Lucy James Articles

My case as a young person wishing to save raises awkward questions for the current welfare system. Will the IDS reforms combat the pincer movement that young people get caught in?

Event report: On Monday 6 September, Progress held a joint event at the House of Commons with Quilliam. The event was entitled ‘How should the Labour party respond to Islamists?’ and the panel consisted of Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP (former secretary of state for communities and local government), Rt Hon Jim Fitzpatrick MP (MP for Poplar and Limehouse), Mehdi Hasan (senior editor (politics), New Statesman) and Mohamed Tarraf (student Labour activist, University of Leeds). The event was chaired by Rachel Saunders (Tower Hamlets councillor).

Just as the British left is unsure how to engage with Islamists, British universities are also unsure of how to act

Far too often, the left has badly bungled its attempts to engage with Islamists. For example, Labour’s candidate for London mayor, Ken Livingstone, has promoted Yusuf al-Qaradawi, often regarded as the spiritual leader of the world’s largest Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, as ‘one of the leading progressive voices in the Muslim world’.