Of course, the issues can’t be looked at in isolation. The roots are in education, in the economy, in housing, in public service provision, and elsewhere. But just because something is complicated isn’t a justification for giving up on constructive solutions.

Over the last five months, Joani Reid has been leading the Young Fabian “Securing the Future of the Next Generation” Policy Commission to provide analysis of the broader problems hitting British youth.

As part of the effort to analyse the issues, last week, the Young Fabians teamed up with A4e to visit Brixton to try and better understand the skills and employment challenges in the area. Myself, Joel Mullan, Vincenzo Rampulla and Joani Reid all took part in the site visit and held a series of interviews at the Brixton A4e training centre.

What follows is not an exhaustive analysis, but a short personal report from what felt like a very worthwhile visit – and something that the current Young Fabian Executive would like to repeat, with other partners and other areas.

Firstly – without comparing it to its competitors (because we didn’t visit any on this occasion) – I, for one, was very impressed by A4e as an outfit.

There was a huge amount of optimism and energy in the building. I suggested that a lack of jobs in the economy might be an insurmountable problem for the centre, but they went on to tell me about all the vacancy relationships they’d built up to secure job opportunities. For example, a recently secured relationship with WHSmith enabled them to link forthcoming major recruitment rounds with training programmes in local areas.

I was also impressed by A4e’s emphasis on making sure the people of an area benefitted from big investment projects. It was clear that they rejected the idea that high value added investment, like the Silicon Roundabout, are just opportunities for high skilled talent to move into the area, but advocated, with enough time, planning and upskilling, the opportunities for unemployed local people. This approach offers a stern challenge to those who are satisfied with mere trickle-down benefits for the local community from cleaning jobs and selling sandwiches.

At a broader level here are a five big insights for policy thinking that I took away from the interviews and meetings:

1. We need a tailored and sequenced approach to helping jobseekers.

People differ widely and so do their needs. In Brixton, the range was from job-hungry out of work professionals who had just been hit by the downturn, to those in need of skills training and with an appetite to learn, to those with much more severe health, drugs, drink, or housing problems. Particularly for those in at-risk categories, their issues need to be dealt with in the right order in order to be effective, and to reach sustainable and gainful employment as an end goal. One size doesn’t fit all. We shouldn’t talk as if it does.

2. Business, educators and jobseekers shouldn’t operate in isolation.

Our current general modus operandi – of employers wandering blindly into skills shortages, trainers training without a clear view of an end goal, and jobseekers floundering in the middle – indicates some room for improvement. It may make more sense to encourage as much communication and planning between: what businesses need, which they often know many months in advance of the time; what the educators can provide; and the aspirations and development-reach of the jobseeker. The free market is a brutally efficient model of clearing, but it is not perfection. There is value in thinking about the limits of a wage/price solution. Greater understanding and planning across the silos can help.

3. Culture matters and for-profit shouldn’t be a dirty word.

Organisational culture is of the utmost significance. It struck me very telling that A4e refer jobseekers as ‘customers’.

Public service in general should be very far removed from a tick-box process of ‘recipients’, and be, as far as possible, about enabling committed and motivated individuals to have a personal stake in the experience of public service ‘customers’. This is not to bash state provision, just a nudge to try and dislodge any automated revulsion to the concept of for-profit public service. At the very least, we should try and incorporate the motivation and innovation that ‘for-profit’ can, sometimes, demonstrate into all aspects of public service.

4. We should do everything we can to make work pay.

In interviews with ‘customers’, it was clear that there was an entrenched view out there that welfare can pay more than work can. We need to tread carefully here, maintaining the protection for the vulnerable, for mothers and for the down-and-out. But we must do all we can to make employment attractive. While it feels like there is some way to go on this challenging agenda, it is should be at the forefront of policy makers minds. Part of the solution must lie with a relentless effort to raise aspirations in all communities, especially the most deprived.

This is no easy feat.

5. We need bigger thinking on internships.

In an interview with a highly educated jobseeker with two degrees and ambitions in the fashion industry, who had been out of work for over a year, it struck that he was being led on a path that was corrosive to his sense of purpose and confidence, as well as being costly to the economy. His university careers advice centred on the importance of getting experience and an internship to make it in his career of choice. Many readers in the political world will, no doubt, be familiar with this advice. He was financial-capital poor, but human-capital rich. If he went on an internship, he claimed he would lose his housing benefit and employment benefit; a non-option without family support in London. If he took a minimum wage job, the option presented to him by the jobseeker system, he saw only the prospect of working very long hours just to keep his head above water, without any surplus income to save.

The unsympathetic might say he should take whatever job is coming, and be grateful. But surely it makes no sense to consign those who have benefitted from a high level of education to the near poverty trap of minimum wage jobs – not from the perspective of jobseekers self-worth, nor when trying to enable the greatest possible constructive contributions to society, nor when trying to make good on the state’s investment in education, and nor in our effort to encourage the flourishing of high value added employment in the UK.

A potential solution might be (with lots of weaknesses no-doubt, but also some merit): a one-shot universal jobseekers credit for, let’s say, a 6-month unpaid internship? Bolstering skills development, entrenching high-value added jobs and making the UK a more attractive place to locate business, all the while costing the state less (bearing in mind how long this category might otherwise be on welfare). Accepting internship exists rather than trying to wish them away, this could level the playing field for entry to high-skilled professions and be a significant boost for businesses.

‘One Big Chance’ internships – you heard it here first.

Policy Commissions and Young Fabian next steps: everyone should get involved

Joani and Joel are taking forward the thinking in the “Securing the Future of the Next Generation” Policy Commission. The next Anticipations edition will also have a heavy focus on the Squeezed Youth theme.

Tony Blair may be right about the need to focus on the hard to reach dysfunctional families. Or perhaps we do have a broken society and there are big ideas needed to address a lack of hope or prospects in communities up and down the country, hitting the young hardest.

Regardless, if you want to contribute to the thinking and the debate, there are plenty of opportunities with the Young Fabians. Stay tuned for information about a debate on what to learn from the riots.

Please get in touch if you would like to be involved, at any level.

Nick Maxwell is Partnerships Officer for the Young Fabians

As the Eurozone countries decide whether to endorse a second Greek bailout, many are asking whether the European project has fallen into serial decline. Eurosceptics are rubbing their hands in glee, citing the Euro’s current plight as proof of their earlier predictions.

Yet there is another way of reading current events. As former Foreign Secretary David Miliband argues in the essay in the latest edition of Anticipations, the nature of the crash that sparked Greece’s collapse demonstrates that global problems require global solutions. As China and America increasingly focus on domestic concerns, faced with a leadership transition and election respectively, Europe has an opportunity to take a lead on the world stage.

Europe is well placed to do this.

It is after all the only part of the world that has embraced the idea of shared sovereignty. While integration has not been a cost-free process it has brought with it significant opportunities. In an increasingly interdependent world, dominated by a handful of superpowers, the benefits of economic and political cooperation are more evident now than ever.

Taking advantage of this will not be easy.

Europe will first need to address the deep disconnect that currently exists between the process of greater integration and public support for the European project. This is the outcome of integration by stealth, as the public have grown weary of economic measures being used to promote a broader political goal. Few events more powerfully exemplify this phenomenon than the current crisis in Greece. We now have a single currency, which many in Europe saw as a route into federalism, undermined not only by the weakness of the Greek economy but also by widespread public antipathy towards the EU. Rarely has a strong multilateral Europe been more important or more difficult to sustain.

This has resulted in the widely held view that Europe is a distraction from more important national economic concerns.

However, as Nick Maxwell from Chatham House rightly argues in the latest Anticipations, domestic economic challenges and foreign policy priorities are far from mutually exclusive. Sound economics, just like effective politics, requires strong international cooperation.

In fact Maxwell goes a step further, arguing that the UK should be at the centre of efforts to build a more effective international framework for economic cooperation between nations. It is hard to argue with this position. As power increasingly shifts East, there is a closing window of opportunity for a country like the UK to take a global lead on such defining issues.

However, Britain’s ambitions should not be limited to economic concerns alone.

As Jim Murphy powerfully outlines in the latest edition of Anticipations, we also need to drive forward a coordinated approach to issues of defence. The Arab Spring has turned on its head established notions that non-democratic governments can be stable and sustainable. Security in the future will come not from bilateral relationships with autocratic rulers, but from strong multilateral alliances between democratic nations. This will require countries to facilitate peace abroad in order to protect their interests at home.

It is a challenging task, especially in tough economic times. However, it is one that we can rise to, especially if we are able to coordinate foreign policy at the European level.

As the crisis in Greece has shown, a more integrated Europe brings with it significant risks. However, in an interdependent world dominated by China and America surely these are risks worth taking. Now is the time for Europe to shed its image as a reluctant actor and assert its place on the international stage.

There is space in the world for another superpower. Europe must decide if it ready to become it.

James Green is Editor of Anticipations

• Read our online taster edition of the Summer 2011 edition of Anticipations here.
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Despite the important role that it has played throughout the party’s history, Labour has long had an uncomfortable relationship with faith. Alistair Campbell captured this well when he famously said of New Labour, “we don’t do God.” Of course the Blair governments promoted faith in a variety of ways. But that comment stuck in the public mind because it represented a fundamental truth not only about the Labour Party but also about the country more widely. We are deeply divided in our attitudes towards religion. Some view it as vital, others as dangerous, many as simply irrelevant. But has the time come to reject Campbell’s cynicism and openly ‘do God’?

In the latest edition of the Young Fabian’s magazine Anticipations former Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a powerful case for us to do just that. He argues that in the face of long held predictions about the demise of religion, the number of people who view faith as a central part of their identity is in fact growing. Much has been made of the continuing importance of faith in the United States but less discussed is its growth in the world’s emerging superpower, China. Blair offers some staggering statistics. There are more Muslims in China than in Europe, more practicing Protestants than in England and more practicing Catholics than in Italy. Faith is a central part of life in the Arab world too and whereas Europe’s birth rate is stagnant, the Arab population is set to double in the coming decades. The message from these statistics is clear. Far from being in decline, faith has rarely been more influential.

Of course the influence of religion is not only confined to the world beyond our borders. Many of the most challenging issues that we face in this country have a religious dimension. Tackling terrorism requires not only security measures but also powerful theological arguments. By vacating this space in the name of secularism, policy makers risk leaving a vacuum that can be exploited by those with malign intentions. But more than that, these debates go to the very heart of how we see ourselves. Do we adopt an aggressive form of secularism like France and risk undermining our own commitment to tolerance while alienating the very people we need to engage? Or do we find a way of balancing the values we hold dear with those practices, such as the wearing of the hijab and nighab, that can feel uncomfortable and foreign. The perceived tension between feminism and Islam is the topic of a fascinating piece in this edition by Muslim Women’s Network Chair Baroness Afshar.

But faith shouldn’t simply be confined to so called ‘religious issues’. It has much to say about the economic and social challenges of the day. Both Labour and the coalition have been working hard to address a widely held view that the bonds within and between communities have grown increasingly weak. As the Archbishop of Canterbury powerfully outlines, these issues have been a key focus of Christianity from its very inception. In our efforts to strengthen civil society it is vitally important that we learn from many of our most powerful and long-lasting civic institutions – those of faith.

Religion also has an important contribution to make when it comes to learning lessons from the recent financial crisis. As Rabbi Jeremy Gordon argues, Judaism offers important insights into how to better scrutinise our banks, set our taxes and ultimately structure our economy. As we look to build a fairer economic model out of the ashes of the financial crisis we could do worse than reflect on the views of our faith leaders.

Of course there are challenges when it comes to faith and it would be wrong to imply that religion cannot bring with it conflict and suffering. However, it is such a central part of the way society functions both at home and abroad that it simply can’t be ignored. In many ways religion continues to define our lives and it is vital that our politics and our policy reflects that. In that sense, at least, we must all ‘do God.’

• An online taster edition of the spring edition of Anticipations is now available on the Young Fabians website. The full edition of Anticipations is only available to Young Fabian members. You can join the Young Fabians for as little as £5. For further information and to join visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.

James Green is Editor of Anticipations.

One issue more than any other has dominated British politics since May. Cuts have been the order of the day, as the coalition has taken the axe to the public finances in its effort to bring down the deficit and shrink the state. In this tough political climate, Labour have played an important role in holding the coalition to account and opposing cuts, like those to housing benefit, that hit the poorest hardest. However, the party must be careful to avoid the temptation of riding the inevitable wave of public anger and opposing all cuts on matter of principle. The recently launched policy review provides a vital opportunity for Labour to develop a credible policy platform that is rooted in the political and economic reality of today.

That reality is a challenging one. Despite what the coalition may claim, the structural issues within the UK economy go far beyond financial services and alleged Labour profligacy. In fact the UK’s long-term debt has far more to do with our ageing demographic profile than with bankers bonuses and complex derivatives. Put simply, the taxes of those in work no longer cover the services and pensions of those who have retired. The problem is systemic and the only solution is a new conception of the state that reflects the complex realities of modern day Britain. Of course this must go beyond the rhetoric of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’. However, unless Labour understands its message – that the state needs to be reformed and that people want more power over the issues that affect their lives – the party will fail to offer the credible alternative that is so desperately needed.

This doesn’t require Labour to give up on its own political traditions. In the latest edition of the Young Fabians magazine, Anticipations newly ennobled Maurice Glasman makes a powerful case for Labour rediscovering its radical tradition of solidarity and cooperation. As he rightly argues, Labour has a rich history of grassroots activism and it is this that the party must tap into if it is to offer a new vision of government that goes beyond investment and centralised control. At a time when the public feel disempowered by an overbearing market and an often unresponsive state, now is the time for Labour to once again become the party of civil society. To win the next election, it is vital that Labour does not cede this ground to the coalition.

There is a lot of great work already being done in this area. As new MP Stella Creasy discusses in this edition’s interview many Labour activists are applying the principles of grassroots activism to their own constituencies, supporting local people to take power and influence the decision making process. As a participant of Citizens UK’s national community organising training – I share my experiences in Anticipations – I have seen for myself how effective these methods can be.

However, organising is only a small part of this agenda. Steve Reed, leader of Lambeth Council, writes in Anticipations about the groundbreaking work he is leading on to make Lambeth the country’s first cooperative council. Big ideas are vital, but implementation is equally as important and Lambeth are showing how Labour’s cooperative and mutual tradition – of which Greg Rosen provides a fascinating overview in the magazine – can be applied to the challenges of the modern world.

During the times of plenty, Labour’s instinct was to invest rather than to empower. Despite its shortcomings, this approach had a huge impact of which all on the Left should be proud. However, in today’s economic climate and with the long-term challenge of an ageing population, a new approach is required. Now is the time for Labour to rediscover its history as a grassroots movement and place community empowerment at the heart of a radical new approach to government. Cooperation, mutualism and community organising; these are old ideas whose time has come.

James Green is Editor of the Young Fabians magazine, Anticipations

An online taster edition of the winter edition of Anticipations is now available on the Young Fabians website here.

To full edition of Anticipations is only available to Young Fabian members. However, along with the online taster edition for all our supporters, we are offering a special rate of membership to celebrate our 50th year – £5 for six months membership. For further information and to join visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.

My political hero is without question, Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has dedicated his life to bringing peace, equality and freedom for his people – a vision that even twenty seven years in prison could not diminish.

In his quest to make South Africa the equal society it is today, Mandela never waivered from his principles. Even when offered his own personal freedom – a whole five years before actual release from prison – he declined the offer, as it would have meant the ANC would have remained a banned organisation under the apartheid regime. In his own powerful and inimitable words, he told the South African government, “only free men can negotiate.”

During the five years he served as President of South Africa, he remained committed to reconciliation within his country and building the multi-racial democracy we see today.

Mandela has showed all of us that hope will eventually triumph.

Any contribution to the ideals and values that will shape the 21^st century must inevitably deal with the economic and political fallout of the global financial crisis. We have just witnessed the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. The coalition government have responded with a vision of political economy that resonates more firmly with Thatcherite laissez-faire policy than the progressive mantle they claim to hold.

A wealth of academic literature has arisen over the previous thirteen years assessing the policy implications of the New Labour project. Three main hypotheses have generally arisen. Firstly, that New Labour was a modernised version of social democracy in line with the sort of revisionism that has always been central to the social democratic project. Secondly, that New Labour was an abject capitulation to the political legacy of Thatcherism and Neo-Liberalism. And finally that New Labour had become a hybrid of both ideological positions.

Space won’t allow further exploration of this theme but the legacy of New Labour will shape the Labour Party’s response to the most pressing issue to shape the first few decades of the 21^st century: political economy. Whilst not adhering to the argument that New Labour was merely a continuation of Thatcherism, despite huge and much needed fiscal expansion in public services, events suggest that New Labour especially on economic matters was hugely influenced by the preceding years of Thatcherism and neo-liberal theories of the market. Gordon Brown’s much vaunted emphasis on monetary stability and fiscal responsibility was placed before the altar of the City of London and financial services. The risk-based approach to regulation of the financial services industry and the belief that they could be made to work in the public interest was repaid with economic instability, social injustice and electoral defeat.

In his book, the Spectre at the Feast, Andrew Gamble notes that the politics of recession often leads to the questioning of current orthodoxies and a ruthless reassessment of former beliefs and assumptions. If the crisis that unfolds is deep and long enough then it can result in major political turbulence. As Gamble notes, this happened in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, leading to the New Deal and eventually the Keynesian Welfare State. Similarly, the crisis of the 1970s lead to the re-emergence of neo-liberalism as the dominant political ideology.

An interesting facet of the global financial crisis is the speed with which neo-liberalism has reasserted itself. The right have successfully dominated the narrative that has emerged from this recession. What should be considered as a failure of neo-liberalism and markets has been re-written as a crisis of over-extended government and fiscal irresponsibility. To beat the crisis and rebuild our economy, the right argue, we need to roll back the state and in so doing liberate the private sector. Yet this view isn’t borne our by the facts. In an economy of corporate and consumer indebtedness and a financial sector that is still paralysed by its own speculative activities it is a fanciful proposition to say the least.

However, Gamble notes that while recessions lead to the questioning of orthodoxy that does not necessarily mean that prevailing economic policy will be replaced. He is worth quoting at length,

“Forces arrayed against neo-liberal order look comparatively weak, and there is as yet no compelling alternative vision of how the global economy might be ordered, what the steps might be, and what an alternative political economy to neo-liberalism might look like”

Constructing an alternative vision of political economy is the most important task facing the Labour Party. To achieve this Labour must address the following issues:

• Labour must challenge the market excess, especially in providing a more thorough critique of how markets fail.
• We must reappraise the priorities of UK financial institutions, working to support a new era of economic growth built on investment in higher value added manufacturing and green and creative industries.
• We should make the case for new forms of public and private ownership models and redress the deficits in corporate governance regimes to focus on long-term growth potential, product and technical capabilities. This will lay the foundations for an increase in UK exports.
• We must increase UK exports by moving into higher value added production. This will not automatically lead to a fairer or more equal society and appropriate steps must be taken to distribute both resources and opportunity evenly as possible.
• We must press for the unilateral implementation of a financial transactions tax on the City of London whilst using influence abroad to extend the scheme internationally. Funds could be split 50-50 between domestic needs and those of developing countries. Domestically the funds raised could be used to provide capital to the new banking system, fund vital infrastructure investment and launch a sustained and concerted effort to eradicate poverty in the UK.

As Will Hutton noted in the summer of 2009 the £1.3 trillion Labour invested to support the banking system, “creates a once-in-a-generation political opportunity to challenge the terms on which Britain approaches both the structures of capitalism and its management.”

The political and economic impact of the global financial crisis will shape the 21^st century. The way we respond will define the future of the Left. Get it right and it could provide electoral success, economic renaissance and a more equal society. Get it wrong and it could be eighteen more long years of Thatcherite politics.

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What could be a greater idea for the 21^st century than a wholesale redefinition of how we define progress?

Increasingly, academics and legislators are questioning the definition of what where we want to go as a society, which has been held for decades.

Consistently, studies show that a wealthier society is not a happier one. Since the 1970s, when Richard Easterlin published his famous ‘Easterlin paradox’ – that as we become wealthier we are becoming more discontent – politicians of all stripes have become increasingly interested in whether we need to factor in happiness because a wealth increase doesn’t cover it.

So if a booming economy doesn’t make us happy, then why don’t we start defining progress in a more holistic way?

However, for this new definition of progress to truly become one of the big ideas of the 21^st century it has to overcome some simple questions. First, why both to change our current definition? How might that change work in practice?

First, why should we care about measuring happiness? Can health outcomes and education outcomes alone tell us whether the government of the day is providing its citizens with a better life? It is true, these things are important. Yet they are not questions that hold universal answers. What one person deems a good education, may not hold for another person – do we continuously test our young people or indulge in more holistic education?

By contrast, everybody wants to be happy. If, as people working in and around politics, we want to strive for a goal then surely we should seek out the ultimate goal – a happier population.

A more immediate prompt to care about happiness is the recent Unicef report which ranked the UK as having the lowest level of child happiness across 21 industrialised countries. Unhappy childhoods frequently lead to social problems in adulthood. That means we need to act now.

Secondly however, even if we deem it worthwhile to factor Gross Wellbeing Product (GWP) then such thinking is pie-in-the-sky if we can’t make it happen.

Of course measuring how happy people are is inherently subjective. However, a number of noted authors and institutions are now starting to build measurement systems that can accommodate how happy our population is.

Joseph Stigliz’s commission report ‘What is Social Progress’, which was established in France at the request of Nicholas Sarkozy, has produced interesting findings. The report was based on the firm principle that progress must be measured by the overall quality of people’s lives and offered up some good practice for doing so.

Similarly, the Office of National Statistics have also started to develop some measures.

We are far from having a definitive measure – there probably never will be one. Yet hard work is clearly underway to producing the best possible measure we can have. Political weight must be thrown behind those efforts.

It is clear that a shift in the direction of GWP is already underway. Lord Layard was hired as the previous government’s ‘happiness tzar’ and Ed Balls’ Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families both show steps in the right direction.

By developing sound measures for happiness, this ultimate aim of how we define progress can be put at the top of the agenda for policy makers in the 21^st century. What could be a greater goal toward which to direct our political efforts.

The recent edition of Anticipations contains an article from Catherine Stihler, one of the Labour MEPs for Scotland.

Catherine argues that Britain must collaborate with EU states both to forge a stable recovery and to build a sustainable social market economy by 2020. The latter is the EU’s response to the Lisbon Agenda (to make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy by 2010).

Vital to achieving this goal is the investment in education and skills by domestic governments to equip tomorrow’s work force with the skills for a global economy. This is the very nub of the interaction between the national and the international in policy making. Investment in the skills of its citizens by a national government will allow its workforce to compete for the high skilled jobs of a global marketplace.

Labour has a record of a sustained investment in schools, skills, universities, research and development running hand in hand with a jobs and growth strategy that is beyond Britain’s borders to ensure we look for the jobs of tomorrow.

We should continue this in the next election manifesto as we look beyond our borders for growth, jobs and trade. Labour should continue to make a commitment to young people to allow us to achieve our full potential in the economy of tomorrow. I believe the Backing Young Britain campaign should continue beyond the recession as a positive way of investing in our future to bring high quality jobs to Britain and allow us to compete internationally. Labour can co-ordinate our policies in Westminster and in Brussels to keep European policy working for young Britain and building for our future.

SPONTANEITY AND CREATIVITY – The improv-stand-up Ross Noble, with his comedic-anarchic wonts, last month unfortunately called a day on his ‘Twitter Bombard Tuesdays’. This weekly event had briefly mobilised Noble’s micro-blogging followers to target confectionery companies, Dragon Duncan Bannatyne, and our very own Kerry McCarthy MP, with 140 character business pitches and bizarre questions. It was funny, but beyond Noble – the real spontaneity and creativity was coming from his fans; he was facilitating an opportunity for them to mirror his own unique style. Not too dissimilar from a certain US President who empowered his supporters to tell their personal stories and organise their neighbourhoods in a campaign that literally followed its leader …

WHO’S WATCHING? – Young Fabian member and current President of the NUS, Wes Streeting, writes in an article which argues that online campaigns can make a difference offline, on page 17 of Anticipations, that ‘thousands of people joining a cause on Facebook is nothing new today’ – and he’s right. But I know from a recent meeting during my day job that even much-maligned and oft-criticised quangos are watching out, and working out how they must react to online political or citizen activity such as the Facebook A Level Biology paper protest. Gradually, everyone is starting to notice what’s going on online.

REMEMBERING THE REAL WORLD – I write myself in Anticipations(page 26) on the importance of linking new media and established forms of communication and argue for the continuing relevance of the age-old people-centred campaigning methods we are accustomed to. The web fails politics when it is insular and a stage for the faux wars of the blogosphere. And is at its best when it retains a sense of humanity. MyDavidCameron.com works because it’s simple and because it connects with people. Sure, there’s some duff examples but the best, the funniest, the most poignant mock-ups of the airbrushed poster are all capable of resonating with people’s lives and experiences.

So, what does this mean? Well ultimately, it’s a movement away from the crafting of carefully, constructed messages specifically targeted and towards doing something different, doing something quickly and then creating enough involvement and momentum for it to snowball and make people sit up and take notice. Those that manage to merge the former with the latter, stamping their own personality in the process, during this election will likely find success be it in hits on a website or votes in a ballot box.

Young Fabian magazine, Anticipations, is available online in its entirety for the first time ever. We are offering Fabian members over the age of 31 the chance to sample an edition which includes Sarah Brown, Ben Bradshaw, Kerry McCarthy and Alex Smith. And we are encouraging our supporters under the age of 31 who enjoy the magazine to join the Young Fabians for just £5 to receive every edition of Anticipations, as well as our pamphlets, and to take part in our full range of activities.

The problem is: it does, and Jessica rightly makes this point at the end of her article. Communication today can only become relevant to a wider audience if it’s online. The cornerstones of an informed society -campaigns, discussions, sharing of information- are all being developed and shaped on the web.

When women wanted the right to vote and participate in democracy, they had to take to the streets and put up an immense fight to make their voices heard. If women today want to participate in democracy 2.0, all we have to do is go online. The rise of social media seems unstoppable, and the way we communicate has already changed forever. We need to realize that our messages will only get through if we engage with this new media. So come on girls, for the sake of all women over the world- let’s hit those keyboards, more than just once.