Equality
R H Tawney 1931
Unwin Books
This book, probably more than any other, made me realise what democratic socialism meant and why it was important. It’s a marvellous account of the intellectual and philosophical underpinning of the European left over the past 80 years. And its central thesis is that the ‘freedom from’ is a necessary precondition for the exercise of the ‘freedom to’: the freedom from want, disease, hunger, poverty, idleness or discrimination having to be secured before the freedom to do things, seize opportunities or achieve successes can be delivered. It’s a book I would prescribe as required reading for anyone aspiring to be a progressive MP.

No Ordinary Time
Doris Kearns Goodwin 1994
Simon Schuster
Doris Kearns Goodwin has become an indefatigable chronicler of American politics and history, and this is her best book – an account of the life, challenges and decisions of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House. It’s a fascinating story of the noble ideals and grubby compromises that combine together in any great political endeavour. It shows us exactly what torments and triumphs Barack Obama is enduring, right now.

Ring of Bright Water
Gavin Maxwell 1960
Penguin
I loved this book when I first read it as a teenager. I still do. It’s the tale of someone who renovates a tumbledown cottage by the sea on the west coast of Scotland and shares his life there with two otters. Its evocation of the land and seascape, the rhythm of the seasons, its perceptions about the natural world, its empathy with the lives of animals, its hilarious stories of adventure and accident and tragedy, are perfectly done. Maxwell quotes a Louis MacNeice poem at the end that says ‘thank you … for making this life worth living’; and it is indeed a book infused with the spirit of life.

Undiscovered Scotland
W H Murray 1951
Diadem
Bill Murray was one of the formidable group of mid-20th century Scottish mountaineers. He wrote his first book, Mountaineering in Scotland, in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany and after it was confiscated had to write it all over again. This is the sequel, and for someone like me, who has spent a lifetime tramping the hills and glens of Scotland, it is a perfect gem. It is passionate about the beauty of the hills and mountains; it captures the sense of the infinite that lies beyond the landscape; it reminds us, deep down, why we love this wild and wonderful country.

King Lear
William Shakespeare 1608
Methuen (Arden Shakespeare)
Lear is the darkest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The play tears at our hearts, brings rage and pity, exposes the elemental forces of all our natures, renders us baffled and exhausted by folly and cruelty alike, and does it all in words that are unsurpassed. We emerge from the play feeling as if our emotions and understanding have been wrung dry. A critic once wrote that the catharsis at the end of Lear doesn’t come because we know that good has triumphed over evil – it hasn’t – but because we know ‘that it is better to have been Cordelia than to have been her sisters’.

But some of what happened went much further: the dogmatic belief that the private sector’s engagement will always improve public services, for example; or the adoption (alongside Bush and the neo-cons) of a democratic-imperialist approach to foreign policy and intervention.

Let’s look for a moment at the record. Some of it is good.

Some of the big things that have been done (especially in the early years) have been wholly welcome: the introduction of the minimum wage, the legislation for devolution, the sustained improvements in child support, especially through child benefit, the major increases in public investment in health and education, the commitment to overseas aid and development, the peace process in Northern Ireland. And some of the smaller things, too, have represented the radicalism many of us had hoped for: civil partnerships, free museums, a right to roam, or the Scottish Land Fund, helping crofters to buy out their landlords.

Not everything on the balance sheet is as good. Set alongside the items on the progressive side of the equation are the following: the unquestioning adoption of PFI, the growing gap between rich and poor, the replacement of Trident, and above all the tragic, ghastly blunder of the war in Iraq. There’s been real achievement but there have been mistakes and disappointments aplenty.

Meanwhile, the party at large yearns not for a return to statism but for a greater degree of radicalism in the approach to many of these issues. And where have been the voices making this case, where have been the noises of dissent? They’ve been there, from time to time, not so much arguing for turning the clock back, but for a different kind of turning-forward.

Let’s not forget, either, that 130 Labour MPs went into the division lobby against their own government to vote against the war in Iraq, the biggest rebellion in the Commons within a government’s own ranks for more than a century; and if it hadn’t been for Tory support we wouldn’t have gone to war. There has certainly been dissent, on some issues and at some times, but for most of the time it has tended to be moderated (rightly) by a sense of loyalty.

With Gordon Brown’s election as leader we have a chance to shape a new agenda. Gordon is of course much more deeply rooted in the party and its values than Tony was. He feels more passionately about poverty and individual attainment with collective support. The mood music is good. My guess is that there’ll be less need for dissent, and less cause for frustration, in the next few years. But we’ll need to continue to press for that radical edge that has lately been too much missed.

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