Liberal Conspiracy is a political magazine and discussion site in the form of a multi-author blog. It is intended to be a forum and resource for those who see themselves on the liberal-left.

We aim to bring together and re-invigorate the liberal-left in Britain through discussion and campaigning. To read answers to more such questions, see the Frequently Asked Questions. You can also contribute or receive our articles by email.

Mission Statement

Is Britain run by a vast liberal-left conspiracy? Conservatives are often determined to find such plots stretching from the media and government to public services and other organisations.

Yet the reality suggests otherwise. Not only is public debate in Britain often lacking in left-liberal energy, if there was a vast conspiracy then it is way too disorganised and dysfunctional. Most of us believe in freedom, transparency, human rights, democracy and the public good. But somehow that isn’t what we usually end up with.

The contributors to this website are dedicated to bridging that gap: by developing, shaping and spreading liberal-left ideas and values in Britain. We make no apologies for our mission. We do not aim to be non-partisan, but to be energetic, inventive, influential and have fun while doing it.

We don’t want to define what being part of the liberal-left means because that limits us. We want you to tell us where the liberal-left should be going and why.

Liberal Conspiracy is a space for us to:

1) Have an intelligent conversation about liberal-left ideas and values.
We want to do this by involving commentators from newspapers and magazines, thinkers, analysts, academics and think-tanks, but also ordinary citizens (through blogging) who are too often shut out of this debate. We want to challenge orthodox thinking, bring fresh ideas to the table and have a broad discussion.

2) Campaign for liberal-left policies and causes.
The internet helps citizens to get connected, organise and make our voice heard better than ever before. We want to open up a new space for individuals and campaigning groups who support liberal-left causes to come together and make change happen. If you want to get involved, see this page. We will unveil more campaigns as time goes on.

3) Get organised.
We can no longer depend solely on political parties, trade unions or fragmented single-issue lobby groups to drive change. The internet gives us new tools to organise ourselves from the grassroots, all around the country. It’s not about replacing older institutions, but building new ones to join them. We want to strengthen democratic liberal-left organisations, local and national, so this movement can be sustained over the long term. We want to be that online hub of information and collaboration.

We also have answers to your frequently asked questions.

Contributors

Sunny Hundal is editor of Liberal Conspiracy. As a journalist and commentator he has written for the Guardian, Independent, The Times, Metro and Financial Times about the media industry, the environment and race-relations. He manages the group-blog Pickled Politics and founded the think-tank New Generation Network. Last year he was voted Guardian blogger of the year at CIF.
Also at: Comment is free, Pickled Politics / sunnyh*at*liberalconspiracy*dot*org

Aaron Heath is a writer, copywriter and editor. He lives in the conservative market town of Newark-on-Trent. He is both socially and economically liberal, although believes the state has a central role in the provision of healthcare, education, order, liberty, and the empowerment of its people. His main areas of interest are foreign affairs, culture, technology, and economics.
Also at: tygerland.net

Alan T is a blogger.
Also at: Shiraz Socialist

Alix Mortimer is a freelance writer and researcher living in London. She is a Liberal Democrat party member and has been shortlisted for the party’s Campaign for Gender Balance Best Blogger Award 2008.
Also at: The People’s Republic of Mortimer

Cath Elliott is a feminist and a trade union activist. She works as a freelance writer, a TUC tutor, and she also works part-time in local government. Cath is currently on the executive board of Abortion Rights and is a committed pro-choice campaigner. Her main areas of interest are women’s issues; trade unionism; equalities and human rights.
Also at: Comment is free

Chris Dillow is blogger.
Also at: Stumbling and Mumbling

Conor Foley is a humanitarian aid worker. He has worked for a variety of human rights and humanitarian aid organizations, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He currently lives and works in Brazil, and is a research fellow at the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham. His books include Combating Torture: a manual for judges and prosecutors (2003) and A Guide to Property Law in Afghanistan (2005).
Also at: Comment is free

Daniel Davies is an analyst and stockbroker working in London. He started his career working in the Bank of England and has been a stockbroker for ten years. He is a member of the Crooked Timber group blog and sporadically maintains d-squareddigest.blogspot.com and a small number of other projects. He is a business school graduate, although not strictly a MBA, because there was an MSc in Finance qualification which was substantially cheaper.
Also at: Crooked Timber, Comment is free and d-squared digest

Dave Hill is a novelist, blogger, journalist, married resident of Hackney in east London and father of six children. His novels are about family life. Most of his journalism is for the Guardian and may be about anything from politics to sport to domestic appliances. His Big Britain blog carries a mixture of commentary, photographs and links to local blogs all over the UK. He also has his own local blog called Clapton Pond, which documents the life and times of the enthralling, sometimes appalling, often inspiring piece of Britain where he lives.
Also at: Comment is free, Big Britain and Clapton Pond

Dave Osler is a journalist and blogger is likely to touch on politics, business and economics.
Also at: Dave Osler

Davide Simonetti is a London-based blogger with no connection to any political party but is, however, positioned to the left of the current mainstream. He started blogging in late 2005 after becoming increasingly frustrated with the direction British politics is taking. He is also interested in history and global politics as well, and discusses numerous issues.
Also at: Nether World, Blairwatch

Donald Strachan is travel journalist, editor, author and copywriter. In the wake of the 2005 General Election, he co-founded and edited The Sharpener for a couple of years. He also writes the occasional book or newspaper article for money, as well as sharing his thoughts on blogs for free.
Also at: The Sharpener

Garry Smith lives in Aberdeen on the north east coast of Scotland and has nothing much else to declare. He has an interest in politics but no connections to any political party or media organisation. He has been blogging for quite a few years now, mostly on foreign policy.
Also at: Big Sticks and Small Carrotts

Gracchi is a PhD student at Cambridge University working on 17th Century Political Thought. He writes for various websites.
Also at: Westminster Wisdom

Jamie K is a blogger.
Also at: Blood & Treasure

Jess McCabe is the editor of The F Word, an online magazine and blog on contemporary UK feminism. She also works as a journalist covering environmental issues.
Also at: The F Word, Comment is free

Justin McKeating is a Brighton-based writer and blogger. Qualified as a journalist, Justin has written for a number of publications, including the Press Gazette and several local newspapers on the South Coast.
Also at: Chicken Yoghurt, Comment is free

Kate Belgrave is a New Zealander who moved to the UK five years ago. She was a columnist and journalist at the New Zealand Herald and is now a web editor. She spends rest of her time interviewing and writing on issues like public sector cuts, workplace disputes and related topics. She is also interested in: finding fault with religion, abortion rights and women’s issues generally. Was a union activist but had an unfortunate falling-out with a couple of leading lights at Unison (their fault).
Also at: Hangbitch.com

Keith-Kahn-Harris is a research associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College and the convener of New Jewish Thought.
Also at: Metal Jew and www.kahn-harris.org

Kerron Cross is leader of the Labour Group on Three Rivers District Council, representing South Oxhey; former Vice-Chair of Croxley Green Parish Council and was a school governor at Harvey Road School for 4 years. He works as a Senior Parliamentary Assistant to a Lab/Co-op MP and have held this post since Jan 1999. He is also a published writer - having written a book of sketches, a play and political commentary for various national publications. He is on the National Executive body of the Christian Socialist Movement (currently Vice Chair), and was Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate in SW Herts in 2005.
Also at: Kerron Cross blog

Natalie Bennett is a writer and journalist based in London and recently became deputy editor of the Guardian Weekly. She was founder of the Carnival of Feminists, managing editor on Blogcritics.org, and a Green Party member. She also occasionally writes theatre and arts reviews for My London Your London and My Paris Your Paris.
Also at: Comment is free, her blog & personal website

Olivia Skinner is former editor of Catalyst magazine and a writer and editor for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She writes for this site in a personal capacity.

Padraig Reidy is news editor of Index on Censorship and former deputy editor of New Humanist. His work has also featured in the Guardian, the Independent, Tribune, the Irish Examiner and the Irish Post.
Also at: Comment is free, Index on comment

Paul Hilder co-founded the global debate network openDemocracy in 2000, and more recently helped set up Avaaz.org, where he now directs people-powered campaigns on a range of issues - conflicts, climate, global justice and democracy. He has worked around the UK, Europe and the Middle East, with think-tanks from the Young Foundation and Oxford Research Group to the Club de Madrid. He’s advised governments and civil society groups, conducted private diplomacy, run an election support campaign (Vote4Peace in 2005) plus a participatory democracy programme around England’s cities and counties, and has written/edited a bunch of books and reports (most recently Contentious Citizens).
Also at: Avaaz

Paul Linford is a digital publishing manager and former Parliamentary Lobby journalist where he was political editor of the Newcastle Journal for seven years. He has an 18-year career in newspaper journalism and lives in Belper, Derbyshire, with his wife and two children. A committed Christian, his faith informs his own belief in progressive politics and the view that a society must always be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. His eponymous blog combines a mixture of the personal and the political and has become particularly renowned for its commentaries on liberal-left politics. He is also a leading voice in support of an English Parliament and other democratic reforms.
Also at: Paul Linford blog

Robert Sharp is a blogger, and a co-director of digital design company Fifty Nine Productions
Also at his eponymous blog

Simon Barrow is a writer, commentator and theologian. He is co-director of the think-tank Ekklesia, which is critical of ‘established religion’, and open towards all who share common commitments on social justice and conflict transformation. With a background on the left, Simon has a particular interest in inclusive models of secular life, and in uncovering subversive and pluralistic strands within religious thought. He values liberality but isn’t sure about liberalism as an ideology.
Also at: Faith in society