Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Harold Wilson once said Tony Benn’s problem was that “he immatures with age”. “Wedgie”, as he was popularly known as all those years ago, has since achieved “national treasure” status. But is he still the one counter-example of an otherwise inevitable trajectory: as you get older, you get more reactionary or more realistic and less idealistic?

Have you ever been stuck in a job that bores you rigid, but you just can’t see a way out? It happens, especially to men as they move towards retirement. They become trapped. Either they can’t do without the money or they don’t want to lose face with fellow workers. So they soldier on with one wistful eye on the exit door.

Education is a success story for Labour and there is still time to tell it, writes Graham Lane

Until recently it used to be said – mainly by the smugger mandarins of the Foreign Office – that we Brits “punched above our weight”. The idea this self-regarding phrase was meant to convey was that we were so tremendously clever at the arts of diplomacy that more attention was paid to us than our diminished economic and military strength would otherwise warrant.

The left needs says to sharpen its arguments for a fairer and more transparent society, argues Sunder Katwala