There is no denying that Liberal Conspiracy is partly born out of the frustration that many organisations who champion liberal-left ideals do not cooperate much with each other.
It isn’t just the sectarianism that has traditionally been the preserve of hard-left socialists. As our politics splits up into single-issue groups concerned about the environment, civil liberties, feminism, anti-racism, social justice, alleviating poverty etc - there isn’t much dialogue taking place between them and there is certainly a lack of broad coalition-building to push for political aims together. We want to be the network hub where other organisations sharing our ideals are promoted and their campaigns highlighted.
It’s all part of building a vast liberal-left conspiracy of course.
The bulk of our contributers are bloggers and writers. So far, they are:
Aaron Heath, Alan T, Chris Dillow, Daniel Davies, Dave Hill, Dave Osler, Davide Simonetti, David T, Donald Strachan, Garry Smith, Henry Midgley, Jamie K, Jess McCabe, Justin McKeating, Kate Belgrave, Natalie Bennett, Olivia Skinner, Padraig Reidy, Paul Linford, Robert Sharp, Unity and myself.
You’ll notice most of the well-known political left-of-centre bloggers are here.
Plus, there is the activist Cath Elliott, aid worker Conor Foley, online campaigner Paul Hilder, aspiring politician Kerron Cross, policy officer Zohra Moosa and academic Keith Kahn-Harris.
Liberal Conspiracy will also feature contributions from and work with: The Guardian, New Statesman magazine and ourKindom (openDemocracy).
We will also feature contributions from think-tanks including: Demos, Fabian Society, Runnymede Trust, Ekklesia and New Generation Network.
The extended line-up will soon be revealed as they start writing.
Our aim is to engage with liberal-left blogs, national media, think-tanks, writers, academics, analysts and researchers to discuss ideas and spread the conspiracy. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Morning Sunny and all!
Looking v good. Off to work soon, which is very dreary, but just wanted to say good luck for today. Well done - this is very good. Can’t wait to start working on it, and getting the liberal left even further out there. Cheers, Kate.
All my favourite commentators in the one place!
I too, wish you all the best.
Bookmarked.
Nice to be in such good company. Onwards!
Wow I can’t wait! Finally a place for the left to unite. A place where even better slogans can be thought up! No war on drugs! No sniff for noses! Taking note Refresh? ;)
That will show those fascists.
I’m surprised you have that neocon zionist David T from the islamophonic racist zionist site HP who just want to nuke all muslims, eh!
Seriously though, this is an interesting venture. Let’s hope it does stay centre-left and doesn’t go krazy like Kos. :)
Awesome. And what a line up!
Let’s get the message out to all liberal lefties on the web - the conspiracy starts today!
Good luck I hope you guys also cover a lot more issues concerning economic policy issues and how the left could distill its ideas into a coherent framework!
Best of luck, I’ll definitely be bookmarking and watching this one.
Good stuff, best of luck.
This has the potential to be really something!
Hi Sunny - well done - looking forward to it.
I’m really impressed, although if the line up gets any more extended it’ll be the entire British blogosphere and their aunt
Can’t wait to see it get cracking!
You will be worthy adversaries…
Great idea. We need something like this in the States too.
Congratulations on finally getting this together!
Bookmarked.
Congratulations!
Sunny, you weren’t joking when you said you was incredibly busy.
Well done.
One thing I would like to see is an MP grilled each week with questions supplied by the readers here.
Good luck with the new venture because it’s sorely needed.
Super!
I’ve wanted to be part of a conspiracy ever since I was outed as a member of the Anti-Poll Tax ‘rent-a-mob’.
:-D
Looking good Sunny.
Well done on all your hard work setting this up.
Excellent. I’ve bookmarked this blog, and will watch with interest.
Since you have Chris Dillow amongst your contributors I’m sure the issue will come up anyway, but unless the left faces up to holding back the apparently ever-expanding government sector, it will struggle.
‘Small government’ should mean just that; it shouldn’t be code for policies that increase relative inequalities and penalise those already significantly worse off than the rest of society.
Yay! Good luck with this :)
Interesting idea, though at the moment it comes across as a bit “worthy”.
The writing needs more passion - it´s a problem with being liberal, I know, there is this desire to be reasonable all the time.
But it´s the passion (and sometimes aggression) of right-leaning writers that gets them noticed, as they appear to have more conviction than left leaning liberals.
Liberal writing needs to be more assertive, and have a bit more “grrr”!
Good luck!
Liberal writing needs to be more assertive, and have a bit more “grrr”! ~ discoriggall
Oh, I think you’ll find we can do grrr in spades.
;)
Surely here lies a parodox- David Cameron is a liberal conspiracy?
Ah, yes, well, but…
I really wish you the best of luck, and I know I’m guaranteed some quality irritation here, but isn’t it an axiom of all left-leaning initiatives that they will begin fraternally and then descend gradually into policy differences followed by friendly disagreement, the inevitable splits and then some outright hostility?
And that, actually, not much will have been achieved despite some magnificent prose?
I’ve just realised you could bin my comment for being abusive, sarcastic and silly. It’s a start, I suppose…
Good luck with this!
There is certainly a need for those on the left to rally round the flag in support of progressive politics and liberal values nationally and internationally.
[...] Worth keeping an eye on LiberalConspiracy.org - the new ‘liberal-left‘ ‘hub‘/’super-blog‘ launched today by pickled politician Sunny Hundal. It sets out to [...]
This looks promising. B-b-b-but…
I don’t want to piss on anyone’s bonfire, but I’ve got a horrible feeling that the question of what is or isn’t a left-liberal position will dominate the site. Right now, issues relating to the nexus of culture, immigration, religion, etc are top of the list: should there be a defined leftist position on, say, the role of women within Islam, or the attitude of some communities to gay people? Any position taken on these will be seen to be bashing someone (gays, women, migrants) that leftists don’t want to bash. The ructions within the RESPECT coalition suggest that you can’t please everyone all the time, and attempting to do so often makes things worse. (Which RESPECT hack was it who called gay rights a shibboleth?)
Sorry to be gloomy. I hope I’m wrong. But by excluding right-wing trolls and haters from the mix (via your comments policy), you just give space for leftists to tear each other apart in public, forgetting the common enemy.
So not a non-party forum at all, more a place for people in the most illiberal party of our times (Labour) to work off their guilt. If the Trades Descriptions Act had jurisdiction over blogs…….
Tim Footman - “the question of what is or isn’t a left-liberal position will dominate the site”
Well it jolly well should if you see yourselves somehow in broad coalition with people like Respect!
Interesting that you use the phrase left-liberal.
Sunny uses liberal-left.
And the site is called LIBERAL conspiracy, not left conspiracy!
I do hope that we’ll see at least as much liberalism as leftism!!
“The attitude of some communities to gay people.”
I’m sure you don’t mean it to be Christian attitude bad, Islamic attitude fine for now?!
best
chrisc
“But by excluding right-wing trolls and haters from the mix (via your comments policy), you just give space for leftists to tear each other apart in public, forgetting the common enemy.”
Yup, that was my feeling too. Sorry to be all doom and gloom. Still, Nice choice of launch date.
Will be watching with interest, and probably posting something later.
chrisc:
“I’m sure you don’t mean it to be Christian attitude bad, Islamic attitude fine for now?!”
Of course not. But any criticism of any non-indigenous faith group (including, e.g. African Pentecostal churches) for dodgy views on sexuality creates its own set of problems - problems that don’t come when you’re bashing, say, the Roman Catholic church. Yes, I know the RC isn’t indigenous… whatever…
And as for the liberal-left/left-liberal thing, I think liberalism is even harder to define than leftism. Do you accept the Fox News mentality that they are one and the same? Confuse the mix with the notion of economic liberalism (is Milton Friedman a liberal)? Orange Book? Libertarianism? Whatever the Spiked/LM lot are on today?
Oh, I’ll leave it there. Like Jennie, I don’t want to be the gloomy bugger at the party, and I wish the project well, I really do.
Looks good. Welcome. An immediate admission to the sidebar.
Tim - your answer seems (in short) to be “of course not ” followed immdediately by “of course”!
Yeah but, no but…?!
This is really exciting and I look forward to conributing!
The use of the term ‘liberal’ is interesting - very American. In the UK the word has traditionally had different connotations. Does the use of the term here imply ‘left wing’ or does it imply a progressive alternative to left wing?
Also interesting that the title of the site is ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ but the term ‘Liberal-Left’ is used elsewhere…
I’m already starting to think the site should be renamed cosmopolitan conspiracy.
- direct link -
Rob