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Reasons to be cheerful or manic hope? Thoughts on the general election
4th July 2017 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Tuesday 4 July, 6-8pm – The Tavistock Centre, Belsize Lane, NW3
A roundtable discussion organised by the Tavistock Clinic Policy Seminar, the Association for Psychosocial Studies, and the BSA’s Sociology Psychoanalysis and Psychosocial Study Group.
The result of the recent general election took many of us by surprise. Labour’s unexpected surge in the polls and the loss of 13 Conservative seats indicate that large sections of the electorate are weary of austerity, reject the populist ‘Little England’ and anti-immigration sentiments that helped fuel the Brexit vote, and are either sceptical about a ‘hard’ Brexit or oppose leaving the EU altogether. After nearly 40 years in which neoliberalism has dominated British politics, is there now an opening for a social democratic or socialist vision of Britain’s future? If so, what might that vision
look like and how would we get there? And what can a psychosocial perspective contribute to our understanding those questions? This roundtable discussion will explore the potential lessons of the general election and consider possibilities for the renewal of social democracy in the 21st century.
Speakers Georgina Blakeley, Jon Cruddas MP and Michael Rustin
Georgina Blakeley is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Open University. She has published widely on citizen participation and urban governance. Her co-authored book The Regeneration of East Manchester: A Political Analysis was published in 2013.
Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham and Rainham, and was Policy Coordinator for the Labour Party between 2012 and 2015.
Michael Rustin is a Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic, and a founding editor of Soundings. A paper by him on the election is online at:
https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/blog/ge2017-corbyn-labour-what-next
Attendance is free but bookings can be made here: