Is this the argument that Labour should make its central dividing line with the right? We can only test the would-be "progressive" Tories by attacking them from their left, not their right.

In 2006, Gordon Brown asked the Fabian New Year Conference: "What is the British equivalent of the US fourth of July, or even the French 14th of July? ... What is our equivalent for a national celebration of who we are and what we stand for?" He said he had in mind giving the country a new public holiday. 2008 should be the year to make it happen, And why not choose the birthday of the NHS to celebrate this great symbol of our shared values?

The Independent reports that the government has "backtracked over demands for an independent inquiry into the mistakes made in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq", based on David Miliband's interview in the new year Fabian Review.

Commentary for OpenDemocracy, on the challenges left thinking must address in the next decade.

Polling carried out for the Fabian Society by YouGov shows that the British public think the Prime Minister's salary should be double that of a premiership footballer. In the fair pay league, the public think footballers would earn 62,000 a year, not ten or fifty times that. But nurses and supermarket workers should get more.