What Are the Main Characteristics of New Labour?

After WW2, Britain’s domestic life was in upheaval and most people wanted peace and to return to normal, the war also brought on an urge to broaden Britain’s wealth. This meant the new Conservative government was expected to

the conservatives and labour were left with few targets to aim at in hoping to gain more

The new labour has introduced laws which benefit the family, one of the laws being allowing adoption amongst cohabiting couples and gay couples. In effect this will mean other family types will be able to have children this will lead to a decline in nuclear families because couples will not have to marry to have to adopt children. For example a cohabiting couple are unable to pay the expenses of a wedding and they cannot have babies due to fertility issues therefore the new law will help them adopt a child without marriage. In addition to laws introduced by the new labour, they have also increased welfare by re-distributing income to increase welfare to help lower income families afford food and clothing. For example a mother with three children cannot finically support herself with one job and benefits, but due to the increase in welfare benefits, she is now able to support herself. Although other sociologist would disagree with these introductions of social policies,

Tony Blair's Approach to Power Since Labour came into power in 1997 Tony Blair has been criticised by some for being the 'son of Thatcher'. Many say that labour is now following the values and policies similar to that of a Tory government and in particular a Tory government lead by Margaret Thatcher. Before the time of Tony Blair and New Labour, the left wing party stood firm on one value and that was socialism. More on Labours old Values and policies The conservatives on the other hand have very different policies or not so different as some may argue.

This period of Labour rule is often marked down as a poor performance on behalf of the labour party, critically looked upon by many historians. There were many failings under the rule of this government however the circumstances they were placed in caused severe restraints in their options.

Except for the British Labor Party, the vehicles of the new postwar policies were not, as might have been expected, the democratic socialist parties.

Another contributing factor at this election may have been performance in office, which in the above statement is not seen as important as personality and image. However, performance in office may have been extremely detrimental for the conservatives in 1997 because of their crisis in 1992. This focuses on the retrospective model, as people saw the Conservatives as incompetent in handling the economy because of Black Wednesday in September 1992. The Conservatives and especially Noramnt Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer, were to blame for the crisis that saw the pound forced out of the ERM. This didn’t help at the 1997 general election where they did extremely badly in a huge Labour win.

It is more of a political view than a perspective because it is more associated with Conservative thinking. They challenge collectivism because the Conservatives believe that our welfare is important and we should be responsible for ourselves. The New Right believe that people will develop a culture where they only rely on the welfare state (benefits) rather taking responsibility for themselves.

New right ended in 1997 replaced by New Labour.- fight against marginalized groups through rejecting inequality, emphasising obligations and responsibilities. Its welfare to work policy supported subsidized training and work experience.

The Labour government of 1974-1979 also won two elections, the 1974 February election and the 1974 October election, however both were won by a minority. The February election was won by 4 seats and the October election was won by 42 seats. The reason for the slim win is to do with inflation. The Labour governments of 1974-1979 were in office at a bad time because Britain had started to suffer from huge inflation because of the oil price rise in 1973, and so voters didn’t have a clear decision on which they were going to vote for. This shows that at the moment the 1964-1970 Labour Government was more successful by far because of their majority of 110 seats in the 1966 election.

The centrepiece of Labour 's programme of constitutional reform was undoubtedly devolution. This was achieved with remarkably few problems. There now seems no likelihood that the new arrangements could be reversed, even by a Conservative administration. The election on 6 May 1999 of a Parliament in Scotland, with extensive powers of primary legislation as well as tax-raising, and an Assembly in Wales, with powers of secondary legislation only, will have a profound impact on governance within the UK. In

The world gradually entered its modern state after the English Revolution and largely abandoned the old political systems of monarchy. Economic achievement made due to the Industrial Revolution strengthened the connection between the economy and politics, and thus the emergence of classical liberalism and its future derivatives are inseparably tied to both economic and political components. Classical liberalism, New deal liberalism and neoliberalism are similar in that they all put much emphasis on the economy. They derived from the same basic ideology that individuals should be free and have their own properties protected. However, under the so-called freedom and democracy is the fact that they do not apply to every member of the society.

Neo-liberalism has had the greatest impact on public policy in New Zealand over the past 20 years. An example of this ideology in policy making in New Zealand history would be The National party in the 1990’s. National significantly reduced the state’s role in the labour market, and introduced markets in public housing and education. A more recent example is the current National government and their benefits policy. In 2008 National focussed on getting beneficiaries into employment. National’s leader John Key announced that they were committing to a benefit policy that would act as a safety net, but encourage beneficiaries to go out and source other forms of income (Key, 2008). This is a neo-liberal idea in the sense of having minimal state intervention. The plan to put in place a tax system that encourages people to work hard and not rely on the welfare state, and the continuing of shrinking the size of government sees that the future intentions of the current National party is going to carry on down a neo-liberal road (Key, 2008).

In 1997 Labour pledged a referendum on PR, but it was postponed and it has been argued that two strong political parties, Labour and Torries, would have lost the most if there were any changes in voting systems. If the referendum took place in 1997 elections, Labour majority would have to share, approximately, from 46 seats to 166 MPs with Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats gained 16,8% of the total votes, but won less than 10% of the total seats.

During the first year of World War II Winston Churchill is recommended by the former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as his replacement going on to win the election; becoming Prime Minister that following Friday. Before then, Churchill was not a popular person amongst the Members of Parliament due to mistakes made in World War I Nearly all of whom publicly denounced him, some going as far as to publicly mock and heckle his election speeches because of his record of making hasty rash decisions. However, Churchill managed to change the political atmosphere around him with a short, but powerful speech. “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” uses masterful diction, repetition, and structure to keep his address to the assembled group of the House of Lords and Commons brief and informative, while indicating the importance of haste to achieve victory.