The book considers Labour's economic strategy as it developed through the party's long period of opposition between 1979 and 1997. This history argues strongly that accounts of Labour's recent past which claim that the Party was driven by a combination of Thatcherism and opinion polls are flawed. It offers an alternative account which stresses the importance of debates within and around the Party about how the economy should be understood, the role of markets and the state, and British industrial decline.
Annotation "This book considers Labour's economic strategy as it developed through the party's long period of opposition between 1979 and 1997. Richard Hill argues strongly that accounts of Labour's recent past, which claim that the party was driven by a combination of Thatcherism and responding to opinion polls, are flawed. Labour's policy choices on issues such as the minimum wage and ERM membership were driven by a variety of factors. The author offers an alternative account which stresses the importance of debates within and around the party about how the economy should be understood, the role of markets and the state, and British industrial decline. It is the choices that the party made in these areas, and in economic strategy generally, which led to the creation of New Labour."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This monograph recasts the modernisation of the Labour Party and sheds new light on Labour's years in the wilderness between 1979 and 1997. The monograph uniquely traces the party's major organisational changes across its eighteen years of opposition. Labour's organisational modernisation in this period fundamentally altered the party's internal structures, policy-making pathways and constitution. The study begins with an investigation into the scene inherited by Labour's leadership in the early 1980s and examines Neil Kinnock's quest for a stable majority on the party's ruling National Executive Committee between 1983 and 1987. From this position the monograph surveys the major organisational changes of the Labour Party in their period of opposition: the Policy Review (1987-92), One Member, One Vote (1992-94), Clause IV (1995-96) and Partnership in Power (1996-97). Through a re-examination of Labour's modernisation, in the light of new source material and extensive primary interviews, this research significantly contributes to the understanding of the rise of New Labour.
Blazing the Neoliberal Trail asks how and why urban policy and politics have become dominated, over the past three decades, by promarket thinking. Drawing on extensive archival research, Timothy P. R. Weaver shows how elites became persuaded by neoliberal ideas and remade political institutions in their image.
This book provides a novel account of the Labour Party’s years in opposition and power since 1979, examining how New Labour fought to reinvent post-war social democracy, reshaping its core political ideas. It charts Labour’s sporadic recovery from political disaster in the 1980s, successfully making the arduous journey from opposition to power with the rise (and ultimately fall) of the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Forty years on from the 1979 debacle, Labour has found itself on the edge of oblivion once again. Defeated in 2010, it entered a further cycle of degeneration and decline. Like social democratic parties across Europe, Labour failed to identify a fresh ideological rationale in the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Drawing on a wealth of sources including interviews and unpublished papers, the book focuses on decisive points of transformational change in the party’s development raising a perennial concern of present-day debate – namely whether Labour is a party capable of transforming the ideological weather, shaping a new paradigm in British politics, or whether it is a party that should be content to govern within parameters established by its Conservative opponents. This text will be of interest to the general reader as well as scholars and students of British politics, British political party history, and the history of the British Labour Party since 1918.
Tony Blair has dominated British political life for more than a decade. Like Margaret Thatcher before him, he has changed the terms of political debate and provoked as much condemnation as admiration. At the end of his era in power, this book presents a wide-ranging overview of the achievements and failures of the Blair governments. Bringing together Britain's most eminent academics and commentators on British politics and society, it examines the effect of the Prime Minister and his administration on the machinery of government, economic and social policy and foreign relations. Combining serious scholarship with clarity and accessibility, this book represents the authoritative verdict on the impact of the Blair years on British politics and society.
