- Central Arguments
- Background of Labours need to Reform:
- Damage of the left wing Activists.
- Spending and taxation proposals were out of touch
- The general consensus of the public that Labour could not be trusted with the economy.
- Successive defeats in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992.
2.2 New Labours Policy Shift:
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Removal of ‘Clause IV’ and embracing of the private sector.
- Moving away from the idea of low unemployment as an essential aspect of a successful economy, to key concentration on inflation.
- Smaller amounts of interference in the economy.
- Less emphasis on redistribution via taxation on the rich, and more by the ‘invisible hand’ of capitalism.
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Stronger commitment to Constitutional reform e.g. Devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, signing up to the European Convention of Human Rights and lastly partial reform of the House of Lords.
- How do New Labours policies differ with Thatcher’s policies
- The overall economy as whole and how much interference the government should participate in.
- Crime and Punishment ‘tough on crime tough on the causes of crime’ Tony Blair.
- Community and how individuals should act.
- Taxation and redistribution.
- Educational system - Equality or Elitism.
2.3 New labour and other political thinking
- Social democracy- a capitalist economy which is partly nationalised and fairly planned.
- The Third Way – is there such a thing
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Bill Clinton’s New Democrats and whether Tony Blair has copied there line of thinking.
- Christian socialism- Christianity and socialism share certain moral values, and that Christians should therefore give political expression to their religious beliefs by supporting a certain type of socialism (Robertson 1993, 57).
- Has New Labour found an undiscovered area of the political spectrum?
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Is New labour situated in the area of the Radical centre?
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Are they centre left and right?
- Or is Tony Blair the son of Thatcher and is starting to turn the wheels of Thatcherism Mark II? (Driver 1998, 165)
- Conclusion
- New Labour appears to have grasped the popular policies from most radical areas of thinking and has dressed them up in spin so that they appear elect able to the British public.
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New Labour does appear to be fairly new in the sense that they have ditched numerous polices of old labour.
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Even though they are not as such their policies and in that case they can not really be called new. They have managed to keep inflation at a low and stable level, reduced unemployment and have given Britain a larger voice in Europe along with winning two general elections. So in my view the idea of ‘what’s best works’ is a valid argument for agreeing to the fact that New labour are truly new.
4. Bibliography
Brown M. Coates K., (1996) The Blair Revelation. Nottingham: Spokesman.
Driver S. Martell L., (1998) New Labour- Politics after Thatcherism. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Harmer H., (1999) The Labour Party 1900-1998. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman limited.
Heywood H., (2000) Key concepts in Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Kingdom J., (1991) Government and Politics in Britain – an Introduction. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Jones B. Kavanagh D. Moran M. Norton. P ( 2001) Politics UK. (4th Edition) Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Mc Naughton N., (2001) Success in Politics. (2nd Edition ) London: John Murray.
Robertson D., (1993) Dictionary of Politics. London: Penguin Group.
Shaw E., (1999) The Labour Party since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell.
Thorpe A., (1997) A History of the British Labour Party. Bassingstoke: MacMillan Press LTD.