Editor: Tom Hampson, Assistant Editor: Ed Wallis

Fabian Review Volume 121, no 1

£4.95

Click cover to read whole issue online

The politics of the family has always been problematic for the left. The right has consistently owned the political territory with its clear and simple message on the primacy of the married, nuclear family.

This issue of the Fabian Review looks at how to redress this historic imbalance and forge a new progressive narrative on the family. In the magazine, Mary Riddell interviews Iain Duncan Smith, Tim Horton exposes the contradictions in Tory thinking on the family and shows where the left needs to look for a new message; Chair of the education Select Committee Barry Sheerman calls on elected officials to commit to using the same community schools their constituents send their children to; pensions minister Kitty Ussher looks at Labour’s position on marriage and argues for a focus on the relationships themselves rather than their structure; Kathryn White says we should scrap maternity and paternity leave and replace it with joint parental leave; Denis MacShane argues that the royal family are in many ways typical of families in Britain; and Kate Bell visits marriage promotion groups in America and reports that the recession might necessitate a change in their approach.

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Read Mary Riddell's interview with Iain Duncan Smith

"Why all politicians should commit to sending their children to local schools" by Barry Sheerman

Read Tim Horton's essay on the left's new narrative on the family

Sunder Katwala's editorial on the case for a jobs guarantee