(3) What impact did the Thatcherite Revolution have on Labour

At the time
1. The initial impact was to drive to the left in order to "protect" its foundations in social democracy
2. What emerged was radical left polices such as
  1. Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament
  2. Withdrawal from the EEC
  3. Increased investment in the welfare state
3. This creates Adversary Politics: A form of politics that is characterized by deep Ideological conflict between major parties; parties of rival ideological visions
4. Not only did this create adversary politics between the two main parties there were also division between those in Labour
5. The largest impact was the split from the party to create the Social Democrat party in 1981
  1. They later joined with the Liberal to create the Liberal Democrates
6. The Labour Leader Neil Kinnock abandoned the policy of UND and withdrawal from the EEC
7. 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
1. Traditional Labour
  1. Labour has always drawn on the idea of liberalism
  2. Labour commitment to nationalisaition though clause 4 was never as though as it might have seemed
  3. Labour commitment to social justice was reamined unchanged under Blair
  4. Labour has a long-standing modernising tradition and so Blair is not unusal
  5. "invest and reform" programme, one that promised increased spending
2. New Labour
  1. Blair has overseen the part-privatisation of the National Air Traffic Control System
  2. Expanded other "Public-Private" services; such as the Private Finance initiative in health
  3. So New Labour aimed to reform government with a view to re-legitimiding state intervention in the economy and society
  4. New Labour could reconcile the free market with the pursuit of social justice
  5. A Minium Wage was introduced
  6. Apeal to the "middle englan" in the 1990 - lower taxes
The chief themes of the New Labour project were as follows:
1. Market economic
  1. Labour came to accept the economy should be regulated by the market and not by the state
  2. First Blairs government granted semi-independence to the Bank of England on setting it interested rates
  3. After 2001 Labour embarked on an expansion of public serivces with unprecedented levels of public spending on health and eduction
2. Constitutional reform
  1. 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
  2. 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
3. "Third way" welfare
  1. Blairs approach to wealfare was differant to "standing on your two feet" and the social-democratic belief in "cradle to grave" support.
  2. "targeted Benefits", an empphase on the idea of "welfare-to-work."
  3. 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
4. Strenthening responsibility
  1. A key Blairite belief was the idea that rights should always be balanced against responsibilities, it was influenced by communitarianism
  2. The desire to strenghen social duty and moral responsibilites was reflected in the called" respect Agenda"
  3. New Labour succumbed to neocinservative and endangering of vital civial liberties

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(3) What impact did the Thatcherite Revolution have on Labour

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	Created by Marcus Danvers about 10 years ago