Product Description

Drawing upon the expertise of a team of established researchers, Ten Years of New Labour provides a detailed and comprehensive evaluation of the ideas, institutions and policies that shaped the Blair Governments' decade in office. The reader is provided with a critical analysis of the key domestic policy choices, including New Labour's agenda and legacy for economic and social policy, constitutional reform, including the impact upon Westminster and the Office of the Prime Minister, and the Labour Party's relationship with the trades union. The impact of the Blair Governments' policy choices overseas are explored through evaluations of defence policy, Tony Blair's 'liberal interventionism' in international politics, and New Labour's relationship with the European Union.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #371451 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Review


'...all of the subjects are thoroughly covered and rigorously examined...' - Peter MacMahon, Tribune
 
'...the best study of our government so far...' - Austin Mitchell, House Magazine
 
'...this unfolding of the New Labour story provides a lucid hsitory of recent events.' - PublicService

About the Author
MATT BEECH is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Hull, UK. He has written widely on New Labour and social democracy. His books include The Political Philosophy of New Labour, he is co-author of Labour's Thinkers: The Intellectual Roots of Labour from Tawney to Gordon Brown and he is co-editor of The Struggle for Labour's Soul.
 
SIMON LEE is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Hull, UK. His teaching and research interests are principally in the field of political economy, with a particular emphasis on the politics of globalization and governance, and the political economy and national identity of contemporary England. His most recent research has been for Best for Britain? The Politics and Legacy of Gordon Brown.

Customer Reviews

Social democratic views of social democracy in action
This collection of essays on the Labour Party's recent record in government comes from the Centre of British Politics, based at Hull University. The editors are politics lecturers at Hull, and the eleven other contributors from British universities include four from Hull.

They cover the `politics of dominance', the economy, public spending, social policy, constitutional reform, the Prime Minister's role, backbench rebellions, relations with the trade unions, relations with the European Union, the government's interventionism and its many wars. All the essays are written from within the bonds of social democracy. Despite the publisher's claim, this is not a comprehensive account - there is no coverage of immigration, criminology, agriculture, fisheries or wider foreign policy.

By far the best essay is Simon Lee's `The British Model of Political Economy'. He notes the government's `abandonment of civilian manufacturing industries' and its embrace of the City of London and the property market. Brown's Private Finance Initiatives use our taxes to subsidise private firms. Yet in 2006, business investment fell by 4.7%, despite all the government's aid.

Our trade deficit in 2006 was £50.2 billion. The deficit on trade in goods was £77.4 billion. We had to borrow to finance these growing shortfalls, so liabilities more and more exceeded assets. Since 1995, Britain has had a net liability every year and in 2006 our net liabilities rose by a record £124.8 billion.

The economy is consumer-led and borrowing-driven, not investment-led or savings-driven. By the end of November 2007 personal debt was £1.4 trillion. We owed £213 billion in consumer credit, including £54.9 billion on credit cards. Average household debt was £56,000 (£47,000 mortgages, £9,000 other debts), costing over £3,400 a year to service. Credit and borrowing have become `the principal motive force' behind the economy.

Brown said his model `locked in' stability ending boom-and-bust. Actually he has locked us into what Lee calls `a permanent condition of financial risk, volatility and debt-financed consumption'.

Other government failures include the broken promises over a referendum on the EU Constitution, foundation hospitals, city academies, top-up fees, growing social immobility, the 1.7 million hidden jobless, and the growth in inequalities (incomes for the richest 1% were 400 times the median wage in 2005, as against 20 times in the 1980s).

Yet between 2001 and 2006, trade unions gave £56 million of their members' money to a government that trashed the members' interests and values; Amicus gave £8 million, Unison £10 million. Perhaps our unions should instead spend our money on advancing our interests.