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The argument on nationalisation grows hotter every day. Benn catches most of the punches, and they're often thrown with an iron fist.

The UKOLUG Annual Lecture at Online Information 94 was given by the Rt. Hon. Tony Benn — former Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol and now for Chesterfield, veteran Labour politician, Postmaster General and Technology Minister in previous Labour governments, amongst other positions. Information is the one natural resource that is growing at an exponential rate when every other natural resource is decreasing: fossil fuels, coal and oil. Information is growing and what has happened, is happening and will happen will completely transform the world and the lives of everyone who lives in it.

The idea of the workforce taking over and running a firm has faltered on the examples of the Scottish Daily News, Kirby Manufacturing and Triumph Meriden — all promoted by Tony Benn when he was Industry Secretary. But other, less well‐publicised, worker co‐operatives serve as a timely reminder that industry can thrive without unfettered capitalism or State ownership. Report by Stanley Alderson.

In the 1990s, European social democrats coalesced around a set of principles often referred to as the third way – characterised by prudent economic governance, a slimmer public sector, ‘productive’ welfare services and attraction to inward investment. Third way proponents perceived fairness as supporting opportunity rather than redistributing welfare. On the way to the late 2000s, their sense of direction was lost. The final phase, one might argue, ended with the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Henceforth, the challenge for the Left concerned how to define a social democracy with less revenue and limited scope for expanding public services, while reaching out to the so-called left-behinds through better jobs and a renewed sense of common purpose.

Jeremy Corbyn and Emmanuel Macron represent two distinctly different attempts at forging a new way forward from the impasse. During Corbyn's tenure as a leader (2015–2020), Labour carved out space by moving leftwards on key economic policies while proffering communitarianism as the antidote to globalised capitalism. Across the English Channel, Macron's new party, La République En Marche, sought to generate a new form of politics that had clear similarities with the centrism of third way social democracy, supplemented by an emphasis on social dialogue and enhanced European integration as a strategy for harnessing globalisation.

Corbynism and Macronism represent two distinct attempts at centre-left renewal, both personalised yet evolving on the back of mass movements. This chapter summarises the trajectory of both in terms of ideological content and organisational change and asks what lessons they convey about the future of social democracy in the twenty-first century.

The Labour Party has produced ambitious new nationalization plans for British Industry. Although the controversial plan to take 25 major companies into State ownership has been scrapped, Labour leaders are still debating what to nationalize and when. Andrew Roth reports.