Zusammenfassung der Ressource
(3) What impact did the Thatcherite
Revolution have on Labour
- At the time
- The initial impact was to drive to the
left in order to "protect" its
foundations in social democracy
- What emerged was radical
left polices such as
- Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament
- Withdrawal from the EEC
- Increased investment
in the welfare state
- This creates Adversary Politics: A form of politics that
is characterized by deep Ideological conflict between
major parties; parties of rival ideological visions
- Not only did this create adversary politics between
the two main parties there were also division
between those in Labour
- The largest impact was the split
from the party to create the
Social Democrat party in 1981
- They later joined
with the Liberal to
create the Liberal
Democrates
- The Labour Leader Neil Kinnock
abandoned the policy of UND and
withdrawal from the EEC
- Tony Blair, Labour leader 1994 and PM 1997-2007,
intensified this change. This marked by rewriting of
Clause Four of the Party's constitution
- Labour
- Traditional Labour
- Labour has always drawn
on the idea of liberalism
- Labour commitment to nationalisaition
though clause 4 was never as though
as it might have seemed
- Labour commitment to social justice
was reamined unchanged under Blair
- Labour has a long-standing
modernising tradition and
so Blair is not unusal
- "invest and reform" programme, one that
promised increased spending
- New Labour
- Blair has overseen the part-privatisation of
the National Air Traffic Control System
- Expanded other "Public-Private"
services; such as the Private
Finance initiative in health
- So New Labour aimed to reform government
with a view to re-legitimiding state intervention
in the economy and society
- New Labour could reconcile the free
market with the pursuit of social justice
- A Minium Wage was introduced
- Apeal to the "middle englan"
in the 1990 - lower taxes
- The chief themes of the New
Labour project were as follows:
- Market economic
- Labour came to accept the
economy should be regulated by
the market and not by the state
- First Blairs government granted
semi-independence to the Bank of
England on setting it interested rates
- After 2001 Labour embarked on an expansion of
public serivces with unprecedented levels of
public spending on health and eduction
- Constitutional reform
- Blair first Government introduced a series of
constitutional reforms. However, many have argued that
Labour conversion to constitutional liberalism was only
partial. Changing the voting system was quickly dropped
- Brown tried to attempted to revive interest in constitutional
reform; looking steps to reduce the prerogative powers of the
PM but more radical reforms never past the discussion phase
- "Third way" welfare
- Blairs approach to wealfare was differant to
"standing on your two feet" and the
social-democratic belief in "cradle to grave" support.
- "targeted Benefits", an empphase on the idea of "welfare-to-work."
- However, this was the area which difference between Blair and Brown
were most acute. As chancellor, Brown slower pace of public sector
reform (Public-Private partnerships), and after 2007 plans to further
reform the welfare state were effectively abandoned
- Strenthening responsibility
- A key Blairite belief was the idea that rights should
always be balanced against responsibilities, it was
influenced by communitarianism
- The desire to strenghen social duty and moral
responsibilites was reflected in the called" respect Agenda"
- New Labour succumbed to neocinservative
and endangering of vital civial liberties