David Marquand

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David Marquand is an academic and ex-Labour Party MP.

Marquand was educated at Emanuel School, Magdalen College, Oxford, St Anthony's College, Oxford, and at the University of California, Berkeley.

Marquand's writings are broadly based upon issues surrounding British politics and social democracy. He is widely linked to the term 'Progressive Politics' and the concept of a 'progressive dilemma' in British politics, although he has since distanced himself from the term (if not the ideas it represents).

He was the MP for Ashfield from 1966 to 1977, when he resigned his seat to work for his mentor Roy Jenkins who had been appointed President of the European Commission as his Chief Advisor (1977-78).

During the 1970s split between 'Croslandite' and 'Jenkinsite' social democrats within the Labour Party, Marquand was part of the Jenkins group and joined the SDP upon its founding. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party, Marquand became a LibDem, rejoining the Labour Party following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader.

Originally a tentative supporter of Blair's New Labour, he has since become a trenchant critic, arguing that ‘New Labour has ‘modernised’ the social-democratic tradition out of all recognition’, retaining the over-centralisation and distain for the radical intelligentcia of the old 'Labourite' tradition. He is one of 20 signators to the democratic Left group Compass's founding statement.

Marquand has written contiually on the future of the European Union and the need for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom.

Marquand’s academic career began as lecturer in politics at Sussex University and included the occupancy of two chairs in politics, first at Salford and then at Sheffield as well as Master of Mansfield College, Oxford. Marquand is currently a Visiting Fellow, department of politics, University of Oxford and Honorary Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998.

Bibliography

‘Inquest on a Movement: Labour’s Defeat & Its Consequences’, Encounter, 53 July 1979
The Unprincipled Society, Fontana Press, London, 1988
(w. Seldon A (eds.)), The Ideas that Shaped Post-War Britain, Fontana Press, London, 1996
The New Reckoning: Capitalism, States and Citizens, Polity Press, Oxford, 1997
Ramsay Macdonald: A Biography, Metro Books, London, 1997
‘Premature Obsequies: Social Democracy Comes in From the Cold’, The New Social Democracy, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1999
The Progressive Dilemma: From Lloyd George to Blair, Phoenix Giant, London, 1999
‘Pluralism vs. Popularism’, Prospect, June 1999
‘Can Blair Kill off Britain’s Tory state at last?’, New Statesman, 14/05/2001
The Decline of the Public: The Hollowing Out of Citizenship, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2004
‘A direct line to the Almighty’, New Statesman, 02/05/2005
‘A leader I’d have followed’, New Statesman, 15/08/2005
'The betrayal of social democracy’, New Statesman, 16 Jan 2006

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