new labour essay

New Labour 20 years on: assessing the legacy of the Tony Blair years

Professor of Political History, University of Nottingham

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On the 20th anniversary of one of Labour’s greatest victories, party members are, to say the least, conflicted about the governments made possible by the election held on May 1 1997. The virtues of Labour’s longest uninterrupted period in office, based on an unprecedented three back-to-back victories (two of which produced its biggest ever House of Commons majorities) are not exactly being shouted from the rooftops.

For Jeremy Corbyn, 1997 is the stuff of nightmares: and those members who re-elected him leader in 2016 clearly agree. To them, the election is a morality tale, a political version of the Faustian legend. It represents the moment Tony Blair sold Labour’s socialist soul for the sake of a few votes. “Blairite”, to them, is a term of abuse, and Corbyn the ultimate anti-Blairite – a figure who remained true to his principles during the dark days of New Labour.

For these few hundred thousand Labour members, it is the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the failure to completely reverse two decades of Thatcherism that most rankles. Until the term is decontaminated, any figure tarred by the Blairite brush will never lead the party. But for millions of voters, David Cameron’s spurious accusation that Labour was responsible for the austerity following the 2008 financial crisis, because it “maxed out” the national credit card, resonates the most. And until Labour can successfully challenge that perception, it will find it hard to win another general election.

Without a trace?

For a government that supposedly won office thanks to its ability to spin any message to its advantage, the one that began in 1997 has a paradoxically poor reputation. Yet, when its achievements are soberly assessed it does not look so bad. Labour went into the election committed to five key pledges: to tackle crime, improve public services, maintain the top rate of tax and reduce youth unemployment. When appraised by Channel 4 News in 2007 these pledges were found to have been largely achieved. Similarly, Polly Toynbee and David Walker’s 2010 audit concluded that, as the party’s campaign song promised, under Labour things really did get better for most Britons.

The disparity between Labour’s record and its reputation motivated me to curate an exhibition at the People’s History Museum to give visitors the chance to think about the reasons for the creation of New Labour, the alternatives open to the party, the nature of the 1997 campaign and of its consequences. One exhibition is however not going to transform how everybody thinks: what historians refer to as “cultural memory” is constituted by diverse influences. But we do need to start thinking more clearly about this important moment in Britain’s democratic history.

Certainly the government elected in 1997 has left little by which it might be remembered. Unlike Clement Attlee’s 1945 administration, the one led by Blair has left no obvious institutional mark. There is no equivalent of the National Health Service. Even Harold Wilson’s troubled governments of the 1960s built the Open University. Blair did, albeit reluctantly, introduce devolution to Scotland and Wales. But given the measure was meant to kill off support for independence, this cannot be said to have been a roaring success – and those who have most benefited from devolution seem least willing to thank him for it.

Nor did the government lay down a distinct policy agenda with long-term consequences. If Attlee is associated with nationalisation and Margaret Thatcher with privatisation, Blair’s Third Way was accused of being too statist by the right and overly obsessed with the market by the left. Labour in power did pursue policies no Conservative government would have – notably the reduction in child poverty and the Sure Start programme for disadvantaged pre-schoolers. But after 2010 Conservative austerity put paid to them. Similarly, improvements in health and education have now been reversed.

Nor did Labour bring about a lasting value change. As measured by the British Social Attitudes survey, between 1997 and 2010, sentiment about taxation and redistribution actually became more right-wing . In contrast Blair did restore trust in politics in the wake of Conservative difficulties over sleaze . As measured by Ipsos MORI , trust in politicians rose from 15% in 1997 to 23% two years later. But this did not last beyond the 2008 expenses scandal.

People in the dark

The government elected in 1997 benefited Britain, but the changes it engineered were tentative and temporary: Blair did not radically transform, but modestly improved. Thanks to Conservative austerity, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 1997 never happened. So if you want to properly understand the impact of the election, the devil is deep in the detail – one place where many in Blair’s own party do not wish to look.

Although he won the 1994 Labour leadership contest with 57% of votes, most members had serious misgivings about Tony Blair. The left-wing shadow cabinet minister Claire Short even publicly attacked her leader and his allies as “people in the dark” , prepared to obtain power at any price. So impressed was the Conservative party they put Short’s comments on their infamous 1996 Demon Eyes poster, which showed Blair as the Devil. Meant to raise doubts in wavering Tory voters’ minds the Labour leader would say anything to win their support, it is an image which now grips the imagination of those probably taking the party to one of its biggest ever election defeats.

If the anti-Blair gets his anti-1997, we will have to wait and see if that forces Labour members to change their minds about what happened on May 1 20 years ago.

• UK politics
• Labour Party
• 1997 election

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• The Weekend Essay

How Labour can change the national soul

Keir Starmer must find the vocabulary to enact a genuine political transformation.

By Phil Tinline

For only the fourth time in 50 years, a British political party is heading to its annual conference having just swept from opposition into power. Over the next four days – winter fuel allowance and Sue Gray’s pay permitting – it may be tempting for Labour and their leader to luxuriate in the scale of their victory once more. But Keir Starmer wants to lead a “decade of national renewal”, which means he must do something even rarer: lay the groundwork now to win, and govern for, a full second term.

Thatcher managed it, and so did Blair. But they remain the only two prime ministers to have served two consecutive terms of four years in the history of British mass democracy. David Cameron secured a second win but was soon broken by Brexit; prime ministers before and since have failed even to make it that far. If Starmer really intends to make this a decade of “renewal”, he can start by demonstrating a grasp of this history. Because the prime ministers who have created enduring, transformative governments – like Thatcher, Blair and Clement Attlee – were those who saw beyond the daily whirl, and heeded the deeper forces that were reconfiguring the world. They recognised how the patterns of hope and fear that shape the electorate’s priorities were already starting to change. And they found a way to turn that into a compelling narrative: a story of how what had once been unthinkable was now not just possible, but unavoidable.

As part of my research for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), I’ve been examining these precedents. And it is telling that the advent of the Thatcher government has already become a reference point for this Labour Party in key speeches over the past 12 months. In her Mais Lecture in March , Rachel Reeves declared that, “as in the 1970s, we are in a moment of flux” in which “old certainties… have been found wanting”; it was time, as in 1979, to “fashion a new economic settlement”. Starmer’s conference speech last year was influenced by Thatcher’s in 1978. He took aim at Rishi Sunak’s government, not for its mendacity, but for its “mindset”, denouncing it as “unable to see, unable to listen, unable to stand in your shoes” – just as Thatcher had argued that Callaghan’s government was not “remarkably foolish” or “unusually wicked”, but made up of “men who live by illusions”. What Labour have recognised is that Thatcher’s strategy provides a path to dismantle the very political legacy it helped create. Don’t just criticise your opponents personally: explain how the old orthodoxy has broken, and how it can be replaced.

Thatcher had to make this case in her first post-victory conference speech. When she stood up to address her delighted party on 12 October 1979, the new prime minister acknowledged that for voters “so much has been promised in the past, so much has come to nothing”. She could already hear the disillusioned grumblings: “The Conservatives have been in five months. Things do not seem to be that much better.” As you’d expect, she assured them that tackling long-neglected problems would “take time”. Crucially, however, she declared that this was because the new government had to “move this country in a new direction… to create a wholly new attitude of mind”.

Here, right at the start, was the basis for Thatcher’s transformative decade in office. She took aim at her opponents’ underlying ideas and how they had skewed society. She insisted that: “Today trade unions have more power over working people and their families than any boss has.” In seeking to overturn that, her speech criticised the failure to see a link between productivity and pay, dismissing the annual winter strikes as self-defeating “madness.” This was not simply an attempt to change how people thought from on high, however. She recognised that the country was already moving towards a “new attitude of mind”. Aspirational younger voters, including many trade unionists, had long chafed against the limits of the 1945 settlement, built in the shadow of a depression they didn’t remember. The turn in the 1960s to rebellious self-fulfilment would have baffled Clement Attlee – but it helped give Thatcher’s narrative a ready audience. She was able to begin her speech by hailing how the demand for change had won the Conservatives “the largest trade union vote in our history”.

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Since 1945, the boundaries of what was politically possible had been defined by the prevailing belief that there should be no return to the mass unemployment of the 1930s. Thatcher recognised that the public was prepared to replace that with a new taboo: there must be no return to the strikes and inflation of the 1970s. Starmer has suggested that there must be no return to the misery and insecurity of the 2010s, and that his government will put working people’s well-being first. But to use this as the foundation of a transformative government, he may need to fight as fiercely as Thatcher did to overcome entrenched ideas and sensibilities.

She matched this rhetoric with policy – beginning with that 1979 conference speech which introduced two lasting innovations. First, her right-to-buy policy was an unashamed offer to a key voter segment who were vital to her project: skilled working-class council tenants, eager to own their homes. By turning up in person to hand the deeds to one such family, she captured her story of transformation in a single photograph: power shifting from the state to the aspiring individual, overcoming resistant Labour councils to make it happen. Today, we see the beginnings of a similar “government vs vested interests” narrative is discernible in Starmer’s determination to “ignore appeals for the status quo on private school tax breaks,” and face down Nimby-ism, bulldozing through planning obstacles to start building houses. Within days of taking office as Labour’s Energy Minister, Ed Miliband made a point of approving the construction of three large, controversial new solar farms.

Thatcher’s second innovation was her effort to weaken the power of the unions and here, her approach is particularly instructive. She proceeded cautiously, allowing employment secretary Jim Prior to introduce an Employment Bill in 1980 that marked the beginning of reform, despite hardliners condemning it as too timid. By 1982, she had replaced Prior with Norman Tebbit, who also trod carefully while accomplishing what Prior had resisted: effectively banning secondary picketing. This strategy – pushing new legislation as far as politically possible, entrenching it, and then advancing further – continued throughout the 1980s. It wasn’t until 1990 that the closed shop, which Thatcher had denounced in her 1979 conference speech, was banned outright.

The key question for Starmer’s government is whether its early incremental changes – as on workers’ rights – set a trajectory that leads to genuine transformation. Today, right-wing newspapers shudder with horror over the relatively mild promises in the “New Deal for Working People”, even as some in the unions spy slippery get-out clauses, such as Labour’s use of the qualifying term “exploitative” in its commitment to ban zero-hours contracts. Although Labour has pledged to repeal the strictures of the 2016 Trade Union Act, Thatcher’s once-unthinkably restrictive reforms from the 1980s are not on the table. At least, not for now.

There was one more crucial step Thatcher took towards securing a second term, which came when she confronted a crisis. As unemployment rose towards 1930s levels, she faced a choice between unthinkables. Plough on, and risk portraying her party as irredeemably callous – or U-turn, as Edward Heath had done before her, and jeopardise her credibility. She chose to plough on, even amid riots and tanking poll ratings. In January 1982, unemployment had passed three million, and the old taboo passed with it. The country’s attitude of mind had shifted. A second election victory, which had seemed impossible in 1981, began to look plausible.

Tony Blair overturned fewer orthodoxies during his time in government. However, midway through his first term, he faced a similar choice. In his 1999 conference speech, he lambasted the “forces of conservatism” that were holding the country back. Yet his pollster, Philip Gould, warned that, fairly or not, voters felt “neglected and ignored” – that the government spoke but didn’t deliver, especially regarding the NHS, which seemed “too big to turn around”. [2]   The No 10 strategist Peter Hyman – who would later shape Starmer’s “missions” – urged New Labour’s older generation to be more radical, shedding the fears from the 1980s.

The winter of 1999-2000 brought this to a crisis point: a severe flu outbreak resulted in patients being treated in corridors; cancelled operations cost a pensioner her life. On Breakfast with Frost that January, Blair suddenly proclaimed that health spending would be sharply increased to match the EU average within five years. Two months later, Gordon Brown announced a once unthinkable £2bn rise in NHS spending, with four annual increases of 6.1 per cent in real terms to follow. [3]   New Labour was ushering in a new attitude of mind, where high public spending was seen as sensible centrism, and “Tory cuts” were the stuff of out-of-date ideology. This rhetorical shift was evident in the 2001 election campaign when, despite losing three million votes, Labour managed to maintain its huge majority.

David Cameron faced a similarly invidious choice even before he took power in 2010 – and the decision he took helps explain why he did not get to lead a decade of national renewal. His vision of a “Big Society” promised to restore social bonds and institutions, to reduce the burden of the state, but also to address the impact of the market. At Davos in 2009, Cameron had lambasted the “recklessness and greed” that led to the 2008 crash and insisted that “we must shape capitalism to suit the needs of society”, rather than the other way round. It was time to abandon “the old orthodoxy that nothing should be allowed to impede the pursuit of profit”.

Yet already, when he came to address his party conference as prime minister for the first time, this rhetoric had faded. The Big Society never materialised because its proponents were not sufficiently willing or able to do what Thatcher had done: confront the extent to which old ideas had created an intolerable situation: in this case how free market dogma had left many people exposed to economic insecurity. Rather than advancing beyond Thatcherism, Cameron retreated into it, even reviving her rhetoric of fiscal “household budgets” that enabled retrenchment. As a result, bailed-out bankers thrived while wages stagnated, and public services were cut. Some of the resulting resentment found expression in the Brexit vote that torpedoed his premiership. His successors also proved unable to deliver the kind of renewal he had promised.

Sooner or later, Starmer’s government may confront its own crisis and face a choice between unthinkable options: breaking from the orthodoxy of the past or retreating into it. As a government insider told the New Statesman on Monday 16 September: “Keir will ultimately have to choose between the missions and the fiscal rules.” While it is risky for the government to attempt too much to improve the lives of ordinary people, there is also danger in doing too little. The government is aware of the threat that economic despair and disillusionment with mainstream politics pose, especially as they can be effectively exploited by far-right populists. Rachel Reeves warned of this well before the summer’s riots. The goal of being “tough on populism, tough on the causes of populism” underlines the point that, if it seeks to be transformative enough to restore faith in democracy, Starmer’s government may need to confront outdated thinking and entrenched vested interests, guided by its overarching aim of improving the lives of working people.

This will be even more electorally effective if it aligns with a shift in public opinion that is already underway. A feeling that ordinary people have been treated with insufficient respect, and that fairness must be a higher priority, has been apparent since at least the mid 2010s. This was accepted by Theresa May when she dedicated her government to serving those who were “just managing” and addressing “burning injustices”, and when she called for chief executives to be more respectful of the communities where their companies were based. It was recognised by Michael Gove when he argued that Covid underlined the need to tackle inequality, said that “levelling up” was vital, and that the Grenfell disaster revealed “the unacceptable face of capitalism.”

Starmer’s oratorical prowess may never match that of Thatcher or Blair – but in the upcoming speech he can still follow them in casting himself as an insurgent, bulldozing barriers on behalf of ordinary people. This week, he needs to articulate a compelling narrative that sets out the implications of prioritising working people: the outdated ideas that held the Conservatives back will have to go. That way, when the crisis comes, he can seize it to break through old taboos, and clear the path to a new attitude of mind, and with it, national renewal.

[See also: Labour’s Thatcherite revolution ]

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Accueil Numéros 1 What’s Wrong with New Labour ?

What’s Wrong with New Labour ?

This essay examines three major criticisms of New Labour: i/ that it is “neo-liberal,” ii/ that it is over influenced by American approaches to economic and social policy, and iii/ that, as a consequence, its vision for Europe is wrong. It is argued that New Labour—by retrieving the 1945 notion of an enabling state —has gone beyond “neo-liberal” possibilities. It is also argued that critics have tended to over emphasise American influences on New Labour policy, at the expense of domestic demands and realities. Finally, given those demands and realities, NewLabour’s vision for Europe is probably the best any UK government could currently offer. It is a vision that—rather than condemning all to a residual workfare state—can allow a broad diversity of social policy approaches across EU member states.

Entrées d’index

Keywords: , texte intégral, introduction.

1 Throughout its time in power, the New Labour government of the United Kingdom has been subjected to much criticism both from within the UK and from elsewhere in the EU. According to many domestic critics the key problem with New Labour is that it has continued the Thatcherite “neo-liberal” project. This complaint is echoed in some assessments coming from France. However, French critics tend to refer to the current UK economic model as “Anglo-Saxon” rather than “neo-liberal.” This label is employed to suggest a link between the UK economic model and that of the United States of America. The UK is viewed as peddling an American economic agenda that is a clear and direct threat to a more desirable European social model apparently favoured in France. The “Anglo-Saxon” label is also employed to suggest a less than healthy political relationship between the UK and the US. The suggestion here is that the UK cannot play a full role in the EU because its relations with the US are too cosy. New Labour came to power vowing to put Britain “at the heart of Europe.” But its actions suggest to many that it is actually hostile to the type of Europe favoured by its most powerful partners. New Labour’s vision is of a Europe of independent nation-states in a free trade zone. For many critics, this is a vision that fails to grasp the potentialities of a more unified Europe acting in unison on the world stage—counterbalancing the current dominance of the US. This constitutes a third form of criticism of New Labour that I will call the “wrong vision” critique.

2 The purpose of this essay is to explore the validity of the three types of criticism just identified. I will begin by examining the “neo-liberal” critique. This, I will argue, has little substance because the “neo-liberal” label is wrongly applied to New Labour. The fact is that New Labour has sought to respond to the grosser defects associated with Thatcher’s reforms of the British economy in ways that are simply not available to neo-liberals. I will then move on to consider the second type of critique. I will suggest that the “Anglo-Saxon” label is also problematic. There is a danger of it masking what is actually an inherently complex set of influences that have prompted New Labour to pursue the course it has. Whilst it is true that New Labour is more subject to American influences than those from across the Channel, it does not subscribe to some monolithic Anglo-Saxon model that is out to crush all competitors. Part of my reasoning for taking this view lies in New Labour’s approach to Europe. I consider this approach in the final part of this essay where I examine the “wrong vision” critique.

The “Neo-Liberal” Critique 1

• 1  I have previously presented some of the core arguments in this section in Christopher John Nock, “ (...)
• 2  See, for example, Stuart Wood, “Labour Market Regimes under Threat ? Sources of Continuity in Germ (...)

3 In Britain the usual charge offered against New Labour is that it has continued Thatcher’s neo-liberal project. This charge has some prima facie merit. New Labour came to power praising and endorsing the fundamental aspects of Thatcher’s economic reforms. It committed itself to Conservative spending targets in its first term. It has pursued increasing marketisation of much of what was purely in the public realm. The trade unions have remained on the margins of British political and, indeed, economic life. Emphasis has shifted from the post-war “old” Labour view of the state as a public provider of welfare services to that of the state as a regulator of private providers, and a facilitator of private investment in “public” projects. Welfare provision has become increasingly targeted and, as a consequence, more residual and less universal. 2 Given these facts, critics in the UK condemn New Labour for having abandoned the social-democratic principles that were central to the 1945 welfare state. It is, indeed, true that New Labour is short of social-democratic principles, but there are sound historical reasons for this.

• 3  See Martin Hewitt, “Social Policy and Human Need,” in Developments in British Social Policy , Nick (...)

4 The 1945 welfare state was constructed around the priority of a universal satisfaction of basic need. This could only be made real through Keynesian economic management that might secure high and stable levels of employment. In an important sense, it was an approach that gave priority to welfare over markets. Only once the basic needs of all were satisfied might the inequalities markets generate be considered potentially justifiable. This approach actually demanded a dual role from the state. First, it should directly aid those unable to help themselves in the avoidance of poverty and want ; and second, it should take steps to enable those potentially able to satisfy their needs in the market place to do so through education, training and labour market policy. By the early 1950s some Conservatives were calling for the replacement of the notion of basic need by that of residual need. 3 On this view, the market was the best mechanism for satisfying both basic and personal needs. Accordingly, it should take priority over state welfare. The state would still bear responsibility for meeting the basic needs of those unable to function in the market—these being the residual needs.

• 4  In 1983 the British electorate emphatically rejected Labour’s offer of a return to state managemen (...)

5 It was this approach that finally won out in 1983 when it became central to Thatcher’s reform of the British economy. 4

• 5 See United Kingdom Employment Action Plan 1999 : Executive Summary available at http://www.dwp.gov. (...)

6 Thatcher’s revolution did not negate the first function of the post-war welfare state. Aid to those unable to help their selves could still be provided under the rubric of residual need. But Thatcher’s project did largely negate the second enabling function of the 1945 welfare state. This function had been linked to the state’s ability to manage the economy and promote full employment by Keynesian methods. Thatcher’s rejection of Keynesianism—and her corresponding marketisation of the economy—broke the tools of the post-war enabling state. This aspect of the Thatcher revolution was so complete that when New Labour came to power there could be no return to the 1945 social-democratic model. The destruction of Keynesian tools had gone hand in hand with the demise of the industrial economy on which their effectiveness depended. In this new reality, New Labour continued to give primacy to the market. But their approach has not been exclusively tied to the purely residual notion of need central to the neo-liberal project. New Labour seems, rather, to have supplemented the residual approach by retrieving the second element of the 1945 social-democratic principle : the notion of the state as an enabling force. 5

7 Under New Labour, the state is again consciously embracing the role of enabling those with the potential to do so, to meet their own needs in the market. It is this that distinguishes their project from Thatcher’s and marks an important ideological gap between the two. Thatcher saw little need for an enabling state because she considered markets to be neutral in the ways they distribute opportunities. New Labour recognise that this is not so. Some groups are disadvantaged in their market endeavours and require particular forms of support. In this enabling role New Labour is seeking to secure opportunity for all through the labour market as the key to social inclusion. The British tendency to judge New Labour in comparison with the 1945 social-democratic project employs the wrong yardstick. 1945—by giving priority to basic needs welfare over markets—represented a unique moment in the British experience. We should not expect New Labour to have conjured up a full-blown return to its principles—or, indeed, its practices.

• 6  I have made this argument in more detail in Christopher John Nock, “Active Labour, Liberty and Dem (...)

8 These principles and practice could only fully apply in the period when Keynesian management of the national economy was viable. That moment was long past by 1997. A more appropriate measure of New Labour is comparison with Thatcherism. 6 New Labour is clearly more concerned than Thatcher—blinded as she was by the myth of market neutrality—with the negative social consequences of economic liberalism. By retrieving the 1945 notion of the enabling state—a state that can grip and grapple with unfair inequalities in opportunities—New Labour has begun to take steps to address those consequences.

7  See Michael Freeden, “The Ideology of New Labour,” in Political Quarterly, 70, 1, pp. 42-51.

8  See ibid.

9  See Nock, “Active Labour, Liberty and Democracy.”

9 While New Labour’s version of the enabling state does mark and advance beyond Thatcher’s neo-liberalism, it is equally insufficient to fill its breach with “old” Labour social-democratic principles. New Labour gives priority to markets over welfare and seeks to promote employment opportunities through policies of labour flexibility, not Keynesian management. In this context, the enabling state is taking on a very particular form. Gone are social-democratic concerns with individual autonomy or broader notions of well being. The notion of “opportunity” has been stripped of concerns about personal development or the realisation of potentialities. 7 Opportunity now lies solely in the world of work and its attendant material rewards. The primary—perhaps the only—function of the enabling state is to skill and re-skill individuals for the world of work. As a consequence of this process, welfare itself has been devalued and reduced to a set of support services for the unfortunate and the unlucky—those who have residual needs. 8 This marks a transformation from the welfare state of 1945 to a workfare state. The New Labour workfare state lacks the ideal of universality central to the 1945 welfare state. But it also contains post-Thatcherite elements. The targeted New Deal—and other labour activation policies—along with minimum wage legislation, are new enabling tools that go beyond neo-liberal possibilities. 9

10 The New Labour emphasis on work—and its attendant opportunities—offers some explanation of its continued rejection of the extensive state activity associated with the 1945 welfare state. The British experience suggests that the main threat of economic liberalism is to interests that were entrenched by the post-war welfare state. These interests belonged primarily to two main groups : the middle-class and organised labour. The professional and semi-professional middle-class became the primary beneficiary of the work and income opportunities promoted by extensive state provision. And, in large part, this is because it was they who were privileged by access to state subsidised higher education.

10  See Freeden, “The Ideology of New Labour.”

11 Large organised labour unions—often through restrictive practices—were able to promote greater job security and benefits than many members might expect in a flexible labour market. New Labour seems to believe that economic liberalism promotes greater equity by breaking these entrenched interests and expanding the opportunities of the poor and disadvantaged. Fairer competition for jobs and education, combined with cheaper goods are the key elements in promoting this process. The workfare state has a positive role to play in helping disadvantaged groups pursue those opportunities. This approach has come to define New Labour’s version of “social justice.” Detached from social-democratic concerns about egalitarian redistribution, gross inequalities are now deemed acceptable—perhaps even laudable—if they help promote benefits for the least advantaged sections of British society. On this view, social justice merely requires that nobody be excluded from the world of work by reason of irrelevant prejudice. 10

• 11  See Marquand, D. -“The Blair Paradox” in The New Labour Reader / eds . Andrew Chadwick and Richard (...)

12  See Freeden, “The Ideology of New Labour.”

• 13  See Kenny, M. ; Smith, M-J. - “Interpreting New Labour : Constraints, Dilemmas and Political Agenc (...)

12 So New Labour is neither neo-liberal nor social-democratic. Unlike Thatcher, it is equipped to recognise that the state has a positive role to play in helping the disadvantaged in the labour market. This ability has been constructed around principles like “social justice,” “opportunity,” and the “enabling state” which have a ring of traditional Labour concerns about them. But, in reality, these principles have largely been stripped of their “old” Labour social-democratic meanings. Recognising that New Labour is neither neo-liberal nor social-democratic raises the issue of how they might be properly labelled. This issue vexes many British commentators and they have offered a wide variety of possibilities. Marquand, for example, suggests New Labour be seen as a peculiarly British phenomenon which is busy repairing the crisis of legitimacy caused by Thatcher’s bourgeois revolution. 11 Freeden also sees something peculiarly British about New Labour because he roots its ideology partly in the New Liberalism of the early twentieth-century and the elitist Fabianism of the Webbs. 12 Kenny and Smith are keen to draw some parallels between New Labour and both European Christian Democrats and US Democrats. 13

13 Thus, if some British commentators can form a reasonable picture of what New Labour is not , they are far less clear on what it is . However, no such problem seems to exist in criticism coming from France. Here, New Labour is often presented as an agent of a well-defined—essentially American—political and economic agenda. It is to this image that I will now turn my attention.

The “Anglo-Saxon” Critique

• 14  See, for example, Graham P. Thomas, “Has Prime Minister Major been replaced by President Blair ?” (...)

14 In its broader themes, the Anglo-Saxon charge—like the “neo-liberal” one—does have some prima facie merit. Blair—like Major and Thatcher before him—has tended to look to America for inspiration rather than across the Channel. He clearly had much affinity for Bill Clinton and was happy to follow advice from Clinton’s election team in the run up to the 1997 election. Indeed, many commentators have noted American influence in the style and some of the substance of New Labour. American rhetoric has entered the British political lexicon : “new deal”, “zero-tolerance”, “welfare” as a residual necessity not an overarching good, “workfare”, and the like. Blair has been criticised for pursuing a presidential style of politics contrary to the traditions of British parliamentarianism. 14 Surprisingly, perhaps, the obviously cordial relations with Clinton have not got in the way of Blair’s efforts to build solid working relations with the Bush administration. On the face of it, Bush and Blair are what the English might call “strange bed fellows.” Support for Bush on Iraq cost Blair vast amounts of political capital at home and abroad. His credibility is still not restored with the British public, and I doubt it ever fully will be.

15 Understandably, the desire of Blair to pursue close relations with Bush’s America set alarm bells ringing amongst many of Britain’s EU partners. Iraq split the governments of Europe and the rift continues. This has given ammunition to critics of Blair. New Labour’s affair with US appears to have overstepped the bounds of reason into blind love. Britain seems to be in a relationship in which it is a subordinate and weak partner, whilst continuing to fool itself it is in that much desired “special relationship”. This image has bolstered complaints about New Labour’s economic approach which itself seems to owe more to America than EU partners.

• 15  See, for example, Lodemel I. ; Trickey, H. - “A New Contract for Social Assistance” in An Offer yo (...)

16 The Blair government seems convinced by American accounts of the supposed process of globalisation and, more importantly, by American accounts of what is required to successfully compete in the emerging global market place. The key elements in this process are the elimination of subsidies and trade barriers, and a commitment to flexible labour markets. Critics insist that this is little more than a recipe for gross inequality, and a labour market dominated by low skilled, temporary and poorly paid “opportunities” for workers lacking adequate protections. 15

• 16  One crucial British influence was the work of Arthur Seldon. See “Seldon A. - Economist whose reje (...)

17  Marquand, “The Blair Paradox,” p. 78.

17 The current UK commitment to flexible labour markets—and the corresponding commitments to low taxation and light business regulation—do owe something to American ideology. In their present form, these commitments entered the British political arena through the Thatcher years when they drew much of their ideological inspiration from the writings of Hayek and Friedman—although British ideas also played a central role. 16 New Labour has not undone these crucial aspects of Thatcher’s economic agenda. Like Thatcher, New Labour is suspicious of the European social model. As one commentator has put it, from New Labour’s perspective, “French socialists and German social-democrats are suspect deviationists rather than fraternal exemplars.” 17 More deeply perhaps, New Labour also believes that at the heart of the EU lies a desire to protect the social model against global forces. This, I think, renders the view in London the mirror image of the view reaching it from Paris. The fear in London is one of a fortress Europe committed, perhaps, to internal free trade, but bound and determined to stop the unwanted effects of globalisation—read “Americanisation”—at its borders. From Paris, the UK can look like an agent of the very thing that needs to be resisted. The view that we are dealing with two conflicting and incompatible economic models seems to have taken root. If they are allowed to clash one must inevitably lose out. We must dig our trenches and see off the opposition.

18  See Nock, “Active Labour, Liberty and Democracy.”

19  See Freeden, “The Ideology of New Labour.”

18 I think the tendency to view New Labour as an agent of American economic imperialism is wrong and unhelpful. The fundamental changes wrought by the Thatcher revolution suggest that New Labour actually had little real choice but to continue to give priority to markets and labour flexibility. And, in any event, even under Thatcher, the pursuit of so-called “neo-liberal” reform in Britain did not really require the adoption of an alien American agenda. Within the British political tradition the allure of free markets, free trade, and residual social policy has long been embedded across a broad range of the political spectrum. 18 This was at the core of the dominant ideology in the corridors of power, from the Victorian height of laissez-faire capitalism into the early years of the twentieth century. The New Liberals—from whom Blair draws some of his inspiration 19 —then reformed the role of the state to respond to the newly discovered “social problem.” But they—like Blair—retained a fundamental faith in the ability of markets to promote welfare provided there was a proper distribution of the opportunities markets promote. New Labour’s commitment to free markets and labour flexibility owes far more to Britain’s own political history than the “Anglo-Saxon” critique often seems willing to accept.

19 In any event, a combination of free markets and labour flexibility does not exhaust the economic realities of the United States. From afar, the US can appear as a threatening and monolithic economic force. But the internal reality is somewhat different. The “American” economy—and the “American” polity—is something of a regional phenomenon. The eastern seaboard, the south, Texas, California, and the mid-West have different economic interests, different cultures, and differing political demands. Certain regions—like California—are dependant on military spending, much of the mid-West relies on farming subsidies of various sorts, the Texan economy is oil based and so on. Many large business interests are only regional in their reach. People from the north east often wonder why we would think they have anything in common with their fellow citizens from Ohio, or Oklahoma, or California, or Texas, and vice versa. Of course, the federal government does seek to promote US interests—broadly understood—abroad, it does drive hard bargains, and it cannot be relied upon to live up to its trade agreement. Its free trade agreement with Canada, for example, became practically useless to Canada once it failed to support the war in Iraq. The US will use its economic might to pursue broad strategic non-economic goals. Britain cannot do such things. It is a small second rank European power, not a super-power. Britain must seek partners and live up to its agreements wherever its partners are willing to. The further fact is that America simply does not need Britain to help it secure its economic and strategic goals.

20  See Kenny and Smith, “Interpreting New Labour.”

20 As such, the US/UK relationship seems to owe far more to the realities of British politics than the “Anglo-Saxon” critique seems willing to allow. Much of the British polity is inherently “Euro-sceptic”. It was incessant internal battles over Europe that eventually rendered the Conservatives unelectable. Many in the Conservative Party—and many of its voters—tend to favour things American over things European. In the past, the Labour Party has also been inherently Euro-sceptic. It opposed membership in 1962 and 1973, and it advocated withdrawal in 1983. Much of the British electorate—primed by the Euro-sceptic media—tends to be cold on Europe. Whatever the historical reasons for this—and there are too many to mention—Blair has actually managed to pull off a remarkable balancing act. He has shifted Labour away from an “old” Labour anti-Americanism that became unappealing to voters during the Thatcher years and, at the same time, he has shifted it towards a less Euro-sceptic position that voters seem relatively comfortable with. Britain may not be at the centre of Europe, but it is in there accepting the reality of the EU. Controversial matters connected with EU membership are handled with great care and presented in very particular ways. A telling example of this was New Labour’s introduction of minimum wage legislation that was required by their signing up to the social chapter. Blair played down the European dimension to this process focussing instead on the “social justice” appeal of a minimum wage regime. More importantly, however, he continually focussed attention on the fact that minimum wage legislation applies in the US. It was as if he was selling a European good in an American box, rendering that good more palatable to the Euro-sceptic elements of the British electorate. I think this strategy for selling the minimum wage also indicates something important about the extent of American influence on New Labour’s economic approach. Its closest ally is the US Democrat model of free market capitalism combined with a commitment to a thin—but nonetheless meaningful—account of social justice. 20

21  See Marquand, “The Blair Paradox.”

21 Despite its relationship with the US, New Labour is not to be inherently hostile towards Europe. This marks an important advance for the EU project beyond “old” Labour and Conservative Euro-sceptic approaches. This British government accepts the need for functional integration where necessary. It accepts intergovernmentalism. It even accepts that the economic benefits may incur a supra-national cost. 21 In part, of course, this is because Britain is not a super-power like America and cannot go it alone.

22 But it is also because—as a consequence of this weakness—it has a particular approach to globalisation. It believes that the effects of globalisation are best managed in co-operation with partners. The aim is to manage globalisation in ways that maximise benefits and minimise costs. It is not something that must necessarily be resisted. Accordingly, the New Labour vision for Europe looks something like this : a free trade zone of independent nation-states co-operating together to mitigate the effects of globalisation. This is a Europe that should seek constructive engagement with the US—and other states and trading blocs—wherever possible. Any EU moves towards integration need to proceed organically as necessary, not for its own sake. The same is true of ever-closer union. New Labour—like any UK government not inherently hostile to the EU—needs to proceed this way to be able to carry its Euro-sceptic citizens with it. And it seems to be of the opinion that this is the best way for its partners to proceed for now given the recent referendum results on the EU constitution. This vision appears not to be shared by some of the UK’s important EU partners. But does this render that vision wrong ? It is to this question my attention now turns.

The “Wrong Vision” Critique

23 A Europe of independent states does seem to ignore the potentialities of a more unified Europe acting on the world stage counterbalancing the current dominance of the US. Surely it would be better for all concerned to quickly develop European institutions that enable the EU to present a unified front on the world stage offering alternatives to American assessments and solutions ? Perhaps it would be, but New Labour has good reasons for not supporting any dash towards such institutions. The main reasons have already been touched on in this essay. For one thing, the UK is clearly far less US-sceptic than some EU partners are. The US is not considered necessarily wrong or unhelpful by the UK government—or many of its citizens. As the world’s only current superpower, the US has resources at its disposal that can be used to promote good in the world. The British government’s view seems to be that Europe is better to work with the US to seek to ensure this is the case, rather than being necessarily hostile towards it. Secondly, as I have mentioned, the UK has a particular need—given its Euro-sceptic citizenry—to ensure that EU institutional development proceeds as an organic process driven by bottom-up functional need rather than grand design. This does not preclude the eventual development of the types of institutions needed to enhance the EU’s voice in the world. But it does preclude a top-down dash for them. Nation-states involved in partnerships like the EU are likely to require functional supranational space in the political realm. New Labour seems to accept this fact. The key problem here, for New Labour, is that of convincing partners of the prudence in approaching the matter in a long-term functional manner.

• 22  See Brown, G. - “Why it is make or break for European social reform,” in The Financial Times , 13 O (...)

24 A similar problem lies in New Labour’s views on globalisation. New Labour has a particular prescription for the challenges they believe globalisation poses. They need to persuade EU partners of the prudence of this approach and are currently seeking to do this. In a recent article for The Financial Times, “Why it is make or break for European social reform,” Gordon Brown laid out the New Labour case for its version of the reforms needed to respond to the challenges of globalisation. On Brown’s view, the limitations of the European social model have been exposed by ongoing problems of low growth and high unemployment. What’s needed to address the failure of the European social model is market reform. 22 This requires removal of all internal trade barriers—direct and indirect—within the EU. It requires EU agreements with the US on removing subsidies, and both economic and non-economic trade barriers. Finally, it demands further and faster reform of EU labour markets to promote much greater flexibility.

25 According to Brown, this is all necessary because “globalisation has brought challenges none of Europe’s founders could foresee. It is global…brands that now dominate…[and] global flows of capital that drive change.” Accordingly, “pro-Europeans must honestly say that Europe can no longer succeed as a trade bloc looking in on itself. Instead Global Europe must be outward looking…focused on external competition, and adjust its social model to combine flexibility with fairness”. On this view, America begins to look like a relatively small part of the economic problems facing the EU. European growth rates over the past ten years have been only half that of the US. At the same time, “Europe has grown at only one-quarter the rate of China and India.” 23 Both Europe and the US are losing jobs to China, India and elsewhere whilst these emerging economies produce four million graduates per year. Europe and the US must work together to help both respond to the need to focus on high skill, high value-added economic activity. It’s clear that Brown’s article is meant to signal the need for European market reforms that mirror those already undertaken—and ongoing—in the UK itself. Low growth and high unemployment are symptomatic of what, in the 1970s, was called “The British Disease.” The message is that Europe, not Britain, is now the “sick man.” Britain has taken its medicine and has become quite well. According to New Labour, it is now time for Britain’s EU partners to do the same.

• 24  For a full account and philosophical defence of this view see Nock, C.J. - “On the Dissent Theory (...)

26 This, of course, brings things back to the types of socio-economic concerns that underpin the “Anglo-Saxon” critique. Even if Britain is not best understood as an agent of American economic imperialism, it is still true that it is wedded to a lean mean market regime demanding labour flexibility, an end to subsidies, and an end to all trade barriers. Accordingly, it might still seem reasonable to charge New Labour with peddling a form of economy that poses a fundamental threat to the social model. In my view, however, it is very difficult to make this charge stick. Economic liberalism does place some immediate limits on certain types of social policy : it cannot allow policies that operate as direct or indirect subsidies, or as restraints on trade. Beyond this, however, it is essentially non-prescriptive on the matter of social policy. Economic liberalism does compel governments to be judicious in the realm of corporate taxation : the tax regime must not be responsible for driving away valued business. Nevertheless, it is clearly not as limiting with regard to direct and indirect personal taxation. This leaves government a large degree of freedom to pursue a diverse range of social policies, provided the policies it does pursue are sufficiently valued by a citizenry who are willing to fund them. Whatever social policies exist in a given country—and the tax regime that supports them—can be judged acceptable to citizens wherever there is a lack of widespread and sustained dissent against them. 24 To a significant extent then, New Labour’s vision for Europe does not demand that other partner states move towards the UK’s residual workfare model.

27 New Labour has been criticised on many counts. The “neo-liberal,” “Anglo-Saxon,” and “wrong vision” critiques—like other types of criticism—have significant elements of truth to them. But it seems that none of them is wholly convincing in their own right. The retrieval of the notion of an enabling state —linked to New Labour’s thin conception of “social justice”—does mark and advance beyond Thatcherism, and employs tools unavailable to neo-liberals. New Labour is greatly influenced by things American especially in matters of economic and social policy. However, its closest American ideological ally is the US Democrats version of free market capitalism combined with “thin” social justice.

28 This approach is more akin to Clinton’s Democrats than Bush’s Republicans. In any event, to view New Labour as an agent of American economic imperialism is both wrong and unhelpful. New Labour’s economic approach owes far more to the arrangements it inherited after eighteen years in the wilderness, and intellectual influences that have strong roots in the British political tradition.

29 New Labour’s approach to Europe is less obstructive than many critics allow. Its bottom-up functional approach to institutional development does not preclude the types of supranational arrangements thought necessary to strengthen the EU’s voice in the world. It demands, rather, a measured and timely approach, rather than top-down grand design. New Labour is in no position to impose this aspect of its vision for Europe upon its EU partners. It has to continually seek to persuade them of the prudence of this approach. The same is true of the economic aspects of New Labour’s vision for Europe. Trade liberalisation and labour flexibility are at the heart of New Labour’s prescription for mitigating the effects of globalisation. But the UK cannot impose these things upon its EU partners. It must work with them and persuade them of its diagnosis and the value of the medicine it offers. One thing it can do to bolster this aspect of its vision is to highlight the fact that its prescription of economic liberalism does necessarily not condemn others to the current UK version of residual social policy. Economic liberalism does not demand convergence towards some lowest common denominator. All it does require is that states with more extensive provisions provide them through taxation of their own citizens.

30 The real problem with New Labour lies primarily in the fact that it seems to believe its own “spin.” Blair is fond of insisting that Labour’s principles remain the same and what has changed is the economic context in which they must be pursued : “what matters is what works.” But the fact is that those principles have been stripped and emptied of their traditional social-democratic meanings. New Labour’s language of “social justice” is not wholly meaningless, but it does have a hollow ring to it. The market is pre-eminent, and the principles must be continually massaged to fit its needs.

31 What holds New Labour together is not a popular conviction of its rightness. Rather, I think, it is a fortunate confluence of factors. Firstly, a weak and divided Conservative opposition that—at bottom—has little to offer but endlessly recurring internal battles over Europe. Secondly, a weak and divided left wing of the Labour Party that—probably correctly—recognises its only chance of influence is through a New Labour government. And thirdly, a largely atomised and consumerist electorate—which first emerged under Thatcher—that has tended to see its economic fortunes advance under New Labour.

32 Domestic dangers lurk for New Labour should the economy turn sour, and the Conservatives regenerate under a new leader. The left wing poses a threat should New Labour begin to appear weak and unelectable. Despite these potential domestic problems, New Labour remains the best bet for Britain in Europe. It lacks the inherent Euro-scepticism of the Conservative right and some elements of the Labour Party’s own left wing. Its vision for Europe does not resist the types of supranational institutions some EU partners favour—it merely seeks a more organic approach to their development. Finally, New Labour’s European vision does not demand its partners adopt a workfare state. They may employ whatever social policies and programmes their citizens are willing to fund—insofar as these do not counteract free trade. Thus, whilst there may be many things wrong with New Labour, these tend not to be the things most critics emphasise.

Bibliographie

Baldock, J.... [et al.] (eds). - Social Policy, 2 e ed., Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2003

Brown, G. - “Why it is make of break for European social reform,” in The Times , 13 October 2005

Chadwick, A. ; Hefferman, R. (eds). - The New Labour Reader , Cambridge : Polity Press, 2003

Department of Work and Pensions. - United Kingdom Employment Action Plan 1999 : Executive Summary available http://www.dwp.gov.uk/eap/execsum.asp

Ellison, N. ; Pierson, C. (eds). - Development in British Social Policy, London : Macmillan,1998

Esping-Anderson, G…. [et al.]. - Why we need a new Welfare State Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002

Finn, D. - “From Full Employment to Employability : a New Deal for the Unemployed ?” in International Journal of Manpower , 21, 2000

Freeden, M. - The New Liberalism : an Ideology of Social Reform, Oxford : Clarendon, 1978

Freeden, M. - “The Ideology of New Labour,” in Political Quarterly , 70, 1, 1999

Jones, B., [et al.]. - Politics UK, 4 e ed., Harlow : Longman, 2001

Lodemel, I. ; Heather T. (eds). - An Offer you can’t Refuse : Workfare in International Perspective, Cambridge : Polity, 2000

Manning, N. ; Shaw, I. (eds). - New Risks, New Welfare : Signposts for Social Policy , Oxford : Blackwell, 2000

Nock, C. J. - “On the Dissent Theory of Political Obligation,” in Polity , XXVIII, 2, 1995

Nock, C.J. “Active Labour, Liberty and Democracy,” unpublished paper presented to the Colloque Comparatif Franco-Britannique held at the University of Bordeaux IV, Octobre 2003

Pierson, P. (ed.). - The New Politics of the Welfare State , Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001

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1  I have previously presented some of the core arguments in this section in Christopher John Nock, “Active Labour, Liberty and Democracy,” a paper presented to the Colloque Comparatif Franco-Britannique held at the University of Bordeaux IV (October 2003).

2  See, for example, Stuart Wood, “Labour Market Regimes under Threat ? Sources of Continuity in Germany, Britain, and Sweden” The New Politics of the Welfare State in ed. Paul Pierson, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 368-409.

3  See Martin Hewitt, “Social Policy and Human Need,” in Developments in British Social Policy , Nick Ellison and Chris Pierson eds., Basingstock : Macmillan, 1998, pp. 62-3

4  In 1983 the British electorate emphatically rejected Labour’s offer of a return to state management of the economy—it was this that finally clinched the triumph of Thatcherism.

5 See United Kingdom Employment Action Plan 1999 : Executive Summary available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/eap/execsum.asp

6  I have made this argument in more detail in Christopher John Nock, “Active Labour, Liberty and Democracy.”

11  See Marquand, D. -“The Blair Paradox” in The New Labour Reader / eds . Andrew Chadwick and Richard Heffernan, Cambridge : Polity Press, 2003, pp. 77-81

13  See Kenny, M. ; Smith, M-J. - “Interpreting New Labour : Constraints, Dilemmas and Political Agency,” in The New Labour Reader / eds. Chadwick and Heffernan, Cambridge : Polity Press, 2003, pp. 66-76

14  See, for example, Graham P. Thomas, “Has Prime Minister Major been replaced by President Blair ?” in Debates in British Politics Today / eds. Lynton Robins and Bill Jones, Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000, 13-26

15  See, for example, Lodemel I. ; Trickey, H. - “A New Contract for Social Assistance” in An Offer you can’t Refuse : Workfare in International Perspective / eds. Ivar Lodemel and Heather Trickey, Cambridge : Polity, 2000, pp. 17-29.

16  One crucial British influence was the work of Arthur Seldon. See “Seldon A. - Economist whose rejection of state intervention came to underpin the Thatcherite belief in free-market policies.” An obituary in The Times , 13 October 2005

22  See Brown, G. - “Why it is make or break for European social reform,” in The Financial Times , 13 October 2005

24  For a full account and philosophical defence of this view see Nock, C.J. - “On the Dissent Theory of Political Obligation,” in Polity, XXVIII, 2, 1995, pp. 141-57.

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Christopher Nock , « What’s Wrong with New Labour ? » ,  Observatoire de la société britannique , 1 | 2006, 157-172.

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Christopher Nock , « What’s Wrong with New Labour ? » ,  Observatoire de la société britannique [En ligne], 1 | 2006, mis en ligne le 01 février 2011 , consulté le 27 septembre 2024 . URL  : http://journals.openedition.org/osb/532 ; DOI  : https://doi.org/10.4000/osb.532

Christopher Nock

Lecturer à l'université de Royal Holloway, Londres

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Two Continuity and change: the politics of welfare under New Labour

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This chapter examines welfare policies pursued by New Labour since 1997, and policies advocated by the main opposition parties. It details the Labour Party's policies and expenditure on welfare areas such as employment, social security, health, personal social services, crime and criminal justice, housing and education. This chapter also characterizes the extent to which Labour have drawn on the ideas of the preceding conservative governments. It highlights the questions of whether the government's policies have continued to reflect any commitment to socialism or social democracy, how these policies have been significantly influenced by New Right thinking, and if these reflect an acceptance of many of the more liberal interpretations of the impact of globalization. This chapter also discusses changes that Labour has put in place with regard to social policy formulation and implementation.

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Education Policy Under New Labour

Table of Contents

Last Updated on May 9, 2023 by Karl Thompson

When they first came to power in 1997, Tony Blair, the leader of Labour Party (dubbed ‘New Labour’*) announced that his priorities were ‘ education, education and education ‘.

The main objectives of New Labour’s education policy were to raise standards in order to create a skilled labour force to compete in the global knowledge economy and to achieve greater equality of opportunity by making education more inclusive and improving the experience of education for all.

New Labour and the Third Way

The 1997-2010 New Labour party/ government wanted to change the image and perspective of their party so they could appeal to more voters.  They wanted to appeal to the middle classes, who traditionally voted Conservative, as well as working classes, who had traditionally tended to vote Labour.  

Hence they renamed themselves ‘New’ Labour ‘ to reflect the fact that some of their beliefs were in line with “New Right” views which are more commonly associated with the Conservative Party, and some continued with traditionally ‘Old’ Labour or Social Democratic views.

Antony Giddens has characterised New Labour as being ‘the third way’ between traditionally left and right wing ideas, and when we look at their education policies we can see that some were influenced by Neoliberalism and the New Right and others by more social democratic ideals.

New Labour education polices inspired by the New Right

The New Right emphasised the importance of introducing free-market principles into education in order to make schools more competitive and give parents more choice.

They increased expenditure on vocational, work-related training, which was also in line with New Right ideas that education should prepare children for the world of work. 

New Labour education policies inspired by the Social Democratic perspective

New Labour introduced many policies to promote equality of educational opportunity, or in New Labour’s new terminology to promote ‘inclusion’: one of the Key Buzz Words of the period.

Curriculum Reforms under New Labour

Increased focus on assessments and targets.

Labor Increased the Number of Assessments and Targets schools were subjected to .

New Labour continued to assess schools regularly using a range of ‘target indicators’ such as pupil achievement Key Stage Tests, GCSEs and A Levels, OFSTED inspections and also truancy and exclusion rates.

Specialist Schools

State secondary schools can apply to become specialist schools in one or two of ten specialisms (e.g. maths, science, sports etc.). In order for their application to be successful, they need to raise £50 000 from private sector sponsors, which will be matched by the government. Specialist schools are allowed to select 10% of their students who show an aptitude in the school’s specialist subjects (which relates to the selective education topic, this is a form of selection by aptitude). 

The academies programme introduced by New Labour was primarily aimed at failing schools and by May 2010 there were 203 academies in England. New Labour thought that Academies could both raise standards and tackle inequality of educational opportunity simultaneously.

Academies are schools which receive their funding directly from central government and are completely independent from local councils and can set their own term dates, admissions policies; staff pay levels and much more. It is argued the extra freedom for schools gives allows them raise standards.

However, critics of academies say that the only reason they achieve better results is because they take fewer pupils with special needs or behavioural problems.

Four core aims of Sure Start Centres included:

By 2010, there were over 3300 Sure Start Centres.

Every Child Matters

An example of these failures was the death of Victoria Climbie: a report into her death found that it was avoidable had different welfare services which had been in contact with her and her family communicated more effectively with each other.

The five common outcomes for children emphasised by ECM were:

Education Maintenance Allowance 

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was paid to students aged 16-19 who were from lower income families. Students received the funding if they attended all their lessons and achieved their performance targets.

The Expansion of Higher Education

This was fine while the numbers of students attending university were relatively small, but the steady increase in numbers during the 1980s meant that by the early 1990s the funding of universities had reached crisis point and it was no longer sustainable for the tax payer to carrying on funding Higher Education.

Student contributions for fees were not increased further than £3000 per student under New Labour but by the end of their term in office in 2010 Universities were making it clear that couldn’t carry on delivering a world class education service at the then current levels of funding.

Other Education Policies under New Labour

Education action zones .

Education Action Zones were set up to raise the attainment levels of students in low income, inner city areas. By 2003 there were 73 EAZs in England, funded by central government with additional funding from business. An action forum, made up of parents and representatives from local schools and businesses and from local and national government ran each zone.

Excellence in Cities

Various reports evaluating the EiC programme produced mixed results: in general they indicated only limited success and the EiC programme was ended in 2006.

Evaluation of New Labour’s Education Policies

Specialist schools were very successful in raising standards, however, this was largely because they selected a disproportionate amount of middle class pupils.

Paul Trowler (2003) argued that Labour were unrealistic in their expectations of what education could achieve in terms of tackling social class inequality. As Trowler sees it, education alone cannot tackle deep-rooted social inequalities.

Signposting and Related Posts

This material is extremely important for any A-level sociology student studying the education module as part of the AQA specification.

Barlett and Burton (2021): Introduction to Education Studies, fifth edition

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Conservative and New Labour Approaches Comparison Essay

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Introduction

Nowadays, many people in the UK continue to believe that there is indeed much difference between Conservative and New Labour approaches to managing the social dynamics within the country and formulating Britain’s foreign policies. After all, both political parties have never ceased positioning themselves as such that pursue rather incompatible socio-political agendas. Whereas, the Conservatives are assumed to be striving to preserve so-called “traditional values” while advocating the economy’s continual liberalisation/deregulation, the New Labour party is widely regarded to be representing the interests of the working class. The party’s officially proclaimed goal is the establishment of a “welfare state” in the UK. It is understood, of course, that the outlined Conservative and New Labour objectives are far from being considered thoroughly consistent with each other.

Nevertheless, as time goes on, it becomes ever clearer to more and more Britons that, as of today, the mentioned discursive dissimilarity between the two is best regarded as being merely formal. The logic behind such a tendency is quite apparent – a close examination of the issue will invariably reveal that the most recent New Labour reign (1997 – 2007) with Tony Blair in the Prime Minister’s office is best seen as having been the continuation of “good ole” Thatcherism. As Dorling (2010, p. 399) pointed out, “Given the lack of social achievement, it is likely that the New Labour’s record will largely be characterised in the future as ‘Thatcherism continued’ or, more cruelly, as some kind of political boil on the backside of Thatcherism.” In my paper, I will explore the validity of this suggestion at length while promoting the idea that, as of today, both political parties have been effectively transformed to act on behalf of Neoliberalism (a political ideology that insists that one cannot be restricted in how he or she goes about taking care of its consumerist anxieties, even if this undermines the society’s overall well-being). I will also outline the main forces behind bringing such a situation into being.

Even though the term “Thatcherism” has been excessively used by the media in reference to the years of Margaret Thatcher’s Prime-Ministership (1979-1990), there are still no universally recognised definitions as to what it stands for. While some political analysts associate the concerned historical period with the short-lived revitalisation of the UK economy, others insist that the term primarily applies to the marginalisation of the trade-union movement that has taken place throughout the historical period in question. Therefore, when it comes to discussing Thatcherism, one must focus on what can be considered the most prominent trait of the former as the clearly Neoliberal philosophy of political governance, which endorses the “mechanistic” conceptualisation of the society’s functioning. That is, according to this philosophy’s adherents, the qualitative dynamics within just about every human society are merely summative of its members’ individual priorities in life – something that stands opposed to the systemic outlook on the society, as an entity of its own. This explains why Margaret Thatcher had never even tried making a secret of her disbelief in the society’s objective existence. As she pointed out during one of her public speeches, “There is no such thing as society.

There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first” (McGlynn 2016, p. 313). The actual implication of Thatcherism’s anti-societal stance is quite clear. The concerned model of governance was suggestive of its promoters’ striving to deny any validity to the notion of “social/class solidarity”, which in turn was to serve the hegemonic agenda of the country’s rich and powerful. In this regard, Nunn (2014, p. 305) came up with an enlightening observation, “Thatcherism represented a ‘two-nations’ attempt to divide the working class between those who would benefit from popular asset ownership, the right to buy (council housing) and new service-sector job growth, and those who would be negatively affected by de-industrialisation and public-sector spending cuts.” In other words, Thatcherism can be seen as having been the tool for encouraging people to prioritise their selfish interests above those of society as they go trying to achieve self-actualisation – an objective that can only be reached at the expense of weakening the sense of collective/class solidarity in citizens so that they can be exploited/manipulated with ease.

Essentially the same can be said about what accounted for the New Labour agenda through the years 1997 – 2007. After all, despite the fact that throughout this period’s duration Labourites continued to indulge in “lefty” rhetoric (which recognised the objectiveness of class tensions within society), they, in fact, have simultaneously made a point in trying to divert people’s attention from these tensions. This helps to explain the significance of so-called “identity politics” policy (introduced by New Labour in the late nineties), which is now commonly associated with the quasi-official legitimisation of “political correctness” as the guiding principle for managing the socioeconomic dynamics in the UK. This policy was reflective of the assumption that it is namely the specifics of one’s ethno-cultural affiliation/gender that play the most important role in the formation of the concerned individual’s sense of self-identity. Hence, the actual particulars of how New Left has gone about trying to make Britain a better place to live, “The NLP… worked to combat ‘social exclusion’. It tried hard to draw in deprived social groups and spatially disadvantaged communities through very carefully targeted initiatives” (Nunn 2014, p. 312). In other words, New Labour was establishing objective preconditions for the “multiculturalisation” of British society to gain an additional momentum – a process that, according to such individuals as Tony Blair, has the value of a “thing-in-itself”. There can be only a few doubts that this policy’s implementation had a strongly negative effect on the society’s structural integrity – something that became particularly apparent in the recent decade.

The above-mentioned helps to explain yet another striking similarity between Thatcherism and New Labourism – the fact that both political philosophies derive from the assumption that being controlled by the “invisible hand of the market”, the economy is self-sustainable, and that it is specifically the economy’s banking sector that contributes the most towards the generation of national wealth. Therefore, there is nothing surprising about the fact that, just as it was the case with Conservatives under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair’s Labourites have proven themselves the ardent supporters of the idea that the more the economy is controlled by corporate entities, the better. To illustrate the validity of this suggestion (with respect to Thatcherism), we can refer to the privatisation of such formerly state-owned British companies as British Aerospace, British Sugar Corporation, National Freight Company, and British Petroleum, which took place in the early eighties. This development triggered the initial phase of the economy’s deindustrialisation due to outsourcing.

Under Blair, the expansion of the economy’s corporate sector became nothing short of exponential while making it possible for the important infrastructural elements of the public domain to become the subjects of private acquisitions as well. The reform of the national health care system, undertaken by the New Labour government in the late nineties, stands out as exemplary in this regard. The rationale behind this suggestion is that the concerned development resulted in the “commodification” of the very paradigm of healthcare in this country. Whereas prior to the implementation of the mentioned reform, British healthcare used to be discussed primarily in terms of a “public service”, it is now being increasingly referred to as just another profit-driven commercial undertaking (Radice 2014).

Therefore, there is indeed much sense in hypothesising that Blair’s New Labour was, in fact, nothing but a softened version of Thatcherism – at least in the economic meaning of this word. This simply could not be otherwise because the New Labour 1997-2007 governance resulted in completing the legitimisation of neoliberalism, as the country’s de facto ideology. In turn, the process’s starting point dates back to the time when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. As Jessop (2007, p. 282) noted, “The three successive Labour Governments under Blair’s continuing authoritarian plebiscitary tutelage have deliberately, persistently, and wilfully driven forward the Neoliberal transformation of Britain rather than halting or reversing it.” As of today, there can be only a few doubts as to the actual objectives of neoliberalism as the ideology that praises consumerism to be the solemn agent of social progress. Evidently enough, it is there to benefit the representatives of the financial elite: “Neoliberalism can be defined as a class project to restore the ascendency of capitalist class power over labour… and to promote financial capital over other capitalist interests” (Humphrys & Cahill 2017, p. 672). Therefore, it is quite impossible to refer to the New Labour’s “Third Way” political philosophy as having been anything but solely a part of the party’s PR-campaign meant to mislead rather than inform.

This specific suggestion can serve as yet another indication that New Labourism naturally derives from Thatcherism. After all, it does not represent much of a secret that while under Thatcher, the government had effectively “institutionalised” misinforming the public as the instrument of preserving the “nation’s unity” and distracting people’s attention from the rapid worsening of the socioeconomic situation in the UK. The fact that this indeed has been the case can be illustrated regarding both the developments that have led to the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982 and the Conservative government’s commitment to instigating the Cold War hysteria in people throughout the eighties. Ironically enough, Thatcher’s warmongering resulted in turning Britain into one of America’s “client-states”, strongly dependent on its metropole, in the military sense of this word. Because of this, there appear to be even more reasons to think of New Labour as Thatcherism’s “rightful heir.” One will not have to go far to validate the legitimacy of this statement – the memories of Britain’s involvement in assisting the US to destroy the non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq (which set the stage for the consequential rise of ISIS), are still comparatively fresh. As we are aware of it now, Tony Blair deliberately lied to people while justifying the government’s decision to send British troops to this country in 2003. It was not by accident that in the early 2000s, the British Prime Minister has gained the reputation of being “Bush’s poodle.” This once again shows that while accounting for two ideologically distinctive (and formally incompatible) approaches to political governing, Thatcherism and New Labour are not as far apart as many people tend to assume.

In light of what has been said earlier, one would be naturally prompted to think that there is a phenomenological quality to the discussed subject matter. The reason for this is that Thatcher’s Conservatives and Blair’s Labourites have been traditionally deemed standing on the opposite poles of the political spectrum in the UK. Yet, as it was shown in the paper’s analytical part, it is hard to describe the policies enacted in this country by Conservative and New Labour governments as having been anything but mutually complementary, even if not appearing to be such at an initial glance. Some political analysts speculate that to address the outlined logical inconsistency, one must take into consideration the long-term effects of Conservative government in Britain through the years 1979-1990 on the economy’s systemic subtleties. In turn, this implies that, after having formed the government in 1997, New Labour has found itself in the position of being able to do very little while tackling the socioeconomic legacy of Thatcherism. For example, according to Humphrys and Cahill (2017, p. 672), “Third Way governments inherited an already entrenched Neoliberal institutional architecture that had been implemented by Conservative regimes, leaving the later-governing social democrats with little choice but to submit to the Neoliberal agenda.”

This suggestion, however, would stand opposed to the main provision of the Occam’s Razor principle – “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” After all, there is nothing uniquely British about the seemingly illogical fusion between the neoliberal “right”, on one hand, and the traditionally “leftist” political movements/parties (such as New Labour), on the other – the most notable feature of the political climate in just about every Western country. What this means is that New Labour’s commitment to promoting globalisation, economic deregulation, and privatisation has been objectively predetermined on a global scale by what can be deemed as the ongoing “crisis of capitalism,” due to the depletion of market expansion opportunities. Because of it, the rich and powerful begin to apply an additional effort into trying to maintain a firm grip on society’s functioning. One of the strategies that is being used, in this regard, is providing citizens with only the illusionary freedom of choice through political elections. It does not matter whether you vote Conservative or New Labour, you are still going to choose in favour of neoliberalism in the end.

I believe that the deployed line of reasoning, in support of the suggestion that New Labour is indeed best regarded as “warmed-up Thatcherism”, correlates well with the paper’s initial thesis. At least three fundamental similarities have been exposed between the two:

• Thatcherism and New Labour aimed to undermine the severity of class tensions within the society by means of encouraging people to indulge in consumerism as their main existential priority.
• While occupying governmental offices, the advocates of the political paradigms in question contributed rather heavily towards endorsing the disproportionate growth of the economy’s banking sector – hence, making the economy particularly prone to outbreaks of locally and globally scaled financial crises.
• Thatcherites and Labourites have proven themselves equally comfortable with taking practical advantage of different techniques of psychological manipulation/intentional misinformation as a means of remaining in favour with voters.

Probably the most obvious implication, regarding the identified discursive similarity between Thatcherism and New Labour, is that many of those political terms/notions that came into being during the 20 th century’s second half can no longer be considered fully applicable. The reason for this is that the subtle transformation of Thatcherism into New Labour, which occurred through the specified historical period, effectively alters our understanding of the concept of “democracy”, in general, and the concept of “British parliamentarism”, in particular. Specifically, this development makes it close to impossible to tell any intrinsic difference between the governmental officials/politicians that represent the political “right” and “left” in this country. This objective will appear particularly challenging, given the most distinctive psychological/behavioural trait of both publicly active Conservatives and Labourites – their tendency to indulge in well-meaning but essentially meaningless politically correct rhetoric as the primary proof of these people’s fitness for the office. Thus, as time goes on, the political domain in the UK continues to grow increasingly marginalised, which, in turn, is likely to result in depriving the political process in Britain of any other but a purely ritualistic significance. It is understood, of course, that the country’s overall well-being will sustain a heavy blow as a result.

Dorling, D 2010, ‘New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued?’, Local Economy: LE, vol. 25, no. 5-6, pp. 406-423.

Humphrys, E & Cahill, D 2017, ‘How Labour made neoliberalism’, Critical Sociology, vol. 43, no. 4-5, pp. 669-684.

Jessop, B 2007, ‘New Labour or the normalization of neoliberalism?’, British Politics, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 282-288.

McGlynn, M 2016, ‘Collectivism and Thatcher’s “classless” society in British fiction and film’, Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 309-336.

Nunn, A 2014, ‘The contested and contingent outcomes of Thatcherism in the UK’, Capital & Class, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 303-321.

Radice, H 2014, ‘Thatcherism and alternatives: what future for British capitalism?’, Capital & Class, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 277-287.

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New Labour (Third Way)

New Labour (Third Way) refers to a period between the mid 1990's and 2010 when the Labour Party was led first by Tony Blair and then by Gordon Brown. The concept of New Labour was influenced by the political thinking of Anthony Giddens' "Third Way" which attempted to provide a "middle way" between capitalism and socialism.

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