Beyond Nostalgia
The Left Needs a Lasting Vision Our Lost Society Can Latch On To
James Bloodworth explores how and why the left abandoned its previous capacity to imagine the future – a vacuum into which the populist right has readily stepped

Photo: Matthew Cattle/PA/Alamy
‘Don’t privatise trains, don’t nationalise sandwiches.’
This old social democratic slogan was apparently lost on Zarah Sultana when she was interviewed by journalist Owen Jones at the newly formed Your Party Conference last month. Asked about its programme for the British economy, the former Labour – now Your Party – MP said it would seek to nationalise the “entire economy”. Pressed further, Sultana seemed to equivocate. Your Party would nationalise water, transport, and the commanding heights of industry – but perhaps not quite the entire economy.
The exchange had the air of a student union AGM.
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