Geoffrey Wheatcroft asks:
Does Labour have any real purpose any more? Or does politics?
On the first of those two questions I could suggest something anodyne like: presenting itself as a credible party of government while also continuing the tradition of trying to create a more just and less unequal society. On the second, however, I would have thought we have ample material before us right now to illustrate some of the important purposes of democratic politics. It’s all very well to wax cynical about ‘the continuing depoliticisation of society’, but take a look at either Syria or Egypt and you may get an idea why even the reduced levels of interest in politics that the established democracies manage to maintain these days are not to be sneezed at.