To what extent has the Labour government been following liberal or socialist principles since 1997?

Authors Avatar

To what extent has the Labour government been following liberal or socialist principles since 1997?

At present, it is argued that British politics is heading for an era of ideological unity; Ian Adams ‘Political Ideology Today’ states ’…the Conservative party is to a considerable degree no longer inspired by conservatism; that pure liberalism is no longer the doctrine of the Liberal party; and that the Labour party has finally given up socialism.’ It has been implied that all political doctrines have evolved and are now open to more broad interpretation. The Labour party’s political pattern seemed indefinitely fixed only a few years ago, yet now the typically ‘Looney left’ has questionably achieved a customisation of liberal and socialist principles, affectionately known as ‘left of centre’.

Liberalism, by definition, is based on personal liberty, tolerance and limited state power, which is generally divided into ‘Welfare liberalism’ of the Liberal Democrat party and ‘economic’ and Neo – liberalism of the New Right.    

Socialism is divided broadly into revolutionary and democratic definitions, which until recently were both identified with providing large-scale public services through economy management from a bureaucratic state. However, all socialists have now found it necessary to re-evaluate their ideas to what constitutes socialism, in particular from the latter definition, democratic socialism. This is divided into 3 areas: democratic socialism, social democracy and the latest addition, Labour and the third way. Since the 1950’s, the Labour Party’s right wing members have adopted this doctrine as a more suitable ideology for the party as it adapts capitalism yet accepting key socialist principles such as equality and welfare provision. This is also fairly akin to welfare liberalism, which is why it is asked as to which principles labour now more widely follows.

In the past decade, leaders of the Labour Party have moved labour’s political stance to a less radical position, in particular Tony Blair. In this essay, I will be analysing key aspects of recent New Labour policy in a bid to establish what doctrines New Labour follows.

Labour Party social policy in 2001 was divided into four broad areas – education, employment, health and welfare with increased expenditure in each area.

From a social democratic perspective, it seems labour has continued up this route for the national curriculum by aiming to reduce sizes and drive up classroom standards with incentives such as performance related pay. However, in addition to this, the importance of citizenship in primary school children has been stressed which is identifiable in democratic socialism through collectivism as according to Blair ‘Democracy can flourish only as part of a rich culture of rights respected and duties performed’. Although it seems that labour may therefore be misguided in its approach to higher education and the introduction of top-up fees which neither serves the individuals ‘…sense of shared purpose…’ neither the collective community.

Join now!

         Social democrats tend to place a strong emphasis on employment and stress that it should be created by any means available. It’s identified in Labour Party policy that the focus is not on economic management to achieve this but rather education and training. However, as corporate tax was reduced yet other tax levels remained unaltered, this is possibly a decoy away from the extent to which new labour is ‘business friendly’.         

        The labour Party’s continuation of the NHS and pledge of increased expenditure into health implies a flicker of traditional social democracy. That is of course until you consider ...

This is a preview of the whole essay