make the big breakthrough in the UK. In 2010 Caroline Lucas became their first MP (BBC, 2010), and since then they have begun to poll at similar levels to both UKIP and the Lib Dems.

The rising support, for both parties, is breaking open the old system. That break could well be a blessing for the British Left. The Greens and the SNP are opening a space to the left of the British mainstream, and it's a space where progressive ideas can make themselves heard. It is also the opportunity to reshape the left in a less centralised way.

Plurality, many voices and many perspectives, is the lifeblood of debate and is at the centre of progress. The Labour Party has tried to force those different groups to unite into a single faction with one voice, but in doing so has only strangled and frustrated the political left - even as they have achieved great steps forward. The emergence of a multi-party system, and the much needed democratic reforms that will allow it to thrive, should be seen then as an opportunity to be embraced.

Britain has seen elements of a multi-party system before, but not since the Second World War. The loss of multiple parties was not really to the benefit of the left, even as Labour managed to gather left-wing voters around itself. It meant an end to co-operation between social democrats and liberals that weakened both movements (Bogdanor, 1983).

The opening up the left by multiple parties could pull Labour back leftwards, and force it to embrace co-operation with other leftist groups. The fear is that a system with many parties will lead to division and therefore weakness - but it doesn't have to. If you can find common ground and find a way to present an allied front, you will be able to work together.

There is room on the left for the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Green Party, the Co-operative Party and more, so long as they, and especially Labour, can learn to co-operate.

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References:
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+ Alberto Nardelli's 'A crisis of trust - and the rise of new political parties'; in The Guardian; 6 November 2014.

+ The Guardian's 'General election 2010: The liberal moment has come'; 30 April 2010.

+ James Kirkup's 'Only third of 2010 Lib Dem voters will back party again, poll suggests'; in The Telegraph; 7 March 2013.

+ Severin Carrell's 'Labour faces massive losses to SNP at UK general election, poll shows'; in The Guardian; 30 October 2014.

+ Libby Brooks' 'Who are the new members of the Scottish National Party?'; in The Guardian;13 November 2014.

+ James Walsh's '7 reasons why people are turning to the Green party'; in The Guardian; 14 November 2014.

+ BBC's 'Election: Green Party gain first MP with Brighton win'; 7 May 2010.

+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press; 1983 [Buy Now].

Spain's Podemos party signals the rise of a new political left

Since the financial crisis erupted in 2008, Europe has seen a rise in co-ordinated leftist movements, such as Occupy, getting people out onto the streets to protest against the conservative economic orthodoxy.

Despite being highly visible, those campaigns, for welfare before wealth and people before profits, have found little traction inside the political mainstream. The failure of mainstream political parties to reflect public priorities in policy has led to collapsing support for those parties, and a corresponding collapse in trust in the political institutions (Nardelli, 2014).

However, that has began to change. In time for the European elections, while the world was justifiably worried about the rise of the far right, a new party emerged in Spain. Born out of the Indignados movement, which saw as many as 8 million people take to the streets across Spain in 2011 and 2012, a new party was formed, called Podemos (Jones, 2014).

Podemos, meaning "We can", marks an important transition. The leftist activists and protesters are shifting from campaigning to political democracy, from protesting to developing policy - trying to turn ideas into action (Pope, 2014). It is a beginning of a fulfilment of the promise shown by leftist campaigns across Europe.

People have shown they are active and engaged. But they're unhappy, and are now they're taking to proposing the solutions themselves, because the establishment hasn't listened, and hasn't reformed to suit the needs of the people.

That disaffection has elsewhere only fed the parties of the far right, who only offer narrow and restrictive responses to poverty and suffering. Those groups, like UKIP, do not break from political orthodoxies and fail to offer positive alternatives. Only the anti-establishment libertarian democratic group Movimento 5 Stelle, of Italy, has succeeded in taking popular support away from those far right groups... so far.

The rising polling strength of Podemos is a positive answer to that right-wing populism, and ought to be a huge boost to those on the left, from progressives to socialists to liberals. They are championing the causes of the left: poverty reduction, the basic income, reducing dependence upon fossil fuels, promoting small, medium and local producers and enterprises along with some sensible public control.

They represent the ideals of the left, backed by a popular movement, bringing activism and political policy together to challenge mainstream methods and orthodox ideas. That is a cause for hope for anyone who is looking for a better future, one oriented more towards people and their needs, than to endless, monotonous, accumulation and consumption.

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Reference:
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+ Alberto Nardelli's 'A crisis of trust - and the rise of new political parties'; in The Guardian; 6 November 2014.

+ Owen Jones' 'Viva Podemos: the left shows it can adapt and thrive in a crisis'; in The Guardian; 16 November 2014.

+ Mike Pope's 'The rise of Podemos and its People's Assembly'; on OpenDemocracy.net; 17 November 2014.

Marvel finally includes a much needed female lead in their cinematic universe

The announcement of the upcoming movies planned for phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) contained a pleasant surprise (Brew, 2014). On the list was, at last, a female-led movie. The introduction of Captain Marvel to the MCU looks set to address the worrying lack of a female lead in Marvel's very successful movie-series (Kastrenakes, 2014).

Until now, rumours of a movie for Black Widow, portrayed in the MCU by Scarlett Johansson, had been little more than a demonstration of the extent of Marvel's dependence upon white male characters. That dependence is, however, hardly unique to Marvel. It has been shared by many a movie franchise, so much so that the success of female led films, such as Scarlett Johansson's Lucy, have resulted in expressions of wonder (Cunningham, 2014).

The Captain Marvel announcement comes then as a positive step, and follows moves made in the TV branch of Marvel's cinematic universe. On TV, with Agents of SHIELD, Marvel has at least featured a number of strong female characters very prominently. The cast has grown to become, gradually, more diverse across its first series, and now into the opening episodes of the second.

That direction is kept up by their upcoming series Agent Carter, starring the eponymous Agent Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell. Carter had a significant role in Captain America: The First Avenger, and Atwell is resuming the role to head-up the MCU's second TV series.

Together, the two Marvel shows have done a good job of giving a good share of screen time, and a good share of character roles to female characters - putting women very prominently and visibly at the forefront. However, despite the critical praise for television in general that has brought increased exposure, TV still lacks quite the same high profile that movies enjoy - and the major money-making entertainment industry that it supports - and that supports it in turn.

In the entertainment industry, that seems very much to be the key. By proving that a major film production with a female lead can bring in big box office numbers, and therefore make large amounts of money, an important ceiling can be broken. That's what makes this announcement so important.

Captain Marvel, set for screens in 2018, will bring much needed exposure and visibility for lead female characters in a critically and popularly acclaimed movie universe. It is a chance to break through the myth that the only safe option for big budget films is a white male lead.

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References:
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+Simon Brew's 'Marvel unveils Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe'; on DenofGeek.com; 28 October 2014.

+ Jason Kastrenakes' '"Captain Marvel" will be Marvel Studios' first female superhero movie'; on The Verge; 28 October 2014.

+ Todd Cunningham's 'Why Scarlett Johansson's ‘Lucy’ Strikes Blow for Women With Kick-Butt Box Office'; for Yahoo Celebrity!/The Wrap; 28 July 2014.

+ Josh Dickey's 'Carol Danvers, Marvel's first female superhero, is also the most powerful'; on Mashable.com; 28 October 2014.

+ Dave Haglund's 'Stop Saying That TV Is Better Than Movies These Days'; on Slate.com; 18 July 2013.

+ David Cox's '10 reasons today's movies trump TV'; in The Guardian; 21 October 2013.

+ Stuart Heritage's '10 reasons why today's TV is better than movies'; in The Guardian; 23 October 2014.

+ Joss Whedon's 'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD'; on ABC; 2013. [Buy Now]

+ Joe Johnston's 'Captain America: The First Avenger'; from Marvel; 2011. [Buy Now]