Alex Doherty of Politics Theory Other interviews Christine Berry, discussing her upcoming book People Get Ready!

ALEX DOHERTY: So, before we sort of go into more detail, could you say a bit about what you see as the sort of key issues that we should be thinking about, in terms of making a success of a labor government- and perhaps even what that means?

CHRISTINE BERRY: I think the genesis of the book really came from exactly the same kind of sentiment you’ve just outlined, right? That, a lot of the debate was focused on the question of whether labor could win an election, whether labor could form a government, and how to mobilize to make that happen. And our anxiety was much more the same as yours: that we had quite a lot of hope that it was possible that we could have a radical labor government before too much longer, but, the real sort of fear, and the real danger, isn’t that we can’t win, it’s that we’re not ready to win. If labor takes power before it’s ready to take power, and for whatever reason it isn’t able to [uphold] its program, that would be far more damaging. A setback for the hopes of the left, you know, possibly for another generation, then us not being able to win the next general election. Which isn’t to underestimate the importance of the urgency of mobilizing to win the next election, you know, particularly with the severity of some of the challenges we face, from climate change to the rise of the far right- you know obviously. We need to make sure that we have radical labor government [?] in the election. The real question for us is what happens after that, and that’s kind of the beginning, rather than the end of the job that needs to be done.

Listen to the full interview here.