Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (born 8 March 1961) is

The Right Honourable
an English political theorist, academic, social commentator,
and Labour life peer in the House of Lords. He is a senior The Lord Glasman
lecturer in Political Theory at London Metropolitan Born 8 March 1961
University, and Director of its Faith and Citizenship Walthamstow, London, U.K.
Programme. He is best known as a founder of Blue Labour, a
Education Clapton Jewish Day School
term he coined in 2009.
Jews' Free School
Alma mater St Catharine's College, Cambridge

Contents Occupation Academic, peer

Political party Labour Party
1 Early life and education
Spouse(s) Catherine Glasman
2 Career
3 Political opinions Children 4
4 Personal life Parent(s) Collie Glasman
5 Publications
Rivie Glasman
6 References
7 External links

Early life and education

Glasman was born in Walthamstow, north-east London,[1] into a Jewish family and brought up in Palmers
Green. His father Collie Glasman, a Labour Zionist,[2] had a small toy manufacturing business that eventually
collapsed; his mother Rivie Glasman, the daughter of a poor family from Stamford Hill, was a lifelong Labour
supporter.[3] Glasman was educated at Clapton Jewish Day School (now Simon Marks Jewish Primary School)
and the Jews' Free School (JFS),[2] where he won an exhibition to study Modern History at St Catharine's
College, Cambridge.[4]

A trumpeter, he became a jazz musician for four years, and then gained an MA in Political Philosophy at the
University of York, and a PhD at the European University Institute in Florence with a thesis on the German
social market economy,[3] which was published in 1996 under the title Unnecessary Suffering.[5] Glasman cites
political thinkers from Aristotle to the Hungarian economist and sociologist Karl Polanyi as major influences
on his politics.[6]

Career
Glasman was a professor at Johns Hopkins University's European centre in Bologna. After his father's death in
1995 he returned to the UK.[3] He is a senior lecturer in Political Theory at London Metropolitan University,
and Director of its Faith and Citizenship Programme. According to his website, "his research interests focus on
the relationship between citizenship and faith and the limits of the market".[1]

On 19 November 2010, it was announced that he would be created a life peer.[7] Prior to his elevation he
worked for ten years with London Citizens and through this developed an expertise in community organising.

On 4 February 2011, he was created Baron Glasman, of Stoke Newington and of Stamford Hill in the London
Borough of Hackney,[8] and was introduced into the House of Lords on 8 March 2011, where he sits on the
Labour benches. His elevation to the Lords was considered something of a surprise, with Glasman admitting
that he was "completely shocked" by the appointment.[6]
Political opinions
Having joined the Labour Party in 1976, Glasman re-engaged with Labour politics after his mother's death in
2008. Glasman coined the term "Blue Labour",[9] defined by Glasman as a "small-c" conservative form of
socialism which advocates a return to what Glasman believed were the roots of the pre-1945 Labour Party, by
encouraging the political involvement of voluntary groups from trade unions through churches to football
clubs.[6] "Blue Labour" has argued that Labour should embrace patriotism and a return to community values
based on trade unions and voluntary groups, which he claims was evident in early Labour politics but was lost
after 1945 with the rise of the welfare state.[10] In a critical assessment of Glasman's political philosophy, Alan
Finlayson asserts that Glasman emphasises ethical social institution rather than moral individualism, criticises
commodification and the money economy, and seeks to revive the concept of the "common good" at the
forefront of British politics.[11] Glasman's role in the creation and promotion of "Blue Labour" is described in
the book Tangled Up in Blue (2011) by Rowenna Davis.[12] Glasman himself says that in developing the
concept of "Blue Labour" he was inspired by the Bund, the secular Jewish Socialist Party in Lithuania, Poland
and Russia founded in 1897, and the writings of 19th century German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. He also
points out the connections between the living wage and the demand of the Jewish trade unions in the East End
for a family wage.[2]

In April 2011, Glasman called on the Labour Party to establish a dialogue with sympathisers of the far-right
English Defence League (EDL), in order "to build a party that brokers a common good, that involves those
people who support the EDL within our party. Not dominant in the party, not setting the tone of the party, but
just a reconnection with those people that we can represent a better life for them, because that's what they
want".[13]

In July 2011, Glasman called for all immigration to be temporarily halted and for the right of free movement of
labour, a key provision of the Treaty of Rome, to be abrogated,[14][15] dividing opinion among Labour
commentators. [16][17]

Emphasising that Israel should not be "demonised", Glasman says he does not like Israel, where in his opinion
"terrible things [are] going on", adding that "the Jewish settler movement is as bad as Islamic jihadist
supremacists. What I see with jihadists and settlers is nationalist domination, and yuck is my general
verdict".[18] However, he accepted the visiting professorship he was offered by Haifa University, telling The
Jewish Chronicle, "If people I know say they want to boycott Israel, I say they should start by boycotting
me."[4] At the 2016 Limmud conference, he suggested the Labour Party's antisemitism harked back to Jewish
Marxists, who wanted to "liberate Jews" from their Judaism.[19]

Personal life
Glasman is a supporter of Jewish tradition, regularly goes to a synagogue on Shabbat,[4] and is a founder
member of Stoke Newington New Shul, a congregation affiliated with the Masorti Movement.[20] His wife
Catherine, who is not Jewish, has also become "engaged with Judaism". According to The Jewish Chronicle,
they keep kosher and celebrate Shabbat.[4] He plays the trumpet and smokes rolled-up cigarettes.[21] He lives
with his wife and their four children in a flat over a clothing shop in Stoke Newington in north London.[3]

Publications
Maurice Glasman, Jonathan Rutherford, Marc Stears and Stuart White, eds. (2011). The Labour Tradition
and the Politics of Paradox: The Oxford London Seminars 2010-11. The Oxford-London Seminars.
Soundings Journal.
Maurice Glasman (5 January 2012). "Ed Miliband must trust his instincts and stand up for real change".
New Statesman.
 (1 November 2012). "Blue Labour and Labour History". Anglia Ruskin University, Labour History
Research Unit.
(3 May 2013). "Catholic Social Teaching as Political Economy". Centre for Catholic Studies and
University College Durham University.
(Winter 2010). "Labour as a radical tradition" (PDF). Soundings, Number 46. pp. 3141.
(8 November 2008). "The Secret of Obama's success".
(4 February 2006). "Losing Your Rag".
(1996). Unnecessary Suffering: Managing Market Utopia. Verso.
(MayJune 1994). "The Great Deformation: Polanyi, Poland, and the Terrors of Planned
Spontaneity". New Left Review #205.

References
1. "Dr Maurice Glasman. Senior Lecturer in Political Theory" (http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/faculties/law-g
overnance-and-international-relations/our-staff/gir-staff/maurice-glasman/). London Metropolitan
University. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
2. David Russell (October 2012). "A Baron's Vision" (http://thesocialenterprise.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/
baron-glasman/). Jewish Renaissance. 12 (1): 810.
3. Stephen Moss (19 July 2011). "Lord Glasman: 'I'm a radical traditionalist' " (https://www.theguardian.co
m/politics/2011/jul/19/lord-glasman-radical-traditionalist). The Guardian. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
4. Michael Freedland (30 June 2011). "Interview: Maurice Glasman. My vision for Labour - and it's all
down to mum" (http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/50975/interview-maurice-glasman). The
Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
5. Maurice Glasman (1 August 2011). "I didnt go into politics to be a hero to the Mail" (http://www.newsta
tesman.com/society/2011/08/labour-immigration-democratic). New Statesman. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
6. Toby Helm; Julian Coman (16 January 2011). "Maurice Glasmanthe peer plotting Labour's new strategy
from his flat" (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jan/16/maurice-glasman-peer-labour). The
Observer. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
7. "Latest Peerages announced" (http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/latest-news/2010/11/peerages-honours-
and-appointments-2-57256). 10 Downing Street. 19 November 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
8. "No. 59695" (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/59695/page/2247). The London Gazette. 9
February 2011. p. 2247.
9. "Labour: Now it's kind of blue" (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2009/apr/24/blue-labour-con
servative-socialism). The Guardian Politics Blog. 24 April 2009. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
10. "Blue Labour and Labour History. A Symposium with Maurice Glasman" (http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruski
n/en/home/microsites/labour_history_research/news_and_events/glasman_symposium.html). Anglia
Ruskin University, Labour History Research Unit. 1 November 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
11. Alan Finlayson (27 May 2011). "Should the left go Blue? Making sense of Maurice Glasman" (http://ww
w.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/alan-finlayson/should-left-go-blue-making-sense-of-maurice-glasma
n). openDemocracy. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
12. Rowenna Davis (23 September 2011). "Lord Glasman, the Blue Labour thinker who crosses party's red
lines" (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/sep/23/lord-glasman-blue-labour-thinker). The
Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
13. Robert Philpot (19 April 2011). "Labour isn't working" (http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/04/19/la
bour-isnt-working/). Progress. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
14. Mary Riddell; Tom Whitehead (18 July 2011). "Immigration should be frozen, says Miliband adviser" (ht
tp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8643584/Immigration-should-be-frozen-says-Miliba
nd-adviser.html). The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 20 June 2012.
15. Macer Hall (19 July 2011). "Britain Must Ban Migrants" (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/259756).
Daily Express. London. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
16. Dan Hodges (20 July 2011). "Exclusive: the end of Blue Labour" (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/d
an-hodges/2011/07/blue-labour-maurice-glasman). New Statesman. London. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
17. David Green (29 July 2011). "In defence of Maurice Glasman" (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the
-staggers/2011/07/low-pay-immigration-workers). New Statesman. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
18. Mary Riddell (18 July 2011). "Labour's anti-immigration guru" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/col
umnists/maryriddell/8644334/Labours-anti-immigration-guru.html). The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 August
2013.
 19. Rocker, Simon (28 December 2016). "Limmud: Labour antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn has been
'exaggerated', says Jon Lansman" (https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/limmud-labour-debate-1.42987
4). The Jewish Chronicle. London. Retrieved 29 December 2016. "Lord Glasman, the academic and
Labour peer, traced left-wing antisemitism historically in part to the ideas of Jewish Marxists who had
seen it as their mission to liberate Jews from Judaism."
20. "Homepage New Stoke Newington Shul" (http://newstokenewingtonshul.org/). New Stoke Newington
Shul. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
21. "Analysis Blue Labour, Transcript of a Recorded Documentary" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/
programmes/analysis/transcripts/21_03_11.txt). BBC. 21 March 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2012.

External links
Personal page at London Metropolitan University
Blog
Interview with Lord Maurice Glasman, Chris Garvin, Director Young Fabians, Australia (July 2013)
"The Blue Baron bounces back", Tom Walker, Socialist Worker (11 Oktober 2011)
The Fabian Interview: Maurice Glasman. Way to Blue pp. 712, Mary Riddell, Fabian Review (Summer
2011)
"British Labours blues, Frank Bongiorno, Inside Story (26 July 2011)
"Confronting the City", Mat Little, Red Pepper (November 2009): profile of Glasman
"The City of London and its Tax Haven Empire": presentation by Nicholas Shaxson and Maurice
Glasman at the LSE, 1 February 2011. Glasman begins speaking approximately 31 min into the
recording, and jointly answers questions after the 54 min mark.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

title=Maurice_Glasman,_Baron_Glasman&oldid=794521462"

This page was last edited on 8 August 2017, at 15:09.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.