New Labour's post-Thatcherite modernisation project: a Third Way?

Abstract

Tony Blair The Third Way: new politics for the new century, pamphlet no. 588, Fabian Society, London, 1998, 20 pp., £3.50.Stephen Driver and Luke Martell, New Labour: politics after Thatcherism, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998, xii + 210 pp. £45.00, £12.99 (pbk).Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: the renewal of social democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998, x + 166 pp., £25.00, £7.99 (pbk).Colin Hay, The Political Economy of New Labour: labouring under false pretences?, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1999, xiii + 242 pp. £45.00, £14.99.Martin Powell (ed.), New Labour, New Welfare State? The ‘third way’ in British social policy, The Policy Press, University of Bristol, 1999, ix + 351 pp., £45.00, £18.99.Having just returned from a month in the USA, teaching summer school to graduate students on social and family policy in education, I eagerly read and/or reread these publications to get a renewed sense of politics and policy in Britain today. Whilst I was in the USA I became steeped in discussions of ‘post’ perspectives – post-colonial, post-modern, post-structuralist, post-feminist – on ‘discourses of welfare’ or the welfare state which now may include education and even communitarianism. I found myself longing for a more pragmatic as well as programmatic, or what might be called ‘critical realist’, perspective. So I was not disappointed by having to engage with these four books and the pamphlet, although initially they seemed a long way from my current research interests on ‘family and education’ from a feminist perspective.I have had a very enjoyable, exciting and even exhilarating time reading them. Together they present a most appealing package of accounts of New Labour as we are about to enter the new millennium. One gets the feeling of tremendous political activity and policy action over the last few years with plans and proposals galore for the future. To paraphrase the words of Celine Dionne for the heroine of Titanic ‘It will go on...’