If people need homes then put councils and building workers to work to build them, buy up the empty ones and stop the repossessions.
— John McDonnell
The interests of big corporations have so permeated government that its major decisions are indistinguishable from the boardroom demands of the leading companies in each commercial sector.
We urgently need a major programme of investment in renewable energy generation to tackle climate change.
Changing leaders is pointless if the same policies are pursued.
Our supporters just want a Labour government. They want a Labour government that does what Labour governments are expected to do. They expect a Labour government to provide them, their families and their communities with the support and security they need, especially in difficult times.
I am categorically opposed to any fees for education - and I have voted and campaigned against their introduction at every stage.
New Labour has deregulated, liberalised and privatised - but every time the private sector fails it is the taxpayer who pays.
From nuclear waste to Northern Rock and Metronet, risk is never transferred to the private sector - the state will always be forced to step in where there is a clear public interest.
Heathrow is in my constituency and I have been at both the Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 planning inquiries. At these inquiries my community has been assured by the inquiry inspectors, BAA and government ministers that each development would be the last piece of expansion of the airport because of its ever-increasing noise and air pollution.
It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined.
In 1985, as a community activist and GLC councillor, I organised the first ever public meeting to explain the threat of a third runway at Heathrow airport for my local community.
Parties don't lose overnight, there is a gradual erosion of their base and electoral machine, which leads to sometimes cataclysmic defeat.
Tightening up border and immigration controls go nowhere in addressing the underlying causes of terrorism in our society and in our world.
Millions of people feel ignored by the political establishment.
Governments usually end not with a bang but with a whimper, as the Conservatives learned in the 1990s. Support and authority erodes over time until there is a final collapse of support and pivotal electoral shift.
No cause is worth the loss of a child's life.
A fairer system bases itself on actual outcomes - if you earn more you pay more, through progressive income tax.
If corporations and rich people who made fortunes out of us during the boom are not paying their fair share then reform the tax system and close down the tax havens.
If we are to depression-proof our economy we may need to pay more attention to the radical ideas and policies of those who witnessed the misery inflicted on so many during the 1930s.
We need to promote employment through investment in major public works schemes to meet the U.K.'s needs.
Producing more reams of detailed policies that have marginal and limited effects on our society is futile.
To me, education is not a commodity. It is a public good, essential to any society with a claim to being civilised.
Going to university is, and should be, so much more than a mechanical process of grinding out a degree qualification for a pre-determined career path.
I think that I was the first MP to call for the nationalisation of Northern Rock, although that is hardly surprising because I have been calling for the nationalisation of the financial sector for 30 years or more.
Since John Smith's death and the Blair/Brown takeover in 1994, party members have watched the way in which an elite leadership group has formed in the Labour party, cutting itself off from the party's traditions, values and norms of behaviour.
Ministers may not be responsible for administrative errors, but they are responsible for major policy blunders.
Airport expansion is just one example of how our planet is being plundered for profit.
We need an NHS with fewer managers, fewer contractors and more power (rather than choice) to patients - with the input of the real experts: healthcare professionals.
When I was a GLC councillor, we won and held London as Labour was imploding nationally - running popular campaigns against the Thatcher Government and fighting on our own agenda.
I have a political philosophy by which I judge political events. It's called socialism, which at its core is about achieving equality, justice and peace through democracy.
The New Labour political elite has long conspired to secure a so-called 'smooth transition' for Blair's successor. This would amount to little more than the imposition of a leader on the party and our supporters without any real democratic participation.
We have to face up to the fact that without the armed uprising in 1916 Britain would not have withdrawn from southern Ireland.
The worry in Labour circles is that, when pressed, Gordon Brown instinctively moved to cut the benefits of the poor rather than upset businesses and the wealthy.
When I left school I went onto the shop floor, working 12-hour shifts in a TV factory. My workmates were sharp, skilled and all capable of enjoying higher education - but they didn't have that opportunity.
Democratic government requires the consent of the governed.
The plundering for profit of the world's natural resources has threatened the very sustainability of the planet.
If the government is injecting public money, it should also take the right to oversee board appointments, executive pay, and future business operations.
Labour will only survive in government if we can restore the sense of mission upon which it was founded.
Many argue that graduates earn a 'premium' because of their education, and should have to pay their way. I agree, and that's why I've always advocated a progressive taxation system - so if people do receive large salaries, they pay more income tax.
I made the case for public ownership in 'Another World is Possible' - a manifesto for 21st-century socialism - as it is the most rational approach for managing resources in the long-term interest of the entire community.
New Labour has created a society increasingly oppressed by the worry of personal debt.
Nationally, unrestrained Heathrow expansion has prevented the balanced development of regional airports and their economies and the planning of an integrated transport system maximising more environmentally friendly modes of transport such as rail linked more effectively to Europe.
If allowed, democracy does actually work.
When governments fail us, what else can people do except take to direct action? When corporate power can so dominate government policy-making that whole communities are placed at risk, where else can people turn?
The illegal 2003 invasion had little to do with liberating Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Instead, the real freedoms and benefits were destined to go to corporations like Halliburton and others that stood to gain from the privatisation of the formerly state-owned Iraqi economy.
If we as a party are serious about devolution, then we must respect councils and nations enough to determine their own agenda.
Britain has moved on. It is a radically different country from that which shaped New Labour.
New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our natural supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.
Only the political process offers the real prospect of a united Ireland at peace with itself.
Heathrow expansion is an object lesson in the dominance of a rapacious sector of industry over government decision-making.
