Abstract
New Labour's acolytes quite obviously owe a debt of gratitude to Kinnock. In A Journey, an account written with the obvious benefit of hindsight, Blair insists that after Labour's landslide defeat in 1987, it was self-evident that the British electorate would never accept Kinnock as Prime Minister. Blair subsequently approached John Smith, then Labour's Shadow Chancellor, in an effort to persuade him to force Kinnock to stand aside. The Policy Review was an exercise of considerable significance, shaping Labour's long march from opposition to power. The Review aimed to elucidate a coherent ‘social democratic perspective’ that would allow Labour to govern Britain, supplanting the outdated ‘welfare state plus full employment’ consensus of Keynes and Beveridge that dominated the party's political and economic thought in the aftermath of the Second World War. Labour subsequently became a more strongly pro-European party than at any previous moment in its history.
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