1,721,048 research outputs found
Preface
No full textMargaret Thatcher remains the pre-eminent political figure of British post-war history. She is to this period what Winston Churchill was to the Second World War and David Lloyd George was to the First World War and its immediate aftermath. Thatcher, the politician, remains germane and worthy of study and discussion as much for what she represents in the public mind, as for the concrete achievements and failures of her administrations
Preface
No full textMargaret Thatcher remains the pre-eminent political figure of British post-war history. She is to this period what Winston Churchill was to the Second World War and David Lloyd George was to the First World War and its immediate aftermath. Thatcher, the politician, remains germane and worthy of study and discussion as much for what she represents in the public mind, as for the concrete achievements and failures of her administrations
Conservative Party Ideology in the Age of Brexit
Full text linkThis essay asserts that the Age of Brexit was one of sharp ideological conflict in the Conservative Party and yet, despite such tumult, the Conservative Party demonstrated its ideological breadth by surviving schism and thriving, by winning a third successive general election in 2019 with an increased majority. I argue that the Conservative Party is a broad church, containing a plurality of intellectual traditions and that its success is largely due to an approach to statecraft (Bulpitt, Political Studies. 34:19–39, 1986) also understood as an overarching commitment to political realism. However, whilst the Conservative Party has survived the tumult of the Age of Brexit, the aftershocks, so to speak, do not abate
A tale of two liberalisms
No full textThe Conservative-Liberal Government represents a new period in British politics. The Coalition brought to an end 13 years of New Labour rule and reintroduced the idea of inter-party cooperation in government. The United Kingdom has not experienced such politics since the 1940–45 National Government of Winston Churchill. The major policy event of the Coalition’s tenure and most likely of the decade was the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) on 20 October 2010. The CSR sought to radically reduce the national deficit by dramatically cutting public expenditure annually by 14.4 per cent and by 46.4 per cent over the next five years (Crawford, 2010). However, it also had another purpose — to curtail the size and the responsibilities of the central state. Whether Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats as partners in the Coalition endorse the concept of the ‘big society’ is not known; nevertheless, it is the clearest expression of what David Cameron hopes will supplant Labour’s ‘big state’. What the public have in this new era of British politics is an accord between two political parties that espouse two types of liberalism and contain similarities as well as stark differences. And yet, at the heart of this accord is opposition to the social democratic state that has presided at the epicentre of British politics since the premiership of Clement Attlee and an opposition to the organization that has sustained this model of the state, namely the Labour Party
The political philosophy of new labour
No full textIs New Labour more style than substance? Are its policies merely driven by pragmatism? Little has been published on the party's core ideas, the very existence of which is contested. Matt Beech traces the ideological roots of the Labour Party from its nineteenth century origins in the Labour Movement, and through the twentieth century. This book is a study of the political philosophy of New Labour. Matt Beech approaches the study of New Labour's political philosophy in two ways. The first section of the book attempts to place New Labour in the intellectual history of the Labour Party and to set the context out of which New Labour has developed. It charts the intellectual history of the Labour Party from its nineteenth century origins in the Labour Movement, through the twentieth century, and into the 21st Century. The second section is an analysis of the basic ideas of New Labour and their contemporary interpretation of traditional values such as equality, liberty and community. This is then compared to New Right and various 'Old Labour' or traditional social democrat perspectives on these values. Matt Beech claims that New Labour in power is a revisionist social democratic government. Beech argues that New Labour believes in positive as well as negative liberty, prioritarian conceptions of equality that focus on the poorest groups in society and believes in a communitarian social philosophy
The Conservative-Liberal Coalition: Examining the Cameron-Clegg Government
No full textThis book offers a unique full term analysis of the Cameron-Clegg Government. From austerity to gay marriage, the Scottish referendum to combating IS, it brings together expert academic voices to provide rigorous yet readable insights on the key areas of government politics and the debates which will shape the 2015 general election
New Labour and the Politics of Dominance
No full textIn attempting to survey New Labour’s period in office one aspect appears to stand out. New Labour’s politics has been and continues to be the politics of dominance. As a government they have set the tone for political discourse and have been the victors in many policy debates. The purpose of this chapter is to argue that New Labour in government have dominated British politics and by doing so have recast the centre-ground. Implicit in this argument is the assertion that the centre-ground is not fixed and that since 1997, New Labour has moved the centre-ground leftwards. Previously the political centre was dominated by tenets of neo-liberalism. In policy terms neo-liberals are suspicious of the state, its power and its ability to distribute efficiently goods and services. Therefore, free market economics is promoted as the mechanism for granting liberty to the individual who is seen as the most important of actors. Notions of social justice and egalitarian claims are dismissed as a mirage and a derivation of personal freedom.1 The Thatcher and Major governments provided the Conservative Party with 18 consecutive years in office and during this long period of Conservative dominance the Thatcher government in particular was given the opportunities to persuade sections of the British electorate of the virtues of their neo-liberal philosophy. In a similar fashion, New Labour has been presented with opportunities to counter some of the ‘Thatcher–Major settlement’ through the implementation of centre-left principles
The political philosophy of New Labour
No full textThe thesis is a study of the political philosophy of New Labour. Specifically, the study attempts to situate New Labour in the intellectual history of the Labour Party and analyse the traditional social democratic values of liberty, equality and community in relation to the ideas and policies of New Labour. The first half of the thesis charts the intellectual history of the Labour Party from its nineteenth century origins in the Labour Movement, through the twentieth century, up until the Budget of 2002. The second half of the thesis evaluates the political values of liberty, equality and community in response to the New Right’s political thought, various traditional social democrat perspectives and New Labour’s contemporary social democratic interpretation. This thesis claims that New Labour is a revisionist social democratic government that believes in a positive as well as a negative conception of liberty, holds to non-strict prioritarian and generous sufficiency conceptions of equality, and advocates a belief in state-level, regional-level and local-level community in the form of a communitarian social philosophy. In addition to this argument the thesis makes some other important contributions to knowledge. The material gathered includes primary sources such as interviews with former Labour politicians, advisers and academics. This information has provided new and apposite insights into the development of New Labour’s political philosophy. Furthermore, it is understood that no previous detailed evaluation of the political philosophy of New Labour has been undertaken.</p
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