The Attack and Other Papers

"The Attack is worth reading just because Tawney is such an amazing writer and uses words better than anyone in British politics that I know of. But I also love this book because it makes the case that an important part of the Labour tradition doesn’t start with the state, but with individuals and communities and the way we build our lives together. Tawney is a good complement to Sen, actually. There is an essay written in 1944 called ‘We Need Freedom’ in which he is trying to persuade Conservative Britain not to worry about a Labour government. He argues that only Labour can provide real freedom because freedom is meaningless if it is just that nobody is going to stop you dining at the Ritz when you can’t afford it anyway. Freedom is the ability to dine at the Ritz."