What's Left Now? ─ The History and Future of Social Democracy

Our sense of history shapes how we think about who we are. One of the distinguishing features of the left in Britain is that it holds to a remorselessly bleak and miserabilist view of our recent political history--one in which Margaret Thatcher's election in 1979 marked the start of a still-continuing fall from political grace made evident by the triumph of a free market get-what-you-can neoliberal ideology, dizzying levels of inequality, social decay, rampant individualism, state authoritarianism, and political corruption.

The left does not like what has happened to us and it does not like what we have become.

Andrew Hindmoor argues that this history is wrong and self-harming. It is wrong because Britain has in many respects become a more politically attractive and progressive country over the last few decades. It is self-harming because this bleak history undermines faith in politics. Here, Hindmoor offers an alternative and more optimistic and balanced history of modern Britain. Britain is not a social democratic paradise. But it is a long way from being a posterchild for neoliberalism. Left-wing ideas and arguments have shaped and continue to shape our politics.

Andrew Hindmoor is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. He grew up in Sheffield where he currently resides, and is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He is winner of the 2014 Harrison Prize for the best article in Political Studies and winner of the 2015 prize for the best article published in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations.