A rather unconventional approach to David Miliband’s Guardian commentary would be to discuss the argument which he actually makes. I have a longish commentary on Open Democracy which tries to assess what sort of 'change' Miliband is advocating that Labour needs to make, whether his 'progressive fusion' argument for bringing together social democracy and liberalism means, and why I think its a mistake to label Miliband as a 'Blairite'.

For anyone who hasn't seen the latest episode of 'A Daily Show with John Stewart' (I deeply advise you to do so now if you haven't) you will have missed one of those interviews you really just had to see. Jonah Goldberg, author of 'Liberal Fascism: the secret history of the American left from Mussolini to the politics of Meaning', seems to be convinced that American Clintonesque liberalism is fascist. The interview went on for 18 minutes (I think that might be a record) so the editors had to cut it down to a 6 minute production which Jon Stewart admitted was 'as choppy as hell', boy I'd of liked to have seen the rest.

The new right has won, atleast in economic thought. Both the Tories and the New Labour parliamentary leadership (although definitely not the party membership yet) have accepted their fundamental ideas of economic thought. Of applying marketisation, and thus monetary value to nearly all sectors of government intervention and then assuming that this will produce the best results. I do not believe that the mainstream of Liberal democrats have yet accepted this idea although I have met the occasional member who has. However there are those who associate the very meaning of liberalism with new right economics. This is my response, I only hope that there are labour party members with the guts to challenge the new right consensus too.

We may criticise New Labour as unsocialist: generally centrist economically with some edistributive policies, and generally liberal socially, except for some of their policies on the issue of 'civil liberties'. But there is a dangerous trend, with some people who call themselves 'Liberals'. John Howard looks to be on his way out in Australia. But in the ALP, there is a Ruddite faction, who are economically 'centrist' and socially 'conservative', and even Rudd calls himself conservative on economical matters. Don't be falled by the Democratic facade, many in the South espouse deeply conservative views. We of course have the Melanie Phillips of the world, who like to pretend they are progressive, while holding conservative views. There is a trend, in believing that all 'Socialists', have 'Socialist' views. Some demented people used it as an excuse in defending Milosevic. Hitler, Stalin, Gaddafi etc. have all called themselves socialists as have the Baathists of Syria and Iraq, while failing to hide their anti-semitism. I'm not suggesting that Kevin Rudd, Melanie Phillips and Bill Clinton are akin to these repugnant dictatorships. What I am suggesting is that, don't take an SI label too literally.