Progressive voters are unhappy that Andy Burnham voted for the Iraq war – but few remember that leftwing icon Tony Benn prepared to use troops to break a strike whilst he was a minister. “If that kind of archive existed in the late 70s, early 80s,” says Aaron Bastani on Downstream, “I doubt [Benn] would have been the standard bearer of the Labour left. But people didn’t know about things that happened 20 years earlier in the way they now do.” James Butler says that it’s “democratic” that politicians should be held accountable for their past choices – but it also feels like “people can’t change positions” anymore. “The whole communicative regime has changed, and I don’t think politics has caught up with it at all,” he adds. Watch the full episode of Downstream on our YouTube channel.

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