Hear from the widest range of voices in the progressive movement. Every week, host Neal Lawson, speaks with progressive thinkers, writers and politicians from the UK and beyond about current affairs and how to build the Good Society. Visit compassonline.org.uk to learn more about Compass.
Last week, Donald Trump won a historic second term as US president. This victory in the face of the chaos, the lies and the courts should be a wake up call for progressives across the world. So what…
The UK is remarkably unequal.
The richest 1% of Britons hold more wealth than 70 % of us combined.
Wealth inequality is gendered, racialised, and extremely regional. Men have an average private pension…
In his recent book, Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It, Sam Freedman lays out why people matter, but systems matter more. Having a run of incompetent, corrupt leaders is a problem. But…
The 2024 general election result brought a welcome relief to British politics after 14 wasted years of Tory misrule. At last, some better people and ideas are at the helm.
But, just a few months in, t…
The 2024 general election result brings a welcome relief to UK politics. But now, we find ourselves at a crossroads: things are either going to get very much worse or very much better. There is no mi…
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On the 4th July people across the country went to the polls for a long overdue, and bloody complicated, General Election. Labour ended up with a mammoth majority and the Tories were left with just 12…
With Labour far ahead in the polls our attention turns to where the opposition from the Left will come from.
We need to look no further than Nigel Farage and Reform UK – who could use the parliamentar…
On this special general Election issue of Its Bloody Complicated we are delighted to
be joined by Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty.
We’ve admired Aditya’s writing and reporting for years and hav…
On Tuesday, 14th May we were joined by Ben Walker and Alison Lowe to analyse the campaigns and the results of the 2024 local elections, and reflect where we are coming up to a general election.
Ben Wa…
Over the last few years, the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform our society has become increasingly apparent. This comes with incredible opportunities – AI could help deepen our d…
It was a watershed moment in October 2022 when the Labour Party conference overwhelmingly voted to include in its manifesto a commitment to change the voting system to proportional representation aft…
Support for Scottish independence is still strong but the SNP are clearly in a weaker position, institutionally, reputationally, and ideologically. They have become mired in scandal, their hegemonic …
Citizens’ assemblies represent an alternative way of doing politics: a randomly selected group of citizens are convened to reason collectively, to consider evidence and to have discussions which shou…
First Past the Post might block smaller parties from gaining representation at Westminster, but on this episode of It’s Bloody Complicated, we discussed how in spite of this they can still wield subs…
Progressives face a dilemma; we want a change of government but know the country needs a big change of direction. In an essay published for the journal Renewal, Neal has set out the case for what he …
In 2017, South West Surrey Compass organised and slashed Jeremy Hunt’s majority taking it from the 7th safest Tory-held seat to the 121st. In 2019, they took control of a local council. In 2023, they…
The mainstream press in Britain has been in a state of managed decline for much of the 21st century. Once massive news outlets have suffered massive staff reductions as they have struggled to adapt t…
As another year comes to a close, we were excited to welcome Ayesha Hazarika and Andrew Grice to It’s Bloody Complicated to round up another year in politics.
According to the Right to Roam campaign, 92% of the UK’s countryside and 97% of its rivers are not available to the vast majority of the public. For Episode 96 of It’s Bloody Complicated, we’ll be di…