Blair Government Research Articles

‘Towards a modern democracy’? The constitutional politics of the 1990s British left

ABSTRACT This article argues that a ‘constitutional lens’ sheds light on British political contestation in the 1990s. It is commonly suggested that 1990s politicians merely consolidated the hegemony of ‘Thatcherism’. Yet, this struggles to encompass the decade’s political volatility, from the Conservatives’ descent into internecine warfare over the Maastricht Treaty to the fraught Irish peace process. Though varied, these developments shared a key theme: controversy over the constitution of the United Kingdom. To illustrate its case, this article applies the constitutional lens to the 1990s left. Existing accounts emphasise Labour’s concessions to Conservative opponents. By 2001, however, the first Blair government had enacted contentious constitutional changes: devolution, proportional voting systems, and a Human Rights Act. These policies reflected a dynamic, new, liberal-left politics of constitutional reform. From the 1980s, liberals, social democrats and Marxists forged a new constitutional agenda, responding to trends since the 1960s—growing ‘popular individualism’, agitation for ‘human rights’, European integration, and Scottish nationalism—and to the end of the Cold War. By the 1990s, campaigners had developed a bold programme for ‘modernising the constitution’, which influenced Labour’s programme. Through New Labour’s governments, this agenda profoundly reshaped the institutions of British politics in the twenty-first century.

The task ahead for Labour if it came to power

The task ahead for Labour if it came to power

Obstinate memory: Working-class politics and neoliberal forgetting in the United Kingdom and Chile

In the 40 years since Chile and the United Kingdom became the crucibles of neoliberalization, working-class agency has been transformed, its institutions systematically dismantled and its politics, after the continuity neoliberalism of both the UK Blair government and the Chilean Concertación, in a crisis of legitimacy. In the process, memories of struggle have been captured within narratives of ‘capitalist realism’ (Fisher) – the present, past and future collapsed into Walter Benjamin’s ‘empty homogeneous time’. This article explores ways in which two traumatic moments of working-class struggle have been narrativized by the media in the service of this ‘presentism’: the 1973 coup in Chile and the 1984–1985 Miners’ Strike in the United Kingdom. We argue that the use of ‘living history’ or bottom-up approaches to memory provides an urgently needed recovery of disruptive narratives of class identity and offers a way of reclaiming alternative futures from the grip of reductive economic nationalism.

Groupthink, Polythink and the Challenges of Decision-Making in Cabinet Government

AbstractThe Chilcot report set out in detail its finding that the Blair Government had been prone to groupthink in its decision-making processes when leading Britain into the Iraq War. Subsequent British prime ministers have been in no hurry to change their style of governing in ways that might broaden decision-making circles and introduce the ‘challenge’ that Chilcot said had been lacking. This article draws on the literature on the psychology of group decision-making to examine the extent to which groupthink remains embedded in the processes of cabinet government in the UK. The article argues that the strongest driver of groupthink is the psychological disposition towards conflict of individual prime ministers. Drawing on interviews with ministers, civil servants and special advisers we suggest that the political authority of the prime minister interacts with their psychological predisposition towards debate to encourage groupthink, polythink or a more positive style of ‘vigilant’ decision-making.

Introduction: Corbynism and its Aftermath

Introduction: Corbynism and its Aftermath

Inter-Organisational Distrust and the Political Economy of Central Bank Independence in the UK

ABSTRACT This article revisits a puzzle: why did the Conservative Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major not grant independence to the Bank of England? A substantial literature offers several explanations for why New Labour carried out this reform to UK monetary policy, many of which ought to have been relevant to the Conservatives’ stewardship of the economy in the 1980s and 1990s. So why did the Conservatives fail to see the advantages of a policy that the Blair Government seized on as one of its first acts of office? Combining new archival research with elite interviews of some key participants during this period, this article re-examines this neglected question. It argues that one overlooked reason why the Conservatives decided against granting independence to the Bank of England relates to the role and importance of inter-organisational distrust. Conservative leaders (and Treasury officials) had negative expectations about the Bank’s ability to implement monetary policy and did not want to increase their dependence on that institution to fulfil a function deemed crucial to their political fortunes.

The att and War Profiteering: the Case of the UK

The Arms Trade Treaty is intended to prevent arms supplies likely to be used to violate International Humanitarian Law or human rights, or exacerbate conflict. Yet, some of the countries who most strongly championed the ATT have continued to supply arms in the face of clear evidence that they are being misused, most notably at present in the war in Yemen. This article addresses this apparent paradox in the case of the UK – the first major arms producing nation to publicly support the ATT. The article situates UK support for the ATT, under the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the context of the domestic political considerations of the Blair Government; in particular, the desire to restore the UK’s image as a “force for good” in the world in the wake of the Iraq War. At the same time, the high dependence of the UK arms industry on exports, in particular to Saudi Arabia, drove the government to fail to robustly implement ATT commitments – as well as those from the earlier EU Common Position, and to allow UK arms companies to continue to engage in “war profiteering” in Yemen and elsewhere.

The Role of Great Britain in the Process of Formation of Relations EU–NATO: History and Modernity

The article presents the results of a study of the UK’s involvement in the European Union–NATO relations process during 1990–2010s in the context of establishment the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The methodology of the study was formed by a systematic approach, methods of historical analysis, historical-genetic, periodization, comparative-historical, etc. An interdisciplinary approach made it possible to use certain methods of other sciences, in particular, political science (institutional comparative analysis, event analysis), elements of political modeling and forecasting. It is stated that the British leadership has been in the position of preserving the integrity of the Atlantic co-operation system since the early 1990s. The UK’s position as a staunch supporter of Atlanticism has become one of the decisive and at the same time controversial factors in the creation of the EU Security and Defense Council. Until the second half of the 1990s, British governments opposed the EU’s provision of military and political resources and supported the WEU as a «European support» for NATO. The Blair government’s consent to the transfer of WEU functions to the European Union opened the way for establishing a direct relationship between the union and the Alliance. The signing of the Berlin Plus Agreement with the European Union in 2002–2003 was one of the main elements of NATO’s reform. The political and strategic crisis of NATO in the early 2000s reinforced the relevance of a purely European defense structure. However, the inability of the EU to deploy military resources, the resistance of the Atlanteans, led to a general failure of the autonomy of the CSDP. During the Cameron governments, London openly favored the formation of a NATO Response Force, rejecting the development of EU military resources. Although in the context of Russia’s aggressive foreign policy, Europeans’ attention has shifted from the EU’s military capabilities to traditional Atlantic security structures, the strengthening of the Union’s military mechanisms following Britain’s exit has not been ruled out. The United Kingdom is directly involved in the strategic weakness of the EU as a subject of the European and world security system, in a NATO-dependent operational and resource plan. At the same time, Brexit can complicate the task of unifying security, weakening the difficult EU–NATO relationship. Key words: Great Britain; EU; NATO; Common Security and Defense Policy; USA.

Who Is Responsible in the International Arms Trade? Measuring Human Rights Concerns in Arms Transfers

This paper proposes an index to measure the extent to which governments authorize arms transfers to places in which human rights are violated. Levels of democracy in the purchasing country are used as a proxy for that country's degree of respect for human rights. The paper then applies this index to test whether Robin Cook's 'ethical dimension' in foreign policy was applied to British arms transfers, and concludes that this was indeed the case, although its legacy did not survive to the end of Tony Blair's government. This index should be useful for academics, civil society groups, government departments and international organisations working with human rights or arms transfers.

英国における教育改革と地方自治(I 義務教育改革と教育の地方自治)

英国における教育改革と地方自治(I 義務教育改革と教育の地方自治)

Constitutional Reform in the UK: A Note on the Legacy of the Kilbrandon Commission

The past two decades have seen large shifts in the constitutional landscape of the United Kingdom. This began with the devolution of powers from Westminster to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland under the first Blair government. More recently, the localism agenda advanced by the Coalition and subsequent Conservative governments has sought to further devolve powers to areas within England, and the constitutional integrity of the UK itself was threatened by 2014s Scottish independence referendum and the 2016 referendum vote for the UK to leave the European Union. It is convenient to regard constitutional reform concerned with the dispersal of power through the creation of new executive and legislative bodies as a modern phenomenon. However, the roots of devolution go back much further. Largely forgotten is the work of the Kilbrandon Commission, established to consider the allocation of executive and legislative power within the UK, which reported in 1973 and effectively produced the first substantial proposals for the devolution of power from Westminster. Almost two decades on from the creation of the devolved institutions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the present moment is as opportune as any to consider the longer-term legacy of the Kilbrandon Commission. This note revisits the major findings and recommendations of Kilbrandon and attempts to consider the extent to which these have been realised in subsequent constitutional reform initiatives. While difficult to quantify its significance, it is nonetheless important to recognise the relevance of the commission’s work for subsequent and unfinished developments within the area of constitutional reform.

Intelligence Failure as a Mutually Reinforcing Politico-Intelligence Dynamic: The Chilcot Report and the Nature of the Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure

By the time the Chilcot Report was published in July 2016, inquiries of one sort or another focusing on Iraq had been a semi-permanent feature of British politics for a quarter of a century. These stretched back to the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee’s investigation of Britain’s role in producing a ‘supergun’ for Saddam Hussein’s regime, and included Sir Richard Scott’s 1992–96 investigation into the export of defence and dual-use goods to Iraq.1 The question of intelligence failure in relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq had itself been either the context for or subject of four previous inquiries by the time the Chilcot inquiry was established. The Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) quickly published a report into The Decision to Go to War in Iraq in July 2003,2 but without access to intelligence assessments. The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) produced its report on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Intelligence and Assessments in September 2003.3 This was followed by the report of a judicial inquiry conducted by a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Lord Hutton, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence biological weapons expert who committed suicide after giving evidence to the FAC inquiry.4 After this report in January 2004, the Blair Government felt obliged to concede a further inquiry into the WMD question, to be conducted by a team of privy counsellors led by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler and including former Northern Ireland Permanent Secretary Sir John Chilcot among its members.

Persecution complex: I am getting one over electronic patient records!

The electronic patient record (EPR) is a core organisational document in which integrated health and social care records and secondary care processes can be stored. EPR was the brain child of the NHS’ National Programme for Information Technology, under the Blair government. 1 Since then, attempts have been made to install EPR in secondary care – a typical example being the installation of specialist imaging systems in hospital trusts. 2 The primary aim of EPR was to make the NHS services efficient via digitised patient records that could be viewed, discussed and transferred electronically between clinicians and/or trusts. 1 , 3 Other anticipated uses of EPR were to provide easy patient access to services such as e-referrals and e-prescriptions, as well as appointment systems. 3 , 4 Here, we discuss EPR and information technology in plain language, and assess the impact of EPR on NHS secondary care orthodontic services.

Forty-five Minutes that Changed the World: The September Dossier, British Drama, and the New Journalism

On September 24, 2002, Tony Blair's government released a dossier with exaggerate claims regarding Iraq's WMD capabilities. The September Dossier would become a cornerstone of Blair's case for war in Iraq, while the arguments against the claims—and their use in government and media—also became regular features in British drama. Through an examination of Richard Norton-Taylor's Justifying War: Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry, David Hare's Stuff Happens, and Colin Teevan's How Many Miles to Basra?, this article explores the critique of media and government in contemporary British theater that engages pre-Iraq war intelligence. This analysis of three genres of Iraq War drama—a verbatim play, a docudrama, and a fictional play—examines the challenges to the intersection of art and journalism. Specifically, it appears that British theater, while providing a more critical venue for analyzing the narration of the Iraq War, became a parallel monolith for a singular narrative of the war that did not create a sufficient replacement for a reliable and rigorous press.

Corporate Social Responsibility in the UK Creative Industries: Building the Missing Link

The Creative Industries have occupied an important place in the United Kingdom’s politics ever since the Blair government in the 1990s. Since then, the creative industries have become a vital employing sector in the British labour market, as well as played a crucial role for the country’s economy. Over the past two decades there has been substantial research conducted on the topic, albeit not as much as there has probably been on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility in the same time period. A significant dearth of research exists, however, when combining the United Kingdom’s Creative Industries and Corporate Social Responsibility, analysing how they are connected with each other. Hence the purpose of this paper is to make a contribution towards filling this knowledge gap and building the missing link by establishing the interconnections and interdependencies between the Creative Industries and Corporate Social Responsibility in the United Kingdom using the stakeholder approach.

Searching for constitutional meaning in institutional design: The debate over judicial appointments in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is experiencing a period of dramatic constitutional change. A spate of reforms ushered in by the Blair government at the turn of the twenty-first century challenged conventional notions of British governance and constitutional structure. In the shadow of these changes, one new and bedeviling institutional task is to reconcile an independent judicial branch, growing in power, with a system of parliamentary sovereignty. This article will analyze the debate over judicial appointments in order to shed light on the position of the modern British judiciary, and the new UK Supreme Court in particular, within the British constitutional system. Questions of institutional design expose deep divisions over the perceived extent of judicial power, the relationship of the judiciary to Parliament, and the constitutional justifications for diversity on the bench. Although a weak consensus was achieved in the Crime & Courts Act 2013, stability in the appointments regime is likely temporary. The contested nature of the modern British constitutional system will ensure ongoing debate.

Identity, Authority, and the British War in Iraq: Table 1.

Despite the lack of an obvious threat to Britain, the Blair government invaded Iraq in 2003 alongside the United States. This article draws on securitization theory and social identity approaches from social psychology to propose that the democratic political identity vested in Britain’s domestic society facilitated the Blair government’s effort to construct Iraq as a threat, but in other ways constrained the ability of the Blair government to pursue the use of force without substantial domestic political costs. Using a multimethod approach, the article examines the discourses in the lead up to the invasion to support the central argument as well as to explore the domestic security authority held by United Nations. In so doing, the article addresses not only the British case, but also larger questions regarding the factors that shape the construction of an issue as one of security and the appropriate policy responses.

Productivity Growth in the English National Health Service from 1998/1999 to 2013/2014.

SummaryProductivity growth is a key measure against which National Health Service (NHS) achievements are judged. We measure NHS productivity growth as a set of paired year‐on‐year comparisons from 1998/1999–1999/2000 through 2012/2013–2013/2014, which are converted into a chained index that summarises productivity growth over the entire period. Our measure is as comprehensive as data permit and accounts for the multitude of diverse outputs and inputs involved in the production process and for regular revisions to the data used to quantify outputs and inputs. Over the full‐time period, NHS output increased by 88.96% and inputs by 81.58%, delivering overall total factor productivity growth of 4.07%. Productivity growth was negative during the first two terms of Blair's government, with average yearly growth rate of −1.01% per annum (pa) during the first term (to 2000/2001) and −1.49% pa during the second term (2000/2001–2004/2005). Productivity growth was positive under Blair's third term (2004/2005–2007/2008) at 1.41% pa and under the Brown government (2007/2008–2010/2011), averaging 1.13% pa. Productivity growth remained positive under the Coalition (2010/2011–2013/2014), averaging 1.56% pa. © 2016 The Authors Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The price of influence: ethics and British foreign policy in the Arab Middle East after Iraq

ABSTRACTThis article examines British approaches to ethics in foreign policy in the post-Blair era through a comparative analysis between London's responses to the ‘Arab uprisings’, namely the recent upheavals in Libya and Syria, and the Blair government's invasion of Iraq in 2003. It puts forward fresh perspectives on the role of diaspora groups with progressivist political agendas in challenging prevailing official discourses of British foreign policy. The article argues that the ethics of Britain's strategy in the region continue to be defined by moral inconsistency and incoherence as well as by a problematic relationship to the ‘foreign’ itself.

Implementing Joined‐Up Government: Lessons from the Australian Social Inclusion Agenda

‘Joined‐up government’ (JUG) approaches have emerged in many industrialized countries as a means to tackle persistent ‘wicked’ public and social policy problems (Pollit ). Despite this, limited evidence exists concerning their implementation or effectiveness. ‘JUG’ was popularized by the Blair Government (UK) with its focus on addressing social exclusion. Following in these footsteps, in 2007 the Australian Government launched the Social Inclusion Agenda: a joined‐up approach to improving the wellbeing of all Australians and addressing disadvantage. This paper focuses on findings from a study that examined the SIA as a natural experiment in JUG. Drawing on the implementation experiences of federal policy makers, our findings lend weight to emerging research into JUG that suggests that compatibility and consistency between goals, instruments, and processes is critical to success. We argue that closer attention needs to be given to developing ‘supportive architecture’ around joined‐up initiatives to facilitate implementation.