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About Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson is Chair of the pressure group Compass and has written many pamphlets for the organisation on the themes of democracy and equality. He was author in 2009 of All Consuming (Penguin) and was co-editor in 2001 of the Progressive Century. He serves on the Boards of UK Feminista and the AV Referendum Campaign. He is a Contributing Managing Editor of the quarterly journal Renewal and writes for the Guardian and the New Statesman. He appears regularly on radio and TV. He was previously a trade union researcher, an adviser to Gordon Brown, and a communications consultant.

Articles by Neal Lawson

Friday 15th April

Democracy by machines or morals? Why the AV referendum matters to the Left

Neal Lawson, 15 April 2011

The future of the centre left in Britain is dependent on the AV referendum result. A Yes vote would open the doors to a new politics, fit for a fluid, decentralised world. This is Labour's opportunity to shake off a deadly, elitist culture and embrace pluralism, dialogue and democracy

Saturday 12th February

Labour must trust the people

Neal Lawson, 12 February 2011

Lenin is dead. And so, if you hadn’t noticed, are Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Yet the Labour Party is still in the grip of the politics of elitism. For the party to reclaim power, it must lay these ghosts to rest and embrace democracy - not as a means to grab state power, but as an end in itself.

Social democracy: in crisis the world over

Neal Lawson, 7 February 2011

The crisis of social democracy is closely linked to that of capitalism. How should it respond to the sharp reminder that the interests of capital and labour are not identical?

Wednesday 22nd September

Beyond bureaucracy and market

Neal Lawson, 22 September 2010

The bureaucratic state of the mid-20th century ran its useful course, and the attempt to return to a mythical nineteenth century market state failed us. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman helps us to think our way beyond both

Tuesday 21st September

The Left and the Big Society II: Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson, 21 September 2010

How will the left respond to the clear challenge of the Conservatives' Big Society project? Niki Seth Smith is asking the leading people and institutions on the left how they view the idea, as part of OK's debate on the Challenge of the Big Society. Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, furthers the discussion, after Sunder Katwala of the Fabian Society set the ball rolling.

Friday 10th September

The Labour case for AV

Neal Lawson, 10 September 2010

In an important new pamphlet, seeking to persuade his party of the need to fight for reform in the forthcoming referendum on AV, Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, sets out why democracy should matter to Labour. Lawson argues that empowering the collective voice of the people will help achieve Labour's aim of building the "good society", drawing on empirical evidence that proportional systems produce more equal outcomes. He argues for the superiority of AV over first past the post and that Labour should embrace the change, as a crucial step in the direction of PR, through an "active intervention" to ensure a Yes vote. Here, OurKingdom re-publishes the opening argument of the pamphlet, which you can read in full here.

Sunday 10th January