I always know summer is drawing to an end when I see the same old A level and GCSE stories in the headlines. Articles start with ‘record results for GCSE students' and end by chastising the ‘dumbing down' of exams.

Organising the hustings along policy lines would have allowed the candidates to define themselves, to really think hard about their platform, and show Labour has the ideas to be a government-in-waiting

What to do with these new members? Make sure they at least feel welcome, are not put off my jargon, and encourage them to be active, to ensure Labour has strong new roots

In the first of his contributions to our Young Progressives column, Young Fabian David Chaplin explores what was learnt during the election campaign and we should do now

Labour should have shouted more about the Future Jobs Fund's creation. Its abolition could condemn those who most need help to years on the dole

Judging by David Cameron's performance at PMQs, the union movement must be braced for a forthright attack if the Tories were to win the next general election

The peace and prosperity enjoyed in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday agreement is embedded, but fragile. The next delicate step to full peace is the devolution of police and justice powers. It is widely believed that if the Conservatives win the general election they will not have a majority. This is a contributing factor to the Tories linking up with the UUP to increase the number of House of Commons seats that Cameron could command support from.

Calls for demonstrations on 11 February, the day of the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, failed to produce the turnout hoped for by the opposition. The regime had prepared well: militias and police were out in force, communications interrupted, and regime supporters bussed in to Tehran.

If Labour hasn't yet chosen its election theme music it could do worse than to ask Mick Hucknall for the rights to Money's Too Tight to Mention. The voters might appreciate the brutal honesty and, thankfully, the song ought to be available on the cheap. After all, it's not just the Treasury and millions of ordinary families that are strapped for cash. The Labour party is broke too. For the first time since the disastrous 1983 campaign it can expect to be massively outspent by the Conservatives in the forthcoming general election.

Two heavyweight reports on inequality have thumped onto the desks of ministers and journalists in the past few weeks. Together they present us with a clear 'we can't go on like this' moment. The question is whether politicians, business leaders and those in the City will take it. Or will they fall back on the notion, now thoroughly discredited, that inequality throughout society - and all the health, human and financial costs associated with it - is a price worth paying?

"NOW WE HAVE TO BAIL OUT THE EURO" screamed the front page of the Express last week, putting aside for once its obsession with the amount of money councils spend on translation services. Such mean-spiritedness is not just unattractive, it's wrong-headed. We should show our struggling near-neighbours the same solidarity that we would hope to receive if similar difficulties were to befall us.

The sound and fury that attended the launch last week of the Robin Hood Tax campaign - the near obligatory Richard Curtis video, Goldman Sachs' clumsy attempt at vote rigging - shouldn't obscure the very serious intent of the campaign.

We face a stark choice. Not just in Britain, but globally.

There was a tremor in the House of Commons on Tuesday night that may yet be remembered as the start of a political earthquake. For the first time, a majority of MPs agreed that the voting system which gave them their seats is broken, and voted in favour of a referendum on the Alternative Vote. While AV is not a proportional system, change does create opportunities and may well begin to open things out enough for a new sort of politics to edge in.

The altitude of growth and unemployment, according to received economic wisdom, are inversely related. When one falls, the other rises. So recent drops in the number of people looking for work, while the UK officially remains in recession, have left analysts scratching their heads. When the Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimant count rose by well over 100,000 a month in early 2009, the prospect of a return to over three million unemployed was very real.

Labour is still on ‘winnable territory' against a Tory party reverting to type, Alan Johnson tells Jessica Asato and Ed Thornton

Just as every good folk story needs a hero, villain and a dame, so does a strong campaign. And so the spirit of Robin Hood is invoked today by a coalition of leading NGOs and trade unions to put banks at the centre of tackling poverty and injustice. But who will play the roles of Robin Hood, the Sheriff, Little John?

Whenever you meet a parent who uses a Sure Start Children's Centre, they almost always fizz with enthusiasm about the support they have felt, services they have received and the staff that have been a vital source of advice. To these parents Sure Start Children's Centres are becoming as central a part of the local public service infrastructure as GPs or primary schools. Yet so often what public debate there is about Sure Start still questions its achievements and value for money. We want parents' voices to be heard and that is why we have launched a campaign today called ‘shout out for a sure start'.

The last PMQs before recess was an ill-humoured affair after a week of sharpening, more personal, attacks from the Tories on Brown following more expenses developments, mockery of Tory posters, uncertainty over the future of the AV referendum in parliament, and fires to put out for Cameron over Lord Ashcroft and local Conservative PPCs.

Joining Progress today were Paul Richards, Hopi Sen and Rupa Huq, all known in and around the world of UK political commentary. The discussion kicked off just after the end of PMQs and we ask who won, who was the best backbencher, who made the best comment or joke(not so many today), and what the ongoing implications are for the general election campaign. Gordon Prentice and Douglas Carswell win mentions for their contributions, while opinion was divided on who won the leaders' match.

Sitting in the audience at the Progress manifesto conference last weekend was like seeing a potted history of Labour in government since 1997. Speakers included former ministers, a former special adviser, Labour members of Parliament, a cabinet minister, Labour PPC and dozens of Labour activists and Progress members.

An article on ConservativeHome over the weekend claimed there will be an "historic increase" in the number of women and ethnic minority Conservative MPs following the general election.

With such a statement you would expect the increase to be significantly more, or at least matching, that which Labour achieved in 1997, when 101 women MPs were elected. In fact, they predict that with a Conservative majority of one, there will be 61 Conservative women MPs elected.

The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, by Tim Bale

If a future historian wants to know why either David Cameron lost the 2010 general election, or, more likely, why the Cameron government was such an abject failure, a clue can be found on p21 of Tim Bale's new book about the Tories. Bale writes: ‘Rather than re-engineering his party, as Blair (and to a lesser extent Kinnock and Smith) did, the Tory leader has only restyled it.'

I don't tweet. Deal with it.

Apparently people can't deal with it. It doesn't matter that I have five email accounts, write a blog, text faster than you speak, obsessively Facebook (or Stalkbook.)...no. Just not good enough these days. Why this obsession with Twitter? Is it because the next election will be the first one in the UK where new media is likely to play a large part?

With only months to go till the next election, all the major parties have been setting out their vision and ideas for the country. Late last year David Cameron delivered the Hugo Young lecture attempting to row back from his vitriolic anti-governmental conference speech and lay out his prospectus for Britain. But his speech was highly worrying as it demonstrated his flawed understanding of socioeconomic problems, and lacked any coherent analysis.

David Cameron has promised that, if he wins, he will reduce the size of the House of Commons, probably by 10 per cent. Andrew Tyrie has set out the scheme in detail. It sounds like a sensible non-partisan idea. Britain has the largest parliament of any major democracy. We also suffer from the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1944 which, by its bad drafting, guarantees an increase in the number of English MPs whenever there is a general redistricting.

Islam4UK describe themselves as a platform for the global front of Al-Muhajiroun, a successor to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Omar Bakri Muhammed, the Islamist leader who helped develop Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK, is known to have once led Al-Muhajirounwhose aim is ‘Izhaar ud Deen', or domination of the world. This includes re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate and introducing sharia law. Al-Muhajiroun's two offshoots, ‘The Saviour Sect' and ‘Al-Ghurabaa', are banned in the UK for the ‘glorification' of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2006.

Following the UK Youth Parliament's both historic and impressive performance in the House of Commons two weeks ago, the prime minister was asked if he supported lowering the voting age to 16. To my surprise, he pledged his support for the policy but said yet more consultation was needed.

Labour promised a referendum on the European constitution. This constitution failed to become reality. Some of the good elements of the constitution that attempt to streamline the European Union have become part of the Lisbon Treaty. The UK Government is supporting this.

On my way to work in Manchester city centre at the moment I have to pass by two large banners which loudly proclaim: 'Ready For Change'. There's been lots of discussion in my office about this. What, exactly, is this actually saying? Should it be read with an implied question mark, as if to enquire: 'Are you ready for change?' Or is it more of a directive, as in: 'Get ready for change, people of the North?'. Maybe it's deliberately vague, like David Cameron. Whatever it means, if their choice of a conference slogan isn't bold, their choice of conference venue certainly is.

Born in Scotland of a Scottish mother and Irish father, raised in northern England and now living in the south of England, I feel a sense of ‘Britishness’ that often eludes others. That’s why I read with horror in this morning’s Guardian the analysis of how Cameron’s pandering to the Tory euro-extremist right is threatening the Union. I’ve been of the view for a long time that Labour is now the ‘One Nation’ party; active and competitive across Britain. Labour continues to defend a Union strengthened by devolution to the nations and regions of our country.

One of the reasons I got involved in politics is the NHS. I saw chronic under-funding in the late 1980s and the poor and impersonal service my Grandmother received while dying with cancer. It may not be popular to say but times have changed and though the NHS is not perfect, it has improved dramatically under Labour; people forget this.

As this year’s A-level and GCSE results come out, the effects of the recession on young Britons comes into acute focus. The struggle for university places is but one aspect of the difficulties that young people are facing in the current economic climate.

To win a general election in the UK you must win support of the centre-ground or median voters. These mythical median voters have many names, “Mondeo man”, “eight people sipping wine in Kettering” and I have heard recently of “Holby City woman”. These people are those who are doing average in society but aspire for more. They neatly fit into the middle of the upside down bucket shaped curve which represents the graph of voters against income (if you ignore the extremely wealthy who skew your mean average income data and if you assume all well-being is based on income).

The result in Norwich North is yet further confirmation that Labour's Mr 10% campaigns and the investment vs cuts message is going down like a lead balloon. It finally appears that Lord Mandelson and others are trying to manoeuvre a new message, so what should it be?

Rocked by the expenses scandal, villified by the public and the media, about to lose their lucrative second jobs - should we be feeling sorry for our MPs? With 50 Labour MPs already holding up the white flag of surrender, and many more to follow, it seems not even MPs are willing to stand as MPs any more.

It was at the very end of the 19th century that one of Yorkshire’s greatest social reformers, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, carried out his survey, looking at the living conditions of 45,000 York residents. Results of the survey, designed to test household income against a poverty line, were published in his 1901 book, ‘Poverty, A Study of Town Life’, and showed that almost 10% of York’s population were living in primary poverty. The main cause of this poverty was that although people were in work, ‘wages (were) insufficient to maintain a moderate family in a state of physical efficiency’. Rowntree exposed the concept of the ‘idle poor’ to be a myth – the poor were working, but inadequate wages meant poverty.

This week US President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal-minded New York judge of Hispanic background as one of the nine US Supreme Court Justices. This is likely to prove one of the most important decisions that Mr Obama will ever make, as the US Supreme Court has the final say on laws governing vital social issues, such as abortion or gay marriage. And Associate Justice Sotomayor is likely to remain in her post for many years after Mr Obama has left his.

The public want to see parliament led by someone remarkably different from those who have gone before. Someone who can start afresh and develop a new parliamentary democracy without secrecy and complexity.

There cannot be many (I was tempted to write 'any') who doubt that the rules surrounding MPs' expenses are in desperate need of reform.

As a parliamentary candidate I am disgusted with the current furore over MPs’ expenses. I think the fact that politicians of all parties have been claiming for everyday items that you or I have to pay for from our wages shows how distant the political class has become from the ordinary working man or woman. The fallout will extend as we begin to hear about the second jobs some politicians have – notably of the shadow cabinet.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

These famous words of George Santayana embody why it is we have a British Library archiving our history of written English. It is a vital resource for our country; a reference to explain how we have evolved; a resource to learn from what we did well and not so well, and an archive to provide as definitive a record of events - major and minor - as it is possible to compile.

‘Smeargate’, ‘the Damien McBride affair’, or whatever daft name it will be given, will have a fairly prominent place when the history books eventually come to be written about Gordon Brown’s time as PM.

Afghanistan, Somalia and Zimbabwe are often classified as ‘failed states‘. More surprisingly, Mexico and Pakistan, according to a recently reported Pentagon study, are both in danger of joining them on future ‘failed states’ lists. States which are failing or are at risk of failure are increasingly recognised for their national, regional and global impacts – and, if we believe the Pentagon, some are increasingly ‘close to home’.

“What would Jesus do?” The BNP, in a desperately brazen bit of publicity, are suggesting if he could he’d be voting for them in the forthcoming Euro elections.

The third reading of the Justice and Coroners Bill is set for the Commons on Monday. Clause 58 will re-instate the incitement to homophobia legislation and remove the Lord Waddington amendment that give fanatics a legal protection to their bigotry.

For possibly the first time ever, this year I watched all of the TV coverage of Comic Relief.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of some of the comedy, but more importantly I found myself moved by the coverage of funded programmes in the UK and in some of the poorest parts of the world.

I’m about to admit something that is likely to make you hate me. It’s something that puts me into a very small and lonely minority within the Labour Party.

I am a democrat. A realisation of being a democrat is accepting that other people will not always agree with you and to combat them at the ballot box. Another realisation is also that some within a democracy will have abhorrent views to be argued against and combated. I am no supporter of dangerous radicalised political Islam, just as I am not a supporter of the isolationist and largely bigoted BNP, but they exist and they are competing factors in the UK’s political economy.

At a recent event on international development, hosted by the Global Campaign for Education, there was seemingly little difference between the comments of the Labour minister and the Conservative shadow minister in attendance. Increasingly, on issues concerning developing countries, there appears to be a general consensus between the two parties. Cameron has even pledged to continue levels of spending on international development should he take power.

When Peter Mandelson declared himself to be "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" it might have sounded like an epitaph for the politics of equality. But in the past year or two there has been something of a mood shift; it would seem that equality and redistribution are making a comeback. The government has raised the highest rate of income tax to 45 per cent, and politicians across the spectrum, and around the developed world, have expressed outrage at the culture of bonuses, especially in the financial sector.

A few days ago I joined the group “cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith day” on Facebook. I’m not David Davis, but this is the sort of web-based campaigning I love. It’s fun and witty but also relevant, and it engages a non-traditional audience in a serious political issue. In this case it’s the proposed creation of a "superdatabase" that will track all of our emails, calls, texts, internet use and whatever else the Home Office can lay its hands on. Hence the idea of one bright spark to voluntarily provide this to the home secretary on an early trial basis.

Electoral politics in the UK is currently volatile and will remain so while the global credit crisis continues. We have gone from cries of Cameron finished and an increased Labour majority to clandestine Labour leadership challenges and 1997 style Conservative landslides. We have also gone from Mandelson back and destroying Osborne to Ken Clarke back to destroy everyone and everything.

Intelligence seems to be back in the headlines again. One of Obama's first acts as president was to close Guantanamo Bay because, in the words of his newly appointed head of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, "It is a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security". And one of the main responsibilities for Blair will be to rebuild public trust in the intelligence agencies.

Sarah Mullholland writing for the newest addition to the blogosphere, Labour List, initiated a debate on the future of our higher education sector. Due in 2009 is the government's review of the controversial variable fees that were introduced in the last Higher Education Act that passed by a mere five votes.

As the cholera outbreak escalates, leaders and civil society around the world are calling for change in Zimbabwe. But sadly, effective international institutions, legal tools and processes for dealing with gross human rights abuses committed (or tolerated) by a country’s own government are few and far between.

On November 2nd I returned from a visit to rural Northern Uganda, a region which has experienced more than two decades of war between Ugandan government forces and a rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. During this conflict, more than a million people were displaced, and over 20,000 children abducted.

It's Friday 6th November in New Mexico. Friends and neighbours who haven't seen each other since the election are remarking on the landslide victory of President-elect Barack Obama and the shift in power in Congress. There seem to be more garden stakes and posters on display than there were on Monday!

As a teenager, when I would tell people I was interested in politics they would invariably respond by saying something like: ‘Well, you could put up a monkey with a red rosette around here and it would get elected’. Of course, at the time we didn’t know that just a few years later we would discover that a monkey could actually get elected in the north-east without even wearing the red rosette.

The government in its wisdom last week announced that sex and relationship education will be a compulsory part of the school curriculum. This is fantastic news for young people and Britain more widely.

Stronger controls over international markets are currently high on the political agenda, in the UK and globally. In the midst of these discussions, we might reflect on the need for greater regulation in the field of security too.

In recent years the decision to invade Iraq, and the security consequences it has engendered, have dominated international policy discussions. Nevertheless, an underexamined development from Iraq and from other conflicts in the 21st century has been the rise of private security companies.

The economy has dominated every newspaper, news bulletin and political debate for the last month. Incomprehensible figures have become part of daily life and the nationalisation of banks and stocks has become an accepted economic and political mechanism to promote stability in the market.

Progress readers may be familiar with, may have even seen, The Wire, HBO’s hard hitting and much hyped series about life in Baltimore which charts the collective failures of policing, legal and social structures to stop drug and gang cultures in some of the poorest American communities.

This week the government will unveil a package to support the UK housing market. One year on from the beginning of the credit crunch, support for struggling families will be welcome. And by focussing on the issues most hurting voters we can restore our reputation for fairness and competence. The package should include help for those at risk of repossession, support for first-time buyers and an increase in the supply of social and affordable homes.

The National Policy forum in its wisdom has voted to recommend to Labour party conference that reducing the voting age to 16 be in the next Labour manifesto. This has started a lively debate in the party and the country at large - one that we should all welcome and get on board with.

Friday saw the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Athletes from 204 countries paraded through the Birds Nest Stadium proudly carrying their national flags, delighted to be representing their country. This is where we hit a problem for those people who are adamant that politics and sport cannot mix and that sport should rise above global realities.

Following Labour's losses in Crewe and Glasgow East, barely a day goes by without someone or other being accused of plotting. Get any group of activists or wonks together and you'll hear various ideas to get us out of this mire. Looking back at the successes and failures of the last year, it's easy to pick out the ‘toffs' campaign and problems at the top. But what about the deeper, more unsettling questions at the heart of the Labour party's current problems?

There's no shortage of new thinking going on about how to deliver public services. And as we try to find ways forward after our defeats in Crewe and Glasgow, there will be even more suggestions for policy changes. Yet it seems that every time someone proposes new ways of providing healthcare, education or welfare benefits, the cry goes up that we're betraying our principles or engaging in creeping privatisation.

Last weekend I was in Glasgow East to help with Labour’s byelection campaign. This is the area that my mother’s family had come from, a combination of Scots Presbyterians and Irish Catholics for whom the shipyards provided reliable work and a half-decent living.

Decreasing polls and approval ratings, a general view of doom and gloom, being blamed for everything - sound familiar? Well, if you are in the Labour party and you are currently active, you probably know what I am talking about. So what do we do to turn this around? A lot of people have written about what they think the party should do and I would like to put my two pennyworth in.

The financial turmoil means trouble for all. Banks are restricting lending and withdrawing products and confidence in mainstream finance has been battered. But it is those who are financially excluded who are at greatest risk from the credit crunch.

The Tories have been falling over themselves to demonstrate their new 'pro-gay' credentials as a symbol that they are no longer the nasty party. But it is on their more recent record that they should be judged.

There are many issues that you need to consider when you become a PPC. Local issues and concerns become increasingly important and proposing a solution for the problems faced by the electorate is vital. There are some issues, however, that cross from local issues to the national agenda and this is one of them. I seek to represent Burton Upon Trent, the home of British Brewing. The industry is core to our town, our economy and our culture. However, people are still concerned about the impact of excessive drinking in both my towns and all my villages across East Staffordshire.

I broadly welcome Hazel Blears' new white paper on empowerment. However, I hope that the ‘double devolution' proposed (that is, local people running local services), will have governance arrangements for community-run services that avoid some of the pitfalls experienced with foundation hospitals.

Section one of the Human Rights Act of 1998 enshrines the single most important human right, the one that towers above all others, to be the right to life.

Like many towns and communities across the country, Southend marked Veterans Day on 27 June with public displays performed by serving members of the armed forces and ceremonies centered on veteran members. But these public acts of recognition are not known by everybody. This country still has an awkward attitude towards its military personnel. Unlike other Western democracies, the civilian population is largely unaware of what the armed forces actually do and - as shown by some recent, notorious examples - there are increasing incidents of public abuse of personnel in uniform.

David Cameron has slickly moved to claim the progressive mantle from Labour. But bold, genuinely progressive proposals like those announced today will reveal the true nature of Conservative politics on equality. Predictably tensions have already been exposed between the Tory frontbench and backbench MPs. When it comes to supporting concrete proposals the Conservatives will be found wanting and once again the Labour party will demonstrate our representation of all Britons and not just the privileged few.

I demand an apology for the credit crisis; an apology from the financial services industry. I don't demand regulation; I don't demand satisfaction; I simply demand an apology from the greedy, bonus paying, Tory-financing industry that has managed to damage the reputation of my Labour party through its profligate gluttony.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the annual Bankers' Dinner at the Mansion House. I'm not a banker, although the ones I was seated next to were very good company. It was one of those rare occasions where one gets to see the establishment at play, up close and personal. And the pomp and ceremony of the dinner manages to be both surreal and strangely reassuring at the same time, or perhaps that was just the fine wine.

As the foreign minister of Tanzania says of the situation in Zimbabwe, ‘there is little chance of the elections being free and fair'. The mind of progressives must be focused on the battle for peace, justice and democracy that our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe's trade unions have to wage.

A recent survey claimed that 30 per cent of youths have carried a knife. To connect the recent spate of knife attacks with this survey does seem like a perfect correlation, until you notice that 30 per cent of young people are not murderers or in the morgue right now. When considering this, you begin to realise that the correlation isn't as clear-cut after all. By ordering police to charge every lad found in possession of a knife, we're criminalising vast numbers of lads who aren't criminal types. This is not a positive way to tackle the problem.

On 10 June the Department of Work and Pensions published data showing that last year 100,000 more children and 200,000 more pensioners slipped into poverty. Nearly three million - 22 per cent - of children in the UK, the fourth richest economy in the world are growing up in poverty.

At long last, we have overcome the squeamishness about nuclear power that led to the cop-out that was the 2003 energy white paper. Although the building of new nuclear power stations was not ruled out, serious discussion of options for the future was effectively silenced. Thankfully we've moved on, if a little late in the day.

If the UK's future energy needs are to be met on the basis of secure supply, reduced dependence on imports and a reduction in CO2 emissions, then nuclear has to be part of the solution. It is not being pushed, as some environmentalists disingenuously claim, as the only means of addressing these concerns but as part of a package of measures that all have their part to play.

Recent events have catapulted the issue of class back into political debate, and raised questions about how meritocratic Britain really is in the early 21st Century. With ex-members of the Bullingdon Club occupying the top three Tory positions (Leader, Shadow Chancellor and sadly, too, the London Mayoralty) and the row about the anti-toff tactics deployed by Labour in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, the chattering classes have another opportunity to debate one of their favourite topics.

I think it is time we came up with more progressive and inclusive definition of meritocracy; one that fits modern British society and that creates rights and responsibilities for every British citizen. True, one effect of the transition from Blair to Brown has been a welcome recognition that a meritocratic Britain, on the traditional simplistic definition, is not enough.

The fact that the two main proponents of the ‘New Labour is dead' argument are David Cameron and Neil Lawson has got me thinking about dogma. Dogma has always been the mad relative of the Labour family, but rather than turn up to the odd gathering it's starting to look like they've moved in altogether.

The so-called left have proclaimed the death of New Labour with steadfast regularity, and Cameron's crowing should have been the ultimate wake-up call - but instead he has become a conductor that got them all singing along to his tune.

My great grandfather emigrated from Waterford to London during the famine. I have always been fascinated by Ireland and at university I specialised in Irish political and economic history. Recently I was given a tour of the Dail (parliament), and visited the Dublin office of the Irish Labour party and I spoke at length with staff and elected representatives.

I am extremely pleased and impressed with the progress made in Northern Ireland by all sections of the political divide. I do not want to scaremonger, or jinx the Northern Ireland project, but I am growing more and more concerned that bad fortunes for the Labour party in the UK threatens the progress made in Northern Ireland.

Peter Hain has consistently argued, including most recently in Progress magazine, that the Alternative Vote (AV) is the only system that pragmatically stands a chance of replacing first-past-the-post. There are a number of reasons, though, why electoral reformers should be wary of following Hain in throwing their weight behind efforts to introduce the AV.

For many of us, being a Labour party member is synonymous with knocking on doors. Typical issues raised include antisocial behaviour, the state of the roads, maybe something to do with their doctor's surgery or local hospital, for a while Iraq/Tony Blair. For a decade the economy has not been an issue on the doorstep. That is changing.

We can turn things around for Labour but there is no magic solution that will somehow make things better. It is not a matter of looking for the right electoral buttons to press or grasping at the first populist policy that comes along.

Much is being said and written about the direction Labour should take. One school of thought argues we should focus on our core vote. Others suggest we adopt ‘authentic' policies that are clearly Labour, even at the expense of losing the next election: we should go out in a blaze of glory they say. This view is firmly rejected by those who believe we should concentrate on providing policies that appeal to voters in the south, for example on immigration.

Lord Carter recommended that ‘local' community prisons should be built, so that families can visit offenders; a vital part of rehabilitation. Yet the government instead opted for economy of scale; the building of ‘titan' prisons is now the policy. However, there is a third way that could allow localism to happily exist side by side with titan prisons. This third way already exists right under their noses. The disused police station custody suites, up and down the country, that are currently housing convicts, have proved to be perfectly effective. Rather than using these cells as overflow from the prisons, we should use them as community prisons.

The main frustration that judges have with their sentencing options is the disparity between community sentences and jail sentences. As a legal executive who defends people arrested by the police, I'm often asked, ‘What do you think I'm going to get?' I always tell them whether they are looking at jail or not. It doesn't matter how serious the community punishment is likely to be, the avoidance of jail is the overwhelming concern of a person who is facing a punishment.

I am not talking about missing computer discs, year-old tax rates, I am talking about what direction we should take after the devastating local election results. A year ago many would have said change leader, a few years ago we would have pinned it on Iraq. Now many are not sure what to pin current results on.

It is easy for many to say do this and do that when they have no responsibility. I admit I do not have all the answers, however I see a few things. The first is that we need to listen (this is as obvious as saying animals need to breathe). Secondly, and more importantly, we need to act. People are concerned about violent crime and we need to act upon this fear, just as we need to act to alleviate the effects of a global credit crisis.

I'm writing this on 29 April, 48 hours before polling day, so I have no idea whether Ken Livingstone will beat Boris Johnson or not. That result is immensely important not just for the future of London and for Londoners, but also for Labour as London will be a critical electoral battleground in the next general election.

However, whatever the result, we already know that the electoral process itself has been good for Labour and good for democracy in London. Here's why:

The credit crunch hit the UK just over seven months ago now. The ramifications have been huge and they continue. The collapse of Northern Rock and customers queuing for hours outside branches will always symbolise the crisis in the UK.

Even though the origins of our current problems are in the US subprime mortgage market, there are lessons to be learnt from the affair. The government has made it clear that they want to legislate by the summer - to strengthen the financial sector, reduce the likelihood of bank failures in the future and to increase confidence among investors and consumers.

Amid all the hullabaloo about the 10p tax rate, there is a danger of not seeing the woods for the trees. For the first time since Blair and Brown created New Labour in 1994, a serious debate about tax is breaking out.

You can see it in the world of the thinktanks, in the pages of the Guardian, and in recent initiatives such as the open letter from academics and wonks in defence of inheritance tax that was signed, among others, by two former Number Ten special advisers. And of course, the editorial of the latest edition of Progress itself proclaims that ‘we need to talk about tax', although rightly making it clear this needs to be a comprehensive debate about tax covering hypothecation, co-payments and local taxation as well as high earners. The taboo has been well and truly broken.

The decision by the government to give three free votes on vital elements in the human fertilisation and embryology bill so that some senior members of the government don't feel the need to resign on ‘moral' grounds is both sad and problematic. It suggests that a religiously held belief is more important, or more substantial, than a non-religiously held belief. In the immediate context, and moving beyond the theoretical arguments, is demonstrates a disregard for those loyal members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who voted through the abolition of the 10p rate of tax against their better judgement.

I do not want to go into detail on the 10p rate on tax, but we all know instinctively how this decision feels and we all know why. Helping the poor and disadvantaged is part of the lifeblood of the Labour movement. As a principle it is ingrained within the fabric of our party, and compelling arguments have been voiced on how this principle has been compromised by the abolition of the lower tax rate.

So the human fertilisation and embryology bill is the latest bit of government legislation to fall within the sights of the religious lobby. Many seem to think it should always have been a free vote, though I can't say I'm one of them. One thing is clear however: the influence of religion in British politics is unquestionably on the up. Some of us are very worried, and we have every right to be.

So as not to be misrepresented at the start however, let me make clear that I'm no atheist. I can't stand the attitude of the admirers of Richard Dawkins, who all too often appear to be mocking those with faith and underestimating the good work that goes on by people motivated by their religious beliefs. I respect a great many of the assorted priests, vicars, imams and rabbis that I've had the pleasure of meeting, and in less than two months I will be delighted to get married in my own local church. Quite literally, some of my best friends are Christians. But the wave of interventions into the political system from the religious lobby over the last decade has left me very uneasy. If they are true to what they believe in this should concern them as much as it does me.

I am a Ken fan. Always have been, most probably always will be. I think the Labour party can forgive me for once supporting ‘Ken's right to stand' and my Yorkshire constituency can forgive me for being brought up in London and having most of my family there. I do not know of one other single living person who has done more for Londoners than Ken. It is amazing to think that my younger brother gets free public transport to and from school. When I was growing up I would have to pay. I often decided to walk without telling my parents so that I could use the money for my teenage weekend frivolities.

So what did we make of the Newsnight Mayoral debate? I thought Ken was true to form. He set out his record and his priorities with confidence and humility. Boris, or ‘Mr Johnson' as the media say we Labourites now refer to him, ran out of reasoning on his views on crime very quickly. He could not come up with a figure for inappropriately reintroducing routemasters and he seemed very much like he had been briefed not to smile. He looked overly serious and like he was going to break out into hysterics at any point. He reminded me of what a drugged horse would look like at a fudged horse race. This is because when Johnson smiles, he cannot be taken seriously and the façade of a man with convictions and guts fades away more quickly than the colour changing properties of a 1990s global hyper-colour t-shirt. Brian Paddick was also there.

For anyone who wants a Britain in which every child can reach his or her full potential, the statistics on the social background of students admitted to our top universities are uniformly depressing. Oxbridge consistently admits around 46 per cent of its students from private schools, even though those schools only educate seven per cent of Britain's children. The figures for many of the other top universities are even worse.

What can we do? The university admissions system operated by the US state of Texas is worth looking at closely. Ten years ago, after a legal challenge to affirmative action policies prevented universities in Texas from considering race as a factor in admissions, the state's legislators came up with an innovative alternative. In an attempt to make affirmative action colour blind, the top 10 per cent of students at all the state's high schools was granted automatic admission to state universities. Now, you get guaranteed entry to the state university system by being in the top 10 per cent of your high school, not by having to out-compete students from higher achieving schools. Students at the best high schools who fall below the 10 per cent line don't get automatic admission, whereas students from poor inner city or rural high schools who make the top 10 per cent of their school peer group get a guaranteed university place.

I have recently received the honour of being invited to join the governing body of a school based in the heart of Lambeth. I was pleasantly surprised at my first meeting that I was one of about four or five under 30 and wondered how representative this was on the sector more widely. The uniqueness of my situation will not amaze anyone.

I have long been an advocate young people becoming governors, especially current students in secondary school. I am proud that the Labour-led Welsh assembly government has pioneered requiring every secondary school to have two pupils on their governing body. If only Westminster would follow suit.

The recent report from former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith about British citizenship has been widely derided, principally for the suggestion that all teenagers should be encouraged to attend citizenship ceremonies and swear allegiance to the Queen. The idea that Britain's notoriously churlish teenagers, having just left school, might relish the idea of being cajoled into swearing allegiance to any authority figure is touchingly naive, and one cannot help wondering what the palace makes of it.

I'm all for encouraging new forms of ‘rites of passage' for young people, such as primary and secondary school graduation ceremonies, that recognise the contribution that our young people make to society and that celebrate the huge talent and potential they have: respect has to be a two-way street. However, the notion that the nation's teenagers should effectively be coerced into monarchism through a formal citizenship initiation ceremony is just not very British.

Jobs taken by school leavers and graduates today are worlds away from those available to our parents and grandparents. Most of us will spend 20 per cent of our lives in work. What happens in the workplace has a notable effect on our health and wellbeing - as Alan Johnson emphasised in a recent speech launching the ‘well at work' pilots.

From 1870 to 1956 there was an asbestos mattress and boiler-lining factory in Armley (part of the Leeds West constituency that I hope to represent after the next election). For twenty years MP John Battle has been campaigning for justice for people who died as a result of inhaling asbestos fibres from the factory.

Of course, people do die today on construction sites where health and safety are disregarded. Still, with fewer jobs in mining and heavy industry, today's workplaces have different problems and issues. But for those people who develop stress, depression or back-pain from work, the consequences can be serious. The government have made huge strides towards improving work-life balance with increased maternity and paternity leave, and the right to request flexible working. But the battle for work-health balance is only just beginning.

Improving health and wellbeing in the workplace makes sense for business as well as wider society. In the team I manage, we had absence of just over three-and-a-half per cent last year. Around a third of that reflected stress, back-pain and other work-related conditions. This reality has made us sit up.

Power isn't comfortable and it shouldn't be. Government is hard and the big decisions are almost always the most controversial ones.

Big decisions can be personally and politically tough for ministers, MPs, councillors and all those we elect to make them. But these same decisions can be just as hard for the party supporters and activists because situations will always arise which require a decision and a choice; tough choices about this and that, choices welcomed by one group, derided by another; that is the nature of power. Our supporters and activists may not be immersed in the bubble of Westminster politics or the 24-hour media cycle of news and information flowing directly from the centre, but it is those supporters who we still expect to maintain support and get out there during elections, on the doorsteps conveying the party's messages to voters.

When the House of Lords last October ended the right of those with asbestos-related pleural plaques to claim compensation from the employers who exposed them, the law lords gave solace to rich insurance companies and left thousands of asbestos victims feeling powerless and belittled.

For 20 years the courts had recognised that the combination of pleural plaques -scarring of the lining of the lung caused by asbestos fibres - along with the increased risk of cancer the scarring represents, as well as the inevitable anxiety that the victim suffers, should be compensatable.

It's stating the obvious that Labour has a real battle on its hands to ensure that it is reelected, whenever that elusive election comes. We need to be organised, campaigning and getting our message across. But we also need to be developing new ideas.

We need to avoid the comfort zone of thinking that just spending more money on public services will see us through. If we do this, we will eventually fail and be outflanked by the Tories. In any case, current economic constraints are closing off the option of large increases in public spending. So now, more than ever, we need to be examining how we reform public services. The point of doing so isn't simply to save money but to provide better services for those who need them.

So apparently you can now join the Tories for a quid. Cue lots of jokes about cheap and tacky pound shops, and a few raised eyebrows at a bunch of old Etonians trying to bring politics to the many. It does provoke a few interesting questions, however. How much should joining a political party cost? What should you get in return? And, even more significantly, what's the point of party membership anyway in the internet age?

For the Tories it's clearly an attempt to give a shot of adrenaline to the old blue-rinse brigade. In the Tory heartlands they seem to tolerate the socially liberal Cameron as a sort of necessary evil to get back into power, and in the rest of the country such is the cultural enmity to the Tories that saying you are a Conservative party member is akin to outing yourself as some sort of deviant. It's all very different to the days when they had over two million members and could legitimately point to elected representatives in all parts of England, and in fact in Scotland and Wales too.

This Valentine's Day, my CLP sent more than 2,000 cards to the electorate of Stretton ward in my constituency of Burton in East Staffordshire. A bit extreme you may think, but we had a council byelection on February 14th. So I spent the day (and those leading up to it) delivering leaflets and knocking on doors, to see what impression - if any - we could make in this strongly Conservative ward.

The final result wasn't a surprise - Conservative hold. The story of the night was more of a concern, however. The BNP, who had never stood in this ward before and came a very close third. For those of you who have a taste for psephology the final count was ...

The part biofueled Virgin flight from London recently was a headline writer's gift if ever there was one. I suppose if Virgin wanted to be taken seriously, though, they would have powered the flight using anything other than coconuts.

But it wasn't the reaction of the press that bothered me - I'd have been more shocked had they not turned a cynical spin on a tycoon's green aviation claims. No, what really got up my nose was the reaction of the environmental lobby.

Two issues in the past few days suggest that there is a serious job to do to change the national dialogue about young people. And as a party and government we are ideally placed to take the lead.

The row over the Mosquito, the device that emits a high-pitched sound to disperse groups of teenagers, is perhaps the most depressing. Is there any other section of society where it would be acceptable to force them to move on by assaulting them in this way? There are estimated to be 3,500 of these devices in public spaces that should be for everyone. They don't target law-breaking or anti-social behaviour but every young person indiscriminately. Is that the best we can do to engage with young people?

A few days after the Court of Appeal ruled that Lotfi Raissi, a pilot wrongly accused of training 9/11 hijackers, could sue for compensation, I was told by a Southend resident that this was an example of how we were all a lot less safer because of the Human Rights Act: ‘Who is it this law is trying to protect, is it the criminals or the rest of us?'

We briefly discussed Raissi, how he had nothing to do with 9/11, but was jailed, condemned as a terrorist and could never again fly as a pilot. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. If the Human Rights Act had eventually saved him, it could be a safeguard for all of us. But convincing people that the Human Rights Act is about all our rights as opposed to the criminal rights charter that the tabloids would have you believe isn't exactly easy. The person I had spoken to agreed that the Human Rights Act might have been a good thing in Mr Raissi's case, but I couldn't say that she would agree with me that it is one of our most necessary laws for protecting our way of life.

‘Aspiration' is not new to the progressive lexicon, and it is undergoing a welcome revival. The statue of Gladstone erected in 1905 on the Strand is inscribed with four words summing up the Grand Old Man's career: ‘aspiration', ‘courage', ‘education' and (sorry, sisters) ‘brotherhood'.

Nye Bevan coined the phrase ‘poverty of aspiration' to highlight the fact that it is not just material poverty that undermines social justice - there are many people who need to raise their sights, not just their incomes or qualifications. Indeed, that is part of the vision behind Labour introducing free entry to museums and the recent commitment by Ed Balls and Andy Burnham to offer schoolchildren at least five hours per week of cultural education - making the best of our thriving arts scene available to all kids, not just a privileged minority. Only a Labour government would dream of doing this.

Last week was one of those weeks when you appreciate the kind of difference you could make as a politician and candidate. (When you're up to your neck in mail merges or stuffing envelopes or delivering leaflets it doesn't always feel like that!)

I invited Jack Straw to visit a local project in my constituency (Manchester Withington) - The Old Moat Youth Outreach Project. Part-funded by the Labour Council, I guess you could describe it as a youth centre-plus - a place where local teenagers can take part in activities such as photography, arts and cooking. It's also a place where the young people who use it feel safe and can talk about their hopes and fears with peers and adults who are not their parents.

The race between the remaining Democrats for the nomination to be the world's most powerful figure is getting tighter than anyone expected. Having just returned from swing-state Missouri and neighbouring Kansas, what seems phenomenal is the momentum that has swung behind Obama. Young people have been coming out in their droves to support him.

Super Tuesday and subsequent states have tipped that balance putting Obama only 28 delegates behind the former First Lady. Young people are actively winning it for him - those putting in the hours are overwhelmingly young, the energy in his campaign is infectious and the youth vote is not just turning out in primaries but delivering the caucuses, energetically arguing the case for their candidate.

Whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is the Democrat candidate in November, one thing is for sure: the stakes are high.

The turnout at Democratic primaries is unprecedented, all over the world we are watching, mesmerised, as the results come in. The sense of hope, the sense that we are on the cusp of change is palpable. Politics, ideas and values matter.

There’s no doubt that the hottest political ticket in town right now is the US presidential race. With its style, glamour, drama and sheer bitchiness it’s a sort of cross between The West Wing and Desperate Housewives, except it’s for real and there’s a lot less sex.

For obvious reasons this particular presidential race is more exciting than most. We’ve got the prospect of the first woman president, the first black president, and (rather less excitingly I admit) the first Mormon president. As Chris Rock said on Jonathan Ross recently, perhaps the only real achievement George Bush is that he was so bad no southern white guy even dares seriously run this time. Alongside the Barack and Hillary show there are some other names of real substance in the ring – not least John McCain, a conservative, but undoubtedly a politician of genuine courage and belief.

‘Representing the future’ – the Report of the Councillors Commission could have come at no better time for the informing of the debate about the renewal of democratic engagement in the UK.

Reading the report through again this weekend (it was released back in December) I couldn’t help thinking how important developing new ideas about local governance will be in parallel to those needed in national party politics – they’re mutually essential debates we have to embrace in the coming years, and as Labour’s progressives we have and need to be at the cutting edge of the implementation of its conclusions.

How have children in care fared under New Labour? As the ‘new dawn’ broke on 2 May 1997, I drove to Flintshire in North Wales to attend another session of the long running public inquiry into the abuse of children in north Wales’ children’s homes. The inquiry, in which I represented a large group of care leavers, had started in late 1996, following widespread allegations of sexual and physical maltreatment of children in the care system. As I readied myself for another depressing litany of abuse and neglect, I remember hoping that the election of a Labour government would indeed herald a new dawn for children in care, and thinking that one measure of our success as a government would be whether we could deliver for this especially vulnerable and often voiceless group.

The inquiry focussed mainly on large children’s homes, and when it finally reported in 2000 some questioned the relevance of its analysis. Many of the larger homes had closed, and the majority of looked-after children were now living in foster care. But the inquiry served a crucial purpose in highlighting, as never before, the dreadful life chances of these children and the abject failure of the state and local authorities, as guardians, to support them properly not just in care, but after leaving it.

The debate on ID cards has not had much resonance with the people I have spoken to across Southend. The common concern about identity is not so much about the loss of an individual’s personal data but the perceived loss of a common identity across the town and across the country as a whole.

For, apart from issues such as the state of public services and tackling antisocial behaviour (on which Labour still gets decent credit), the issue that is most raised is the effect of immigration. It is cited as the root cause of several social ills, including: higher levels of crime; congestion on the roads; poor service on the NHS; fewer housing places; higher unemployment levels. The list goes on.

Eight years ago I strongly backed Frank Dobson’s campaign to stop Ken Livingstone becoming Labour candidate for mayor of London. Four years ago I publicly called for Livingstone to be blocked from readmission to the Labour party. This year I have no hesitation in backing Ken’s re-election. I will be campaigning for him as hard as I can and I would urge other Labour modernisers to do the same.

There is a renaissance happening in the north-west and, last summer, I decided to leave London and return to my roots there. I was born and brought up in the southern suburbs of Greater Manchester but, aged 18, I frankly couldn’t wait to leave. I was the first person in my family to go to university and that was my ticket out. Manchester in the late 1980s was rightly famous for indie music and clubs like the Hacienda, but life for many people was pretty grim. The city seemed on a downward spiral – more Morrissey than Happy Mondays.

I had the privilege of coming from a loving and comfortable home, so a few months spent volunteering at a church on a tough Salford estate in my year off was quite a shock. It’s one thing to read about inner city deprivation, quite another to see and hear and smell it up close and personal. It confirmed for me that Tory rule was blighting communities, undermining families and damaging lives.

My Christmas got off to a terrific start with a thirty-hour delay at Heathrow airport, en route to stay with my partner's family in Warsaw. Airports are pretty depressing places at the best of times, but when you know you are missing a Christmas feast (of carp, eel and more cake than Marie Antoinette would know what to do with) then it is doubly so … To pass the time I made friends with my fellow travellers – mainly the Polish diaspora living in the UK. Many of them are paid at, or close to, the minimum wage and are often employed as temporary, agency workers, so hearing their stories, I did feel that my frustrations were rather minor in comparison.