We stand at a critical point in Labour's fortunes: sixteen years of New Labour; the exhaustion of a prescriptive, limiting way of understanding, enacting and doing politics, and the end of the line ...for the incantation of 'modernisation' and 'New Britain'. The definitive story of New Labour has yet to be written. When it is, it will clearly be a lot more sophisticated and nuanced than the politics as personality of Andrew Rawnsley's interpretation (2010) - the dominant media account of the period - or those of the main players who have put pen to paper so far (Mandelson, 2010; Campbell, 2010; Blair, 2010). The experience of New Labour has to be put into a longer-term perspective which locates it in the evolution, crisis and ultimate demise of Labour Britain's once powerful story. This story gave the party a party a purpose and animating project which was its 'soul' and 'utopia' for much of its existence, and which now stands exhausted, humiliated and defeated (see Shaw, 2007). Adapted from the source document.
What comes after New Labour? Hassan, Gerry
Soundings (London, England),
08/2010, Letnik:
45, Številka:
45
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Labourism has long been a central part of Labour's heritage but the collapse of the traditional working-class culture that sustained it means that Labour has for some time had a problem of self ...definition. New Labour was one way of solving this problem, with its appeal to the middle
classes and accommodation to neoliberalism, but this is now seen to have failed. However there can be no return to labourism - which in any case is undesirable given its many limitations - since its historical context has gone. The development of a new post-labourist politics will
require that centre-left thinkers and writers abandon their illusions about Labour and jettison any sense of romanticism and sentimentalism for its past.
Labourism has long been a central part of Labour's heritage but the collapse of the traditional working-class culture that sustained it means that Labour has for some time had a problem of self ...definition. New Labour was one way of solving this problem, with its appeal to the middle classes and accommodation to neoliberalism, but this is now seen to have failed. However there can be no return to labourism--which in any case is undesirable given its many limitations--since its historical context has gone. The development of a new post-labourist politics will require that centre-left thinkers and writers abandon their illusions about Labour and jettison any sense of romanticism and sentimentalism for its past. Keywords: Labour; New Labour; labourism; New Left; Tony Blair
Once upon a time the Scottish Tories were proud, popular and at the same time perceived as Scottish, while confidently proclaiming their national credentials. This story is well known and well worn. ...Not only did the Tories win a majority of the popular vote and Parliamentary seats in 1955, but during the period from the late 1920s to the late 1950s, Unionist, Tory Scotland was the predominant counter-narrative to socialist, collectivist Scotland; ‘Blue Scotland’ in opposition to ‘Red Scotland’. This chapter aims to explore:
What happened to this Unionist, Tory Scotland? Why did it become perceived as a force at
Dialogue between Douglas Alexander and Gerry Hassan on the future of unionism and/or independence in Scotland, and of the multi-national British state. Issues discussed include: how equality and ...identity can be connected in politics; people's multiple identifications; a rejection of
exclusivist identities; a sense of nation that is not absolute; how poverty and inequality intersect with identity; and a recognition that changes in civil society are often as important as constitutional change - though the two are also intertwined.
Tony Blair famously said he chose the Labour Party. Growing up in Dundee in the 1980s I joined the Labour Party, and never found it a satisfying political experience. After twenty-four years I ...eventually left the Labour Party, long after I had detached myself from it as an active member, but still keeping a sense of belonging and a backstory.
This chapter explores the characteristics, role and influence of the Scottish political commentariat. It develops previous research on this group into the terrain of the recent independence ...referendum debate.¹
A central concept in this research is the term ‘elite narratives’, used to give sense to a privileged and influential small group of participants in public life and the collective set of perspectives they deploy about contemporary Scotland. Mackenzie’s concept of ‘the community of the communicators’ is also utilised, to place and understand the role of the commentariat in public life, the critical issue of who speaks and has authority, and
The 'knowledge economy' still has its adherents over a decade later, with a Work Foundation study commissioned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the performance of the creative ...industries stating that we are seeing 'a subtle evolution from former conceptions of economic growth founded in organising the three "factors of production" - land, labour and capital'. Such approaches by posing reason versus emotion and seeing them as opposites, leaves the power of emotions, intuition, allegory and folklore to our opponents, This is an argument made by Drew Westen in his recent book The Political Brain (reviewed by Jonathan Rutherford in Renewal 16.1), where upon studying recent US Presidential elections he came to the conclusion that Democratic Presidential candidates concentrated on framing arguments in terms of policy, facts and figures, whereas Republican candidates talked of stories, folklore and metaphor, and were more likely to win partly as a result (Westen, 2007).
