Summarise the principal differences between old and new Labour. Which section of the Party is now dominant? Why?

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Summarise the principal differences between “old” and “new” Labour. Which section of the Party is now dominant? Why?

Britain has been regarded for some time now of having two major political parties: labour and conservative. The reason why such assumption occurs is because since after the end the Second World War in 1945 to 2001 both the labour and conservative parties have consistently obtained 90% of the seats in the parliament (Kavanagh, Richards, Smith and Geddes, 2006).Although support for both parties has been declining, they are still today the parties that hold most dominance in Britain politics. In this essay I will cover the first question of the case study regarding the rise of “new Labour”.

Labour party foundation started in the beginning of the 20th century, more specifically in 1900, when the trade unions, cooperative and socialist societies established the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in order to represent the interests of everybody and enable the right of working men to enter on the Parliament (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran and Norton, 2001).The party name, as it is known today was eventually adopted in 1906. In the same way that the conservative party ideology was inspired in capitalism, the labour party ideology was strongly influenced by socialism and its principles.

Socialism was initially originated and developed in order to act in opposition against capitalism (Heywood, 2007), which was a type of political ideology that placed great emphasis on market competition and disregarded trade unions. Revolutionary since its origin, Socialism ultimate goal was to abolish the capitalist economy brought by capitalism and in return establish an economy based on common ownership, in which society would have the opportunity to command the means of production. According to Orwell (1938, p.104) “the thing that attracts ordinary man to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it is the idea of equality and the portrayal of a ‘classless’ society”. Socialism followed core principles such as:

  • Belief in human nature: every human being is born genuinely good and it is the “selfish competitive economic system of capitalism” (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran and Norton, 2005) that deforms this attribute.
  • Social equality: every man possesses equal rights and opportunities in life.
  • Freedom: in order for true freedom to exist in the society, the contrast between rich and poor should be less evident.
  • Fraternity: there must be an emphasis on comradeship and social solidarity instead of greed and individualism.
  • Importance of workers: the working class is seen as the most important asset in society and should obtain full benefits for their work instead of being exploited by the people at the top.

Initially, it was based on this ideologies and principles that Labour established their beliefs, policies and acted upon, however, the party made its own adjustments and came up with a “less emotional and more coherent version of socialism” (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran and Norton, 2001),  that became known as corporate socialism. Under this type of socialism, Labour was then focused on managing the economy in order to reduce unemployment with the use of investment and was committed in converting most of the private industry into public controlled services and organisations. Furthermore, the party only intended to attract the working class.

By the end of the 20thcentury, in 1994, Labour had suffered four consecutive major elections defeats against the Conservatism party, which to a certain extent indicated that Britain had changed and that the deep rooted ideas of the Labour party were no longer reaching the attention and needs of the society. Furthermore, Conservative policies had already become very popular and difficult to go against (Shaw, 1996).Other important factors or drivers, as referred in the case study, such as globalisation and modernisation were also the reasons why the Labour party was struggling to compete against competitors and heading to an uncertain and disastrous future.

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Globalisation is a recent phenomenon that has changed the way that people see the world as well as how we live our lives. According to Soros (2002) ‘globalisation is the free movement of capital and the increase domination of national economies by global financial markets and multinational corporations. While this portrayal of globalisation is very accurate, I think that it is incomplete. Globalisation is also the spread of culture and information. The development and evolution of Internet and other means of communication such as television has greatly enabled people to communicate and “get to know” other parts of the world. ...

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