It’s that time of year again when thinktanks pack up their banner stands, box up their flyers, place bulk orders for mineral water and descend en masse to the seafront (or metropolitan city centre) for the party conference season. This year’s Labour conference fringe offers much to get thinktank followers excited.
While a range of thinktanks are putting on the usual fringe debates, the IPPR’s conference programme is particularly ambitious. ‘The economic and parliamentary crises have altered the political landscape radically,’ the thinktank said in a statement. ‘So this year IPPR has decided to do things differently at the party conferences, focussing our attention on the one big question that is dominating debate – the future of politics itself.’
The thinktank also plans ‘to open up the closed circles of the conferences’ by ‘forging partnerships with leading blogging sites to collect the views of the public on the main issues’ and putting those views directly to the politicians. ‘In this way we are making our presence at conference reflect our view that there needs to be radical changes in the way we “do” politics in future. In an era of open primaries, where the public get to choose parliamentary candidates, it is also time to make the conferences more open.’
Of particular interest to Progress readers at Labour party conference will be the event New Labour – dead or alive? … Where next?, featuring a discussion with foreign secretary David Miliband, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland and Streatham PPC Chuka Umunna. Anyone fearful of the Tories taking power next year will probably be interested in the Fabian Society’s Question Time event at this year’s fringe, where Ed Balls, Caroline Flint and the Observer’s Gaby Hinsliff will discuss Could Labour Win? And, of course, don’t forget Progress’s own exciting fringe lineup (see p12 for details).
The Fabians will also be debating ‘Is this the last chance for a progressive coalition’ with Charles Clarke, Steve Richards, David Lammy and Vince Cable, as well as taking a look at who the new Conservatives are with Philip Blond (formerly of Demos, now setting up his own Red Tory thinktank, ResPublica), Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie and Fraser Nelson, recently appointed to the editor’s chair of the Spectator, will also be in attendance at the Fabian fringe, providing an insider’s view on the new Conservatives.
Despite the distraction of preparing for party conference season, September saw no letup in output from wonk world. The New Local Government Network released the catchily titled Can You Dig it?, calling for an expansion in the number of public allotments. The thinktank argues that, with some residents in London boroughs waiting for up to 40 years for a plot, additional land is urgently needed, and urges government and local councils to make better use of the estimated 3,500 hectares of unused brownfield land.
The Adam Smith Institute, meanwhile, showed its true libertarian colours with a report calling for the wholesale decriminalisation of drugs. The thintank received a ringing endorsement from arch-libertarian blogger Guido Fawkes who said the ASI ‘has always been a bit more spikey and willing to push the envelope than rival thinktanks in Westminster’.
Will the judges at the forthcoming Prospect Think Tank of the Year Awards agree? Read next month’s Tanked Up to find out.