As this blog has mentioned before, the Blue Labour movement is attracting more attention and, inevitably, closer examination.  Tim Horton, Research Director at the Fabian Society, met with Maurice Glasman to debate the currently competing strands of thought in the party and to defend the Fabian record against Glasman’s localist critique.

From a Fabian perspective, I’d agree with Blue Labour and others that rethinking the role of the state should be an important part of Labour’s policy review process. A self-critical party must develop an account of where the state over-reached itself as well as where Labour neglected important non-state vehicles for social justice. And of course there are big future challenges to the role of the state that social democrats must take their heads out of the sand and start to confront.