Op-Ed: The shallow approach to automation vs jobs is proving labour and tech experts right, but it’s messy

Paul Wallis

DIGITAL JOURNAL

July 7, 2026

Investors are awaiting the release of key US jobs data this week 

– Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP SCOTT OLSON

Even the theory of automation vs jobs isn’t stacking up. Layoffs and subsequent rehires are making news daily. Frontline managers are finding out that automation creates more unpaid non-core business work in just finding fixes. The simplest description of the hype for the transition to automation is that it’s absurd. Experts in technologies have been saying endlessly that automation simply can’t and shouldn’t do many things on its own.

Labour experts agree. Many critics have said that even the idea that automation instantly replaces jobs simply proves that management knows less than nothing about those jobs. They often only see reports, not the realities of the work.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has spelled out very clearly and patiently the mix of perceptions about automation and the future of work. That future is looking very indecisive right now.

Perceptions vs facts

Carnegie nailed some issues regarding the perceptions of automation very effectively. The fear of replacement could now be called a global psychosis, particularly at the white-collar level. Nor is the role of AI well understood in any practical context regarding actual work roles.

There’s an emerging view of AI as “drop-in remote workers”, according to Carnegie, for example. Given the ongoing somewhat hysterical and hyper-expensive prejudice against human remote workers, it’s interesting to watch this logic suffocate itself in contradictory arguments against itself.

This is a big unsolved cultural problem and the problem, not the solution, is making the decisions on the fly. This myopic worldview clearly lacks practical comprehension, and “ideological executive blindness” based on unrealised and often poorly defined perceived savings is making it worse.

Are people cheaper and better?

The baseline theory that automation saves money by reducing the cost of wages is so wrong and so far off target that it’s excruciatingly absurd. It could also be the exact opposite, and brutally expensive.

To start with:

How is it cheaper to adopt a whole class of major technologies at a much higher initial cost than the fixed costs of existing jobs?

Human jobs can be designed to deliver values on a clear cost-to-outlay basis. Automation starts as a cost, and you have to derive value out of it. 

The most basic operational rules, practices and laws related to automation and labour are barely at the foetal stage. Even China recently enacted laws prohibiting and restricting AI layoffs.

Humans don’t need the sort of 24/7 unquantifiable expenses that automation imposes. Technologies in the workplace inevitably need costly assessments, maintenance, upgrades, at-call SaaS, and eventually replacement in relatively short cycles.

Tech is an ongoing acquisition process with never-ending mixed results in direct and indirect costs.

Technologies become redundant faster than people, particularly in AI.

Then there’s fitting automation into that tactless thing called business reality. Most business tech is a patchwork of various vintages of technology, safe or unsafe to use in the modern business environment. Fraud alone is becoming a tech sector in its own right, let alone spreadsheet blunders.

AI makes and often can’t fix its own mistakes, especially when those mistakes show up on balance sheets and require more outlay. Those mistakes could well be based on situations and issues any experienced person would automatically avoid. Expertise is a real value, not a perceived value.

The net takeaway from this elegant if verbose presentation of the glaringly obvious is that “automation uber alles” is definitely no way to run a hot dog stand. The lack of depth in due diligence evaluation of automation is downright dangerous.

Finding the right fits for real-world applications

Every business, every market, every customer base, every job, and every workplace is different. There simply can’t be a One Size Fits All in automation at any level.

Productivity is a case in point in matching jobs to people. Let’s start with HR. Trying to fit a human being into a job isn’t usual practice. It’s more likely the person will be stuffed into a job with varying degrees of good fit or otherwise. High staff turnover means a lot of bad fits. You couldn’t call it productive in any sense.

There’s now even an AI tool for predicting staff resignations. This somewhat ironic development reflects a need to manage experience, expertise, handling tasks at all levels, and the most basic production fluencies in the workplace. In-house learned capabilities are crucial to smooth workflows.

These almost invisible skill sets dictate real productivity throughout the entire food chain of doing business. Turnover loses those skills and their productive values.

So, losing people is likely to be a net own goal, particularly when you lose all your in-house productive fluencies. Again, automation doesn’t solve these problems. It makes them harder to manage. Good fits for people are the only way any business has ever worked.

It’s not automation or jobs. It’s both.

The emerging picture is very different from the “jobs vs automation” scenario. According to MIT, positive impacts are emerging even in the much-misunderstood world of coding time usage and productivity. Reduced burnout was one of the findings. It also strongly refutes the idea of cost-cutting, particularly for junior-level staff. Training was actually enhanced using generative AI, adding skill values.

The clearest indicators are that automation is reconfiguring work, not merely automating it. The short-term cost-based thinking just doesn’t work. An isolating effect of AI was also seen as a problem, reducing essential collaboration.

There’s another horizon here, and it’s the real story that hasn’t been written yet. Jobs aren’t static things. Tasks change, objectives change, and priorities change. Unknown roles and whole new environments are likely to be the new frontier of work.

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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

Progressive Patriotism for America’s 250th Birthday

Progressive believe that the core claims of this nation—fairness, equality, freedom, and justice—are their own. And they are right


“This year as a time when democracy itself is under serious threat, progressives are seeking ways to claim their patriotism and recapture the flag,” write Dreier and Flack.
(Photo by Bradyn Shock on Unsplash)

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Peter Dreier

Dick Flacks
Jul 04, 2026

Common Dreams

July 4 is the big occasion for Americans to express patriotism, none more so than this year, the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. But the ways we do so are as diverse as the country. People and groups from right to left celebrate in conflicting ways and with conflicting views—from “love it or leave it” to “love it and fix it.”

This year as a time when democracy itself is under serious threat, progressives are seeking ways to claim their patriotism and recapture the flag.

“America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished,” wrote Zohran Mamdani last July 4 before he had been elected mayor of New York City. “I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better, to protect and deepen our democracy, to fulfill its promise for each and every person who calls it home. Happy Independence Day. No Kings in America.”

Since the American Revolution, each generation of progressives has expressed an American patriotism rooted in democratic values that challenged jingoism and “my country—right or wrong” thinking, rejecting blind nationalism, militaristic drum beating, and sheep-like conformism. Democratic movements—abolition of slavery, farmers’ populism, women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, civil rights, environmentalism, gay rights, and others—sought to overturn the established order while claiming to fulfill America’s promise. They believed that America’s core claims—fairness, equality, freedom, justice—were their own.

Even the founders would be aghast at how far Trump, and his courtiers, as well as most Republican politicians, have gone to establish an authoritarian state.

As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., declared in a speech during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, “The great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.”.

Donald Trump consciously and cynically has been re-enacting the long tradition of patriotism as jingoism, nationalism, flag waving, and “America first” sloganeering. What seems new is his systematic drive to debase major symbols of national identity—such as the White House, the reflecting pool, and Arlington Cemetery—while wrecking the entire national plan to celebrate America at 250.

Although they disagreed on many issues, the founders were adamant that they didn’t want the country to be run by an all-powerful king. Yet here we are 250 year later, governed by a president publicly claiming such power, with a Supreme Court majority acting as his enablers,

Of course, many of the founders were skeptical of a robust democracy. They created institutions, including the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Electoral College, that were never intended to completely reflect the voice of the people.

Even the founders, however, would be aghast at how far Trump, and his courtiers, as well as most Republican politicians, have gone to establish an authoritarian state, exploiting the opportunities provided by the Constitution’s elitist features.

The Gallup poll regularly asks Americans what the founders would think of America today. This year, only 19% think the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be pleased with how the country has turned out. Over three quarters (77%) now say the founders would be disappointed. This compares with 42% in 2001.

Americans’ disappointment with the country is obviously tied to Trump’s performance and his low favorability ratings in the polls. We expect our nation’s leaders, especially our president, to express a deep loyalty to a vision bigger than one person. But Trump has no overarching vision. Besides grabbing power and wealth for himself, his major commitment appears to white nationalism—turning America into a country for the uber rich and white people only. In contrast to the patriotism expressed in Emma Lazarus’ poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”), Trump wants, to rid the nation of immigrants of color, whom, in his eugenicist view, he thinks “pollute” the country with bad genes.

Trump and his coterie have systematically acted to undermine the spirit and letter of the Constitution. One of America’s core beliefs since its founding has been that elections should determine who becomes president and that it is important to ensure the orderly transfer of power. But insurrectionists at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021—urged on by and loyal to Trump— attempted to stop that process, while. carrying American flags. Many of these were convicted and sentenced for insurrectionary crimes. Trump’s blanket pardon and embrace of the convicted was an announcement of his autocratic hopes and plans.

As the 250th anniversary approaches, Trump is intensifying his campaign to end the right to vote—the fundamental idea of the American Revolution. Abetted by the Supreme Court majority’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act (a key victory of the 1960s), and building on the ongoing GOP campaign to maintain power as they lose their capacity to win the national popular vote, Trump is trying to undermine states’ control over the electoral process.

He’s used his powers to eviscerate other cherished rights, including free speech, a free press, and freedom of assembly and dissent. He has used the tools of government—including the FBI, the Justice Department, and the IRS—to unleash his revenge on protesters, the media, immigrants, Democrats, and all others he considers his opponents.

Right wingers have always wrapped themselves in the flag under the guise of being the true patriots. ‘“Americanism” campaigns in the early 20th century were designed to undermine the labor movement and limit immigration. Congressional and state legislative “Unamerican Activities” committees collaborated with the FBI beginning in the 1930s, to build blacklists against leftwing activists and artists,

Even American Nazis sought to be seen as patriots. On Feb. 20, 1939, 20,000 of them filled Madison Square Garden for a “Pro-America Rally.” They erected a massive 30-foot banner of George Washington (it was timed to celebrate his birthday) surrounded by American flags and swastika banners.

Trump’s own MAGA rallies feel like modern-day versions of that Nazi event. He fetishizes the American flag and other patriotic symbols, even while displaying a shallow, ahistorical, and bizarre understanding of what they meant.

Once, at a campaign rally in Tampa, as his cult followers chanted, “Build that wall,” Trump interrupted his speech to give a bear hug to an American flag on the stage behind him.

“We want to make sure that anyone who seeks to join our country, shares our values and has the capacity to love our people,” Trump said at a rally at the Kennedy Center in 2017.

“We all salute the same great American flag,” Trump said in his 2017 inauguration address—a line he has repeated in many speeches since then.

To Trump and his followers, the flag is synonymous with “America First.” It was a slogan used to unite isolationists and Nazi sympathizers against involvement in the European war in 1939. For Trump, it means reporting undocumented immigrants and caging their children in detention centers, restricting visitors from Muslim countries, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and other international agreements, and engaging in friendships with like-minded dictators.

Trump’s faux patriotism and its clownish griftiness has been providing a wide space for coalitions of resistance. The “No Kings” protests and the slogan itself help provide a very fitting frame for revitalizing a progressive, democratic, populist patriotism. Many participants waved American flags.

America now confronts a new version of the Gilded Age, brought upon by Wall Street greed and corporate malfeasance.

President Barack Obama said: “I have no doubt that, in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.” He observed that, “loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, our country will be stronger.”

President Joe Biden said that “we’re all part of a chain of patriots” who fought for democracy, freedom, fair play, peace, security, and opportunity. Patriots, he explained, seek “the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come; the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given talent can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”

In the Sixties, as hundreds of thousands of American youth were radicalized by the senseless Vietnam war, resistance included acts of defiance of patriotic symbols and rhetoric. Flag burnings would sometimes combine with the burning of draft cards. But other radicals took a different stance. In 1968, in a famous speech against the Vietnam war, Norman Thomas, the aging leader of the rather moribund Socialist Party, proclaimed, “I come to cleanse the American flag, not burn it.”

“It was as a Socialist, and because I was a Socialist, that I fell in love with America,” wrote Michael Harrington, the founder of Democratic Socialists of America, in his 1973 book, Fragments of a Century. “In saying that, I am not indulging in romantic nostalgia about youthful days on the road but rather underlining a crucial political truth. If the Left wants to change this country because it hates it, then the people will never listen to the Left and the people will be right. To be a Socialist is to make an act of faith, of love even, toward this land. It is to sense the seed beneath the snow; to see, beneath the veneer of corruption and meanness and the commercialization of human relationships, men and women capable of controlling their own destinies. To be a radical is, in the best and only decent sense of the word, patriotic.”

Harrington was identifying with the many radicals and progressive reformers who proudly asserted their patriotism. To them, America promised democratic fulfillment—economic and social equality, mass participation in politics, free speech, and civil liberties, elimination of the second-class citizenship of women and people of color, a welcome mat for the world’s oppressed people. The reality of corporate power, right wing xenophobia, and social injustice only fueled progressives’ allegiance to these principles and the struggle to achieve them.

It is largely underrecognized that some of the most important and popular ways all Americans experience and express patriotism were the creation of radical writers and artists. What they created continues to inspire.

Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian socialist who lived from 1855 to 1931, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892 to express his outrage at the Gilded Age’s widening economic divide. He had been ousted from his Boston church for his sermons depicting Jesus as a socialist, and for his work among the It was the Gilded Age, an era marked by major political, economic, and social conflicts. Progressive reformers were outraged by the widening gap between rich and poor, and the behavior of corporate robber barons who were exploiting workers, gouging consumers, and corrupting politics with their money. Workers were organizing unions. Farmers were joining forces in the so-called Populist movement to rein in the power of banks, railroads, and utility companies. Reformers fought for child labor laws, against slum housing, and in favor of women’s suffrage. Socialists and other leftist radicals were gaining new converts.

In foreign affairs, Americans were battling over the nation’s role in the world. America was beginning to act like an imperial power, justifying its expansion with a combination of white supremacy, manifest destiny, and the argument that it was spreading democracy. At the time, nativist groups across the country were pushing for restrictions on immigrants—Catholics, Jews, and Asians—who were cast as polluting Protestant America. In the South, the outcome of the Civil War still inflamed regional passions. Many Southerners, including Civil War veterans, swore allegiance not to the American but to the Confederate flag.

Bellamy, a cousin of Edward Bellamy, author of two bestselling socialistic books, Looking Backward and Equality, believed that unbridled capitalism, materialism, and individualism betrayed America’s promise. He hoped that the Pledge of Allegiance would promote a different moral vision to counter the rampant greed he argued was undermining the nation.

When composing the Pledge, Bellamy had initially intended to use the phrase “liberty, fraternity, and equality,” but concluded that the radical rhetoric of the French Revolution wouldn’t sit well with many Americans. So he coined the phrase, “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” to express his more egalitarian vision of America, and a secular patriotism aimed at helping unite a divided nation.

In 1891, Youth’s Companion, a magazine for young people published in Boston with a circulation of about 500,000, hired Bellamy to organize a public relations campaign to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ so-called discovery of America by promoting use of the flag in public schools.

Bellamy gained the support of the National Education Association, along with President Benjamin Harrison and Congress, for a national ritual observance in the schools, and he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance as part of the program’s flag salute ceremony.

Bellamy thought such an event would be a powerful expression on behalf of free public education. Moreover, he wanted all the schoolchildren of America to recite the pledge at the same moment. He hoped the pledge would promote a moral vision to counter the individualism embodied in capitalism and expressed in the climate of the Gilded Age.

In 1923, over the objections of the aging Bellamy, the National Flag Conference, led by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the opening, “I pledge allegiance to my flag,” to “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.” Ostensibly, it was revised to make sure that immigrant children—who might have thought that “my flag” referred to their native countries—knew that they were pledging allegiance to the American flag.

In 1954, at the height of the Cold War—when many political leaders believed that the nation was threatened by godless communism—the Knights of Columbus led a successful campaign to lobby Congress to add the words “under God.”

A year after Bellamy composed the pledge, Kathryn Lee Bates wrote the poem “America the Beautiful,” which was later set to music by Samuel Ward, the organist at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey

Like Bellamy, Bates was a Christian socialist. A well-respected poet and professor of English at Wellesley College, Bates (1859-1929) was also a lesbian who lived with Katharine Coman, an economics professor. They belonged to progressive circles in the Boston area that supported labor unions, advocated for immigrants, and fought for women’s suffrage. She was an ardent foe of American imperialism.

“America the Beautiful” was initially published in 1895 to commemorate the Fourth of July. The poem is usually heard as an unalloyed paean to American virtue. But a close reading of her words makes it clear that she had something more in mind. She wrote:

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain,
The banner of the free!

Bates hoped that a progressive movement could overcome the Gilded Age’s greed. And when sung by Ray Charles and other African American artists, listeners can’t help but be inspired by the song’s plea for brotherhood – or, as the left calls it, solidarity.

Lazarus, author of the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, was a Jewish poet of considerable reputation in her day, who was a strong supporter of Henry George and his “socialistic” single-tax program, and a friend of William Morris, a leading British socialist. Her welcome to the “wretched refuse” of the Earth, written in 1883, was an effort to project an inclusive and egalitarian definition of the American Dream.

In the Depression years and during World War II, the fusion of populist, egalitarian, and anti-racist values with patriotic expression reached full flower. The rise of fascism was countered in the US with efforts to build a center-left coalition in critical support of the New Deal and a parallel cultural upsurge.

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Let America Be America Again,” written in 1936, contrasted the nation’s promise with its mistreatment of his fellow African-Americans, the poor, Native Americans, workers, farmers, and immigrants:

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath
But opportunity is real, and life is free
Equality is in the air we breathe.

It’s a poem that encapsulates the anger and the hope integral to the American experience.

In 1939, composer Earl Robinson teamed with lyricist John La Touche to write “Ballad for Americans,” which was performed on the CBS radio network by Paul Robeson, at the time one of the best-known performers on the world stage, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. This 11-minute cantata provided a musical review of American history, depicted as a struggle between the “nobody who’s everybody” and an elite that fails to understand the real, democratic essence of America.

Broadcasts and recordings of “Ballad for Americans,” (by Bing Crosby as well as Robeson) were immensely popular. In the summer of 1940, it was performed at the national conventions of both the Republican and Communist parties. The work soon became a staple in school choral performances, but it was literally ripped out of many public school songbooks after Robinson and Robeson were identified with the radical left and blacklisted during the McCarthy period. Since then, “Ballad for Americans” has been periodically revived, notably during the bicentennial celebration in 1976, when a number of pop and country singers performed it in concerts and on TV. This might be the year to revive and revise it.

Earl Robinson wrote the melody for another important patriotic song of the World War 2 era -- “The House I Live In.” The lyric was written by Lewis Allen, the pen-name of a New York teacher, activist and poet named Abel Meeropol, who had, a few years earlier, written the anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit” for Billie Holiday.

The song was the centerpiece of an Oscar winning short film starring Frank Sinatra. In the film, Sinatra uses the song to instruct a group of kids who were bullying a Jewish classmate. Sinatra made the song a hit in 1945. Other versions were recorded by Robeson and by Josh White. Sinatra kept it in his repertoire for his whole career, even though he publicly associated with the Republican right (abandoning his earlier left-wing sympathies). Sinatra performed the song as the finale to a nationally broadcast celebration of the Statue of Liberty centenary, addressing it to Ronald and Nancy Reagan on the platform with him. Only a few watching were aware of the song’s origins.

Composer Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “A Lincoln Portrait,” both written in 1942, are now patriotic musical standards, regularly performed at major civic events. Copland was a member of a radical composers’ group as well as a gay man.

Many Americans consider Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land,” penned in 1940, to be our unofficial national anthem. Guthrie, a radical, was inspired to write the song as an answer to Irving Berlin’s popular “God Bless America,” which he thought failed to recognize that it was the “people” to whom America belonged.

The song reflects Guthrie’s belief that patriotism and support for the underdog were interconnected. He celebrated America’s natural beauty and bounty, but criticized the country for its failure to share its riches. This is revealed in the song’s last and least-known verse, which Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed at Obama’s pre-inaugural concert in 2009 in front of the Lincoln Memorial, with Obama in the audience:

One bright sunny morning;
In the shadow of the steeple;
By the relief office;
I saw my people.
As they stood hungry;
I stood there wondering;
If this land was made for you and me.

You can find Spanish and Native American versions of the song. Guthrie would have approved. Both he and Seeger, who were part of Communist circles, helped popularize socially conscious music reflecting the country’s diversity. They are now viewed as American icons.

During the 1960s, American progressives continued to seek ways to fuse their love of country with their opposition to the government’s policies. The March on Washington in 1963 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King famously quoted the words to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” repeating the phrase “Let freedom ring” 11 times. That 19th century song seems politically neutral, but it was a defiantly anti-monarchy anthem, written as a kind of parody of “God Save the King.” An abolitionist version soon followed its initial release. Marian Anderson, the great African American contralto, sang the song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 because the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to perform at its Constitution Hall due to her race.

Phil Ochs, then part of a new generation of politically conscious singer-songwriters who emerged during the 1960s, wrote an anthem in the Guthrie vein, “The Power and the Glory,” that coupled love of country with a strong plea for justice and equality. The words to the chorus echo the sentiments of the anti-Vietnam War movement:

Here is a land full of power and glory;
Beauty that words cannot recall;
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom;
Her glory shall rest on us all.

One of its stanzas updated Guthrie’s combination of outrage and patriotism:

Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor;
Only as free as the padlocked prison door;
Only as strong as our love for this land;
Only as tall as we stand.

This song later became part of the repertoire of the U.S. Army band.

In recent decades, Springsteen has closely followed in the Guthrie tradition. From “Born in the USA” to his songs about Tom Joad (the militant protagonist in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath), to his anthem about the 9/11 tragedy (“Empty Sky”), to his album Wrecking Ball (including its opening song, “We Take Care of Our Own”), Springsteen has championed the downtrodden while challenging America to live up to its ideals. In January, Springsteen wrote “Streets of Minneapolis,” which describe how “a city aflame fought fire and ice ‘neath an occupier’s boots,” which Springsteen calls “King Trump’s private army.” He wrote it in response to the second deadly shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis and dedicated it to the people of that city. At the opening of Obama’s new presidential center in Chicago, Springsteen sang his song, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which includes lines adopted from Guthrie’s song, “This Train is Bound for Glory.” The train – a metaphor for America -- carries “saints and sinners,” “losers and winners,” and “fools and kings.”

America now confronts a new version of the Gilded Age, brought upon by Wall Street greed and corporate malfeasance. Americans are upset by the unbridled selfishness and political influence-peddling demonstrated by banks, oil companies, drug companies, insurance companies, and other large corporations. They are angry at the growing power of American-based global firms who show no loyalty to their country, outsource jobs to low-wage countries, avoid paying taxes, and pollute the environment.

During the ICE raids in Minnesota a group called “Singing Resistance” emerged to encourage singing during protests. Troubadours of multiple generations sang new and classic songs of protest on stage and via You Tube.

One fascinating moment happened at this year’s Super Bowl when Coco Jones sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” For 100 years that song has been the African American national anthem. It lyrics include these lines:

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ‘til victory is won.

To have it performed at the Super Bowl, alongside the “Star Spangled Banner,” may have been an affront to right-wingers, , but it was an inspiring moment for many other Americans. Cong. James Clyburn (D-South Carolina) has sponsored a bill to make “Life Every Voice” the national hymn.

Throughout American history, progressive movements had won major victories and also experienced setbacks. When those setbacks occur, it is understandable that people sometimes lose hope, and even give up the fight. But our history also teaches us that we can’t give up, because we must keep the struggle alive for a new generation.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College. He joined the Occidental faculty in January 1993 after serving for nine years as Director of Housing at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. He is the author of "The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame" (2012) and an editor (with Kate Aronoff and Michael Kazin) of "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style" and co-author of "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America" (2022).
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Dick Flacks
Dick Flacks is research professor of sociology at the University of California Santa Barbara. His books include: "Making History: The American Left and the American Mind;" "Beyond the Barricades: The Sixties Generation Grows Up;" "The Port Huron Statement: Sources and Legacies of the New Left's Founding Manifesto" His research and teaching centers on issues of political participation, commitment and protest. His weekly radio program, "Culture of Protest," has been on Santa Barbara radio for 25 years.
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Gen Z fury boils over as Trump’s economy destroys summer jobs

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Adam Lynch

June 23, 2026

ALTERNET

“Up and Up” writer Rachel Janfaza covers younger voter concerns and Gen Z issues — and Gen Z is definitely having issues with President Donald Trump’s economy this summer.

“It’s no secret that the job market for Gen Z is bleak,” wrote Janfaza. “That’s true for recent high school and college grads looking for entry-level work. But it’s also increasingly the case for students looking for summer opportunities to make some cash and stack their pre-professional resume.”

Janfaza pointed out that summer hiring for teens is expected to fall (from 801,000 teen jobs gained last summer to 790,000 this summer, according to reports after last year’s eight decade low.

“That would be the worst summer hiring total for teens since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track in 1948,” said Janfaza, which mixes horribly with the rise in young people looking for extra work in the gig economy by taking shifts on apps like Uber.

When asking young adults in the Gen Z community about their summer plans in Trump’s awful job market, they had little good to say about the prospects of retail, waitressing, and corporate internships.

“I do not have a job this summer,” said a 20-year-old student from Pennsylvania, who also said the most recent situation she felt least confident was when is “applying for jobs that I may not have the proper experience for and feeling like I am behind in life.”

“No,” said an 18-year-old in Arizona, who also said his biggest financial pinch is tuition.

“I don’t have a job this summer,” said a 19-year-old student in Miami, Florida, who also complained that gas and food prices are a financial concern.

“The through line was that those without a job weren’t in that situation from a lack of trying. But the reality of a summer without work is affecting their finances and their own sense of self-confidence,” wrote Jafanza, who added that beyond the obvious financial strain and emotional toll, the job market is increasingly becoming a political issue for potential young voters.

“Asked the biggest political issue leading up to the midterms, the 20-year-old from Pennsylvania who’s waitressing at two separate restaurants said: “The cost of everything, people can’t find jobs, can’t afford housing, and can’t afford to put food on the table.”

“Summer jobs are a right of passage — one that boosts confidence, cultivates independence, and builds resiliency,” said Janfaza. “They also, of course, help students save up for college or pay their way through it. In arming fewer young adults with these opportunities, we’re not only bleeding that professional experience, but cultivating frustration from members of a generation desperately searching for it.”

In addition to turning on the Trump administration over the president’s unilateral war in Iran, Genz Z is whacking the administration over inflation and the increasingly shrinking and unfriendly job market.

Joshua Byers, 26, told the Post: "I feel betrayed. I don't know why we are fighting (in Iran) if we have never been attacked.”

‘A politics that feels real: Andy Burnham, electoral reform, and the redistribution of power’

Rich Bell  23rd June, 2026

© Fencewood Studio / Shutterstock.com

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As Andy Burnham’s march to Downing Street gathers pace, Westminster is reckoning with something unusual in British politics: a serious argument about how power is distributed in our country.

At the heart of that argument is electoral reform. Speaking to Labour for a New Democracy in 2024, Burnham argued that First Past the Post (FPTP) is ‘straining with the complexity of the modern world’. The existence of ‘a political system that doesn’t let opinions and voices be heard’ – he said – precludes the emergence of bold ideas and ‘creates the conditions in which people can say: we are being shut out. We are being silenced by the elite’.

On this, he is manifestly right.

The case against FPTP is no longer theoretical but grounded in lived experience. It is visible in the mismatch between votes and seats won at the recent General Election; in the collapse of the two-party system; and in the growing sense that political outcomes are increasingly disconnected from meaningful public consent.

The polls reflect that disquiet. A clear majority of the public now support proportional representation (PR), with YouGov polling consistently indicating majority backing for reform since 2019. Burnham is not so much leading public opinion on this issue as registering it.

But we shouldn’t mistake public acceptance for enthusiasm.

Back in 2011, I worked as an organiser on the ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign – the ‘pro’ campaign in the now largely forgotten referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote (AV). I remember well that we spent many months ahead in the polls, only to be thoroughly trounced come polling day. Support for reform was broad but shallow.

The campaign sought to counteract the sense that the change on offer had little purchase on the realities of everyday life by tapping into the anti-politics mood that had sprung up in the wake of the financial crisis and the expenses scandal. The country, however, called bulls**t. If that was partly because AV was a particularly tepid proposition (and partly because of Nick Clegg), it was also because people recognised that changing how parliamentary seats are apportioned wouldn’t have fundamentally altered their or their communities’ relationships with power. This was never a chance for real reckoning.

Last month, the We’re Right Here campaign for community power, of which I am the director, asked Opinium to test the extent to which the public believe different proposals for reform would be effective in restoring trust in politics and revitalising our democracy.

The results were revealing.

40% said introducing ‘a more proportional voting system that will encourage collaboration among MPs from different parties’ would be effective (whereas just 14% said this would be ineffective). That result placed PR pretty solidly in the middle of the pack. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was outperformed by measures aimed more directly at bringing political power to heel – banning MPs from having second jobs (48% effective vs 16% ineffective) and restricting the influence of party donors (49% vs 13%).

What cannot be explained quite so neatly by anti-system feeling is that ‘giving more power to local people and community organisations’ also scored 49% vs 13%, tying for first place. Alongside distrust in the political class, this signals something more affirmative: faith in our neighbours and in local forms of collective decision-making.

Indeed, the results point to a clear belief that power should sit closer to ordinary people. The pattern is clear: as reforms become less concerned with the fabric of people’s everyday lives and more focused on the design of remote political institutions, their perceived effectiveness weakens. ‘Giving more power to local authorities’ (42% vs 16%) was rated more highly than ‘giving more power to mayors’ (27% vs 27%). Even relatively radical proposals for constitutional reform centred on national institutions, such as replacing the House of Lords with a senate of the nations and regions, attracted comparatively modest support (30% vs 19%).

None of this is an argument against electoral reform. It is an argument against treating it as some sort of silver bullet – or imagining that a more faithfully representative and deliberative parliamentary politics fused with Mayoral devolution represents a plan to ‘rewire Britain’ that will set every circuit humming. Responding effectively to democratic alienation – the felt distance between people and decision-making – will require a Burnham government to situate these changes within a bigger story of democratic renewal. One that takes the capacity of our communities seriously.

Intriguingly, Burnham’s track record suggests that he, perhaps more than any other Labour politician, may be capable of rising to this challenge. As a recent analysis noted, Manchesterism rests on a simple but politically significant proposition: ‘people are more likely to trust institutions they can see working in their own lives’. A central plank of his programme for Greater Manchester is Live Well, which has driven a shift towards integrated, neighbourhood-based provision of health, employment, and welfare support – designed with rather than for communities.

Arguably, a drive to make the practice of power more grounded, participatory, and relational lies closer to the core of Burnham’s politics than is often recognised. In an essay collection on Labour’s communitarian tradition published last year by We’re Right Here and UCL Policy Lab, he wrote that ‘People don’t want more promises from on high. They want to be part of something. They want to be seen, heard, and trusted.’ The task before Labour, he argued, is to build ‘a politics that feels real. A politics that says: you matter. Your voice matters. Your community matters.’

This politics will only be made possible through the development of a comprehensive plan to redistribute power by means both constitutional and civic, generational and everyday.

In practice, this would mean building on Pride in Place and the various other initiatives launched by the Starmer government with a view to unlocking the agency of our communities – including neighbourhood governance arrangements, community power pilots, and Local Covenant Partnerships – while consolidating them within a unified framework for neighbourhood-level decision-making. It would mean radically expanding the community ownership of economic assets, as championed by Burnham’s close ally Miatta Fahnbulleh. And it would mean organising public services around communities instead of institutional boundaries, and reforming them to prioritise ‘the user interest over the provider interest’, as called for by Communities Secretary (and Starmer ally) Steve Reed in a strikingly bold speech last week.

Electoral reform matters because power matters. A more representative parliament may be a necessary condition of democratic renewal, but it is unlikely to be a sufficient one. If Burnham’s politics is really about making people feel seen, heard, and trusted, then it must bring power closer to where people actually live their lives. Fulfilling the promise of that politics will require decisive action to change not only how power is won, but how power is shared.

Rich Bell

Rich Bell is the Campaign Director for the We’re Right Here campaign for community power. Alongside this he holds several senior advisory roles including for The Relationships Project and BB Partners.

View all articles by Rich Bell

Andy Burnham’s victory in Makerfield marks a political crossroads

JUNE 21, 2026

By Mick Antoniw

Andy Burnham’s historic victory is a victory for us all and particularly for Wales. The by-election marked a  political crossroads for UK Labour. Fail, and the next general election was all but lost. For Wales it offers a chance for Welsh Labour to restore, refresh and renew itself. 

The by-election by itself solves nothing but it does offer an historic opportunity for change, for a  common  vision of a Wales and a United Kingdom able work in harmony and sharing common, traditional Labour principles of justice, equality and fairness.

It is an opportunity Andy Burnham has seized, it was a last chance and for Wales maybe the last throw of the dice for democratic socialism as we know it.

The voters of Makerfield saw this and those of us from Wales who travelled up North to canvass for Andy felt it on the doorstep. People instinctively wanted something different from Labour. They had lost confidence and the trust once held that Labour spoke for them. It was exactly the feeling we had on the doorstep in Wales during the Senedd elections. 

So when Tony Blair intervened in the by-election with his statement emphasising a focus on economic and social neoliberalism, Andy was quick to challenge: no return to the past, people want change and we have to have a renewed focus on  the inequality that is do destabilising our society.

I could feel the crisis of conscience on the doorstep. People wanted change, but felt the Labour they had supported all these years had turned against them. Andy Burnham offered them hope and a vision of an alternative. They seized it.

For Wales, this is a make or break moment. It’s a chance to revitalise Welsh Labour not for Labour’s sake, but for the political alternative and progressive values that I believe only we can deliver,  as Wales, part of the UK, but a UK that sees Wales as a nation and an equal part of the UK. 

When Andy talked about Place not Party he resonated with so many in Wales. He has learned through his experience in Manchester the need to decentralise power and to empower nations, regions and local communities . So when he talks about public ownership of public utilities – gas, electricity and water – he is talking about empowering people in the decisions over these vital services that impact on their lives. The same applies to transport, housing  and many other victims of the disastrous Thatcher agenda that handed them over to private corporations, putting profit ahead of public service.

So much of this is vital to Wales, recognising the need to reform funding, not just for Wales but across the regions of England. Local accountability of policing, youth justice, rail, the Crown Estate – all the things that Welsh Labour was calling for that Starmer and the Welsh Office rejected. 

In the Senedd elections we were not seen as standing  up for Wales. UK Labour was not seen as fair to Wales, and we were not seen as the natural opposition to the divisive hate politics of Reform. 

We have a chance to change. We can and will change and Andy, I believe, will be a friend to Wales, to restore confidence and trust. We have to have confidence in Welsh Labour  and our socialist traditions, values and principles, that we can be a genuine Welsh Party , part of the Labour family but always standing up for Wales, sharing much in common across the UK but always putting Wales first. After all, isn’t that what devolution is meant to mean and to achieve? 

A key test for change will be the election of the Welsh representative on the Labour National Executive Committee. I held this position in the past, appointed by then First Minister Mark Drakeford. I intend to stand again to ensure we have a strong and vital Welsh voice supporting radical change at the heart of the UK Labour Party. We mustn’t waste the historic opportunities that Andy’s win presents for the whole of the UK and for Wales . Ymlaen! I’rGad!

Mick Antoniw is a former Labour Member of Senedd for Pontypridd and former Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution. He is a candidate for the Welsh seat on UK Labour’s National Executive Committee. This article was originally published by Nation Cymru.

Image: Mick Antoniw with Andy Burnham, c/o author.

Public prefer Labour leadership contest over Andy Burnham coronation, poll finds

The British public prefer a Labour leadership contest over any coronation for Andy Burnham, a poll has found. 

Basit Mahmood 

JUNE 24, 2026

https://leftfootforward.org/


The British public prefer a Labour leadership contest over any coronation for Andy Burnham, a poll has found.

The poll, carried out by YouGov, found that 46% of respondents prefer a contest, compared to 23% of those who said they preferred a coronation.

When it comes to 2024 Labour voters however, more people prefer a coronation (40%) compared to a contest (37%).

It comes after Keir Starmer announced he was stepping down as Prime Minister, following intense pressure to set a timeline for his departure from MPs and cabinet ministers.

Nominations for Labour leader open on 9th July, and Burnham could become PM as early as 17th July, should no one challenge him.

There had been reports that Starmer loyalists were encouraging Darren Jones to stand, however, he has ruled himself out this morning, with a coronation looking increasingly likely.

 

Blairite retread James Purnell tipped to be Andy Burnham’s Chief of Staff

 JUNE 24, 2026

This would be a catastrophic mistake. Labour’s new leader needs to think again.

In a move that will alarm those hoping for genuine change from an incoming Andy Burnham government, former Blairite minister James Purnell, who has extensive corporate lobbying links, looks set to be the next Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff.

Purnell is tipped to take over one of the most powerful jobs in government, the role occupied by Morgan McSweeney under Keir Starmer until he was forced to resign in disgrace.

There are several reasons that this is very bad news. The privately educated Oxford graduate had a long relationship with Tony Blair since he worked as a researcher for him during summer vacations between 1989 and 1992. He then worked for the centre-left Institute of Public Policy Research before becoming a councillor in the London Borough of Islington.

It was during this time that one of his fellow councillors, Liz Davies, was chosen as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Leeds North East, only to be overruled by the Party’s National Executive Committee in September 1995. Liz Davies later initiated legal proceedings against Purnell and two other Islington councillors who had made untrue allegations about her behaviour at Council meetings.  They were forced to apologise and pay an undisclosed sum to the general election fund of their local MP, Jeremy Corbyn.

When New Labour swept to power in 1997, Purnell became a special advisor in Downing Street for four years. He also worked for a media consultancy business.

Elected to the safe seat of Stalybridge and Hyde in 2001, Purnell was Chair of Labour Friends of Israel for two years before rising through the ministerial ranks to Cabinet membership as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in 2007 and  Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2008.

Kenn on ‘welfare reform’, Purnell appeared to swallow wholesale the Thatcherite myth that the benefits system had created a ‘dependency culture’. He accepted in full investment banker David Freud’s report Reducing dependency, increasing opportunity: options for the future of welfare to work, which proposed greater involvement of the private sector and a more punitive benefits culture even before the Tory austerity years. The following year Freud defected to the Tories.

Labour’s choices after Makerfield – Simon Fletcher

20th June 2026Leave a Commenton Labour’s choices after Makerfield – Simon Fletcher

“Ideas championed by the Left, from public ownership to wealth taxes and beyond, are in step with public opinion.”

Simon Fletcher writes about the Makerfield by-election and the choice for the Labour Party following Andy Burnham’s emphatic victory. Note: this piece was written before Keir Starmer’s resignation, but contains vital analysis.

The Makerfield byelection was unique. Until now, no one has lived through a period of Labour politics in which a by-election was held with the clear purpose of removing the party leader and Prime Minister. Five points are posted below in the wake of Makerfield. Much is missed, and much more can and should be added as things develop.

1/ Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield was overwhelming and emphatic. He took 55 per cent of the vote. His victory in 2026 was larger than in Makerfield in the general election two years ago on a higher turnout. He significantly increased Labour’s lead over Reform. It is a victory both in the election and against the trend of recent politics.

2/ Before turning to the Labour Party, on the right: the Makerfield result is a serious setback for Reform and the wider right. Reform has now been defeated in byelections in Greater Manchester twice this year – first by the Greens in Gorton & Denton, and now by Andy Burnham in Makerfield.

Over the past two weeks, a vicious campaign has been underway in sections of the media to squeeze the vote of Restore Britain, the right splinter from Reform led by Rupert Lowe, in order to prevent a split right-wing vote letting Burnham through. The right-wing Sun newspaper ran a page of analysis detailing how Nigel Farage had spoken to Donald Trump to complain that Elon Musk’s support for Restore was an obstacle for Reform. It was said that Reform was ready to blame Restore for a Burnham government, through its splitting of the vote in Makerfield.

None of this came to anything – Burnham’s margin of victory over Reform was far larger than Restore’s 6.8%. He won 54.8% to Reform’s 34.5%. Consequently, both Reform and Restore went down to a big defeat.

It is, of course, a mistake to believe that the hard/extreme/far right(s) can be defeated only at the ballot box. The fight against the right is also in communities, on the streets, in the formation and battle of ideas, on social media, and in political debate. But it is equally an error to downplay the importance of defeating them through the electoral process, not least because the right ultimately intends to take its politics all the way through to government.

Over the last month, the right has been on the march. Reform had taken a swathe of councils in England. Farage and Lowe competed with dangerous language over the murder of Henry Nowak and the horrific attack in Belfast. Violent disorder in Southampton and pogromist rioting in Belfast played out against a backdrop of far-right figures calling for mass deportations of non-white people. Questions of the border between the north and south Ireland were raised.

Defeat for Reform, with a majority larger than Restore’s vote, will not only provide a partial feeling of optimism that the right can be stopped, but may ultimately provoke a crisis within the ranks of the right, including for its leadership figures.

There is no space for complacency, but the right’s defeat is also a positive development after weeks of hate.

3/ The overall left/liberal/green bloc in Makerfield cohered under Burnham. Luke Tryl of More In Common has noted the relative stability of the two broad halves of the electorate in the constituency. In 2024, the right bloc, i.e. Tories and Reform, constituted 42.7 per cent of the electorate, the great bulk of which was for Reform. The left/liberal bloc of Labour, Green and LibDem constituted 56.4 per cent. This week, the right bloc of Reform, Restore and Tory came to 43.5 per cent of the vote, only marginally larger than two years ago. And the left/liberal bloc was not much different from last time either, slightly down to 55.9 per cent. The stability of the left/liberal bloc is interesting in itself because conditions are so much harder, with Labour in power and unpopular, and with the cost of living still biting. But this time Burnham took almost all of it – 54.8 per cent of votes cast. The coalescing around Burnham allowed him to secure the much greater margin of victory over Reform.

Labour lost more votes to liberal/progressive/left parties than to Reform in the May elections. And the loss of those votes aided Reform. Makerfield has demonstrated this process in reverse.

4/ The fallout from Makerfield represents a new and higher level of crisis for the Labour Party’s right wing, and raises questions about what it will choose to do next. It was the political choices of the right that brought the party to its knees and provoked a rolling leadership crisis over many months.

In the face of repeated crises, Downing Street and its allies on the party’s NEC moved to block a meaningful future leadership election by preventing Andy Burnham from seeking the Labour nomination for the Manchester Gorton & Denton byelection, subsequently won by the Greens. Gorton & Denton formed a perfect backdrop for the Greens’ advance in the May elections.

Blocking Burnham was both about protecting Starmer and making the terrain easier for the right when Starmer eventually leaves.

The desertion of voters and the break-up of Labour’s electoral coalition – directly as a result of the policies of the Labour government – meant that Labour lost power in spectacular fashion in multiple contests in May. But the last two years have shown that in defence of its own status as the dominant faction of the Labour Party, and in the interests of keeping the party’s economic programme largely toothless, the pro-leadership faction is willing to jettison holding power all over Britain – shedding political control everywhere from the Welsh Senedd to councils from Gateshead and Sunderland to Hackney and Lambeth. Those disastrous losses in May and Keir Starmer’s poor response further weakened him and the ability of the right to get its way. Having been unable to block Burnham a second time, Labour’s right wing is in a highly defensive situation and forced to look for delaying tactics.

But a second tactic for the right is not to defeat Burnham in an election but instead to work out how to function under a likely Burnham leadership, which means seeking to put him under pressure to bend the stick towards their politics. The right of the party functions as the most consistently pro-big business, pro-war, pro-capital strand of opinion within the party, aiming to make Labour as safe and acceptable to big capitalism as possible. In the event of not being able to win, the right’s plan B is to tie down a more soft left leadership with pressure on economic and social policy and international policy – pushing for higher military expenditure, cuts to welfare, opposition to public ownership, restraint on public investment, elevation of relationships with big business, and the continuation of the status quo on foreign policy. In all this, it is aided by media commentary.

Likewise, the right will push for its personnel to be in the most key positions – to keep Rachel Reeves as Chancellor or at least bring in someone such as Darren Jones or Pat McFadden to help calm the bond markets, sack Ed Miliband, etc. Plan B from the right would kill off a Burnham government’s ability to build and hold a coalition together to defeat Reform, every bit as much as plan A under Starmer or Wes Streeting.

Furthermore, a change to a leader based on the PLP’s soft left represents a challenge to the internal dynamics of the party, where the right-wing Labour First/LabToWin formation is currently the pro-leadership grouping in the grassroots and in the party’s structures. But it is evident from social media that many of the right’s adherents are bitter opponents of Burnham. Ed Miliband’s leadership period demonstrates that leaders without a base that can organise beyond the right’s framework struggle to transcend it. And left to itself, the right will continue to use its weight in the party’s structures to pursue fixes and stitch-ups that damage the political culture, and utilise the policy process and NEC to head off pressure for more radical change from the grassroots. Changing leader would only go so far without a change in the dynamics of the party’s internal politics.

5/ Fundamentally, as a change in leadership becomes inevitable, Labour’s choices go back to the question of overturning the wrong choices of the dying leadership.

Under Starmer and Reeves, Labour’s economic framework formed the basis of its conservative policy choices, which reduced its electoral/social base at the general election and deprived it of any meaningful popular enthusiasm; that was then expressed in its actions in government, such as the winter fuel allowance cut and the attack on the welfare state. Increasing authoritarianism through the erosion of the right to trial by jury and the aggression towards the right to protest have alienated supporters of civil liberties. Conceding to Reform on immigration and the failure to mount a sustained defence of the reality of multicultural Britain – typified by Keir Starmer’s disastrous ‘island of strangers’ speech – caused a gulf to open up between the party and many natural supporters. These domestic errors went alongside the Labour leadership’s immoral approach to the genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people, alienating key sections of the population. That is all discussed in more detail here.

It is inevitable that attention will be drawn to the drama of what happens next. More important is whether and how to overcome the failings of the recent past.

Britain has suffered from decades of chronic underinvestment. A changed approach for the economy that radically boosts public investment to generate the sustained growth people need is required. That must come with more immediate measures to ease the cost of living and move on from inequality. A mood is building in the labour movement through the unions for economic alternatives. There is a vast amount to deal with, including obviously AI and climate change, but it is also essential to address public investment and constrained household incomes. Without these, a Labour government will be unable to address the immediate and long-term living standards of working-class people and indeed the majority of the population.

An incoming leadership that is not also honest about what went so badly wrong on Gaza and is unwilling to correct it would not be able to reassemble Labour’s electoral coalition on a stable footing.

Ideas championed by the Left, from public ownership to wealth taxes and beyond, are in step with public opinion and indeed reflect the concerns of sections of the population that have been willing to stop voting Labour as a consequence of the record of the Starmer leadership. The Left needs to keep making the case for these policies, and the leadership needs to be willing to open to that, not attack it as Starmer did.

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• This article was originally published by Simon Fletcher’s Modern Left on 19 June 2026.
• You can become a subscriber of Modern Left to receive exclusive content and support the platform here; and follow Simon Fletcher on Twitter/X here.
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Purnell even proposed charging interest on crisis loans to the unemployed and pensioners made by the Department for Work and Pensions, which were interest-free, at a rate of up to 26.8% per annum. The proposal  was met with great hostility and blocked by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Purnell evidently never forgave his leader and resigned from the government as the polls closed on the night of June 2009’s local and European elections, calling on Brown to quit at the same time. His resignation stole the headlines that night and the Murdoch-owned Times ran his resignation letter in full on its front page the following day.

He backed the right wing David Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010. When Ed won the contest, Purnell turned down the job offer of Chief of Staff and, having left Parliament, made a good living in the world of consultancy.  In 2011, he again advocated ‘welfare reform’, saying that “freebies” such as the Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes should not be seen as sacred.

In recent years, Purnell has had a lower profile, working in broadcasting and the arts. But in 2024 he was appointed as CEO of Flint, a British international advisory business. It’s a role that has become a matter of considerable concern in relation to his expected new job under Andy Burnham. Big companies with important political links, including BP, Amazon, Jaguar Land Rover and Uber, are listed among Flint Global’s clients. The company says it advises international businesses and investors on policy, politics, regulation and competition.

“Until recently,” reports the Guardian, “Purnell held shares in the firm, which is owned through a holding company based in Jersey, making its structure opaque. It is majority owned by the private equity firm Cinven.

“Despite not publishing who it works for in the UK, a list of its clients from last year is registered on the transparency register of the EU, which includes Google, Microsoft and the mining firm Glencore. Apple appeared to be its biggest client in Europe.”

The paper continues: “Burnham’s choice of Purnell has already caused some consternation among many of his supporters on the Labour left, who fear it has echoes of Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint key Blairites such as Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and Tim Allan as director of communications – both of whom still had stakes in lobbying firms that they did not give up while in post.”

Green leader Zack Polanski called Purnell “a tireless campaigner for welfare cuts” and told openDemocracy: “It seems it’s out with the old and in with the old. What is it about this Labour government that is so keen on bringing in corporate lobbyists into the heart of Downing Street? This is starting to feel like a bit of a Blair and Starmer tribute act, with Labour Together’s Josh Simons also expected to have a senior role.”

Josh Simons, who also resigned in disgrace from Keir Starmer’s government, was director of the divisive faction Labour Together, whose appalling behaviour continues to be generate shock waves. Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP today again reiterated his call for a public enquiry into the organisation.

As Cabinet Office minister, Simons was the centre of a scandal over an alleged smear campaign in which he falsely linked journalists investigating Labour Together to a “pro-Kremlin” network, reportedly hiring a PR firm to investigate Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, and forwarding its findings to the security services. He subsequently resigned his Makerfield seat, paving the way for Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster politics.

If Andy Burnham is serious about delivering change, that has to start at the top. Another former lobbyist in a senior Number Ten post – especially one with the welfare-cutting, Blair-supporting history of James Purnell – would be the wrong choice. Andy Burnham needs to think again.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Purnell_at_the_LCF21_digital_Graduate_Exhibition_at_Victoria_House_Basement_2021,_London_Photograph_Ana_Blumenkron.jpg Author: University of the Arts London, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.