Which British party currently has the most innovative policies?

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Which party currently has the more innovative policies: Labour, the Liberals or the Conservatives? With former minister Clare Short's allegations that British intelligence services had spied on the UN Secretary General in early 2003, Tony Blair's government is likely to come under fire from both opposition parties in the Commons, the Tory party and the Liberal Democrats. But the opposition cannot rely only on the government's shortcomings in order to win or to improve their results in the next general election. They have to come up with policies to propose to the voters. We will here have a closer look at the policies advocated by Labour, the Liberal and the Conservatives and will try to assess the innovative character of these policies, by using the innovation theory put forward by the Austrian born economist, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter's definition of innovation is fivefold, innovation can consist in ...

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[...] Under Tony Blair, New Labour has been able to put forward new policies as well as to persuade voters that its core values have changed, shifting from an emphasis on equality of outcome to a new focus on equality of opportunity, without jettisoning its redistributive commitment. Labour's former allies, the Liberal Democrats also propose innovative policies but their views on public services and the welfare state might appear like sounding a bit too Labour to the ears of an England profoundly shaped by the Thatcher years. The main opposition party, the Tories have not come with innovative policies and still seem very dependent on neo-liberal Thatcherite thinking. [...]

[...] Which party currently has the more innovative policies: Labour, the Liberals or the Conservatives? With former minister Clare Short's allegations that British intelligence services had spied on the UN Secretary General in early 2003, Tony Blair's government is likely to come under fire from both opposition parties in the Commons, the Tory party and the Liberal Democrats. But the opposition cannot rely only on the government's shortcomings in order to win or to improve their results in the next general election. [...]

[...] Therefore, they seem unlikely to win the next general election. References Steven Fielding, The Labour Party (Palgrave, 2003) John Meadowcraft, there a Liberal alternative? Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats' strategy”, Political Quarterly (Vol 2000), pp. 436-442 John Medearis, “Ideology, democracy and the limits of equilibrium: a Schumpeterian critique”, British Journal of Political Science (Vol 2001), pp. 355-388 Joseph Schumpeter, The theory of economic development (Harvard University Press, 1936) “Beware the charming Mr Letwin”, The Economist, February 21st 2004 “Kennedy's curse”, The Economist, August 14th 1999 “Kennedy Democrats”, The Economist, September 25th 1999 “Continental drift”, The Economist, April 20th 2002 “Vive la difference”, The Economist, December 13th 2003 Whitehall revolution?”, The Economist, February 21st 2004 Number 10 website: www.number10.gov.uk Labour website: www.labour.org.uk Liberal Democrat website: www.libdems.org.uk Tory website: www.conservatives.com Joseph Schumpeter, The theory of economic development (Harvard University Press, 1936), p John Medearis, “Ideology, democracy and the limits of equilibrium: a Schumpeterian critique”, British Journal of Political Science (Vol 2001), p “Beware the charming Mr Letwin”, The Economist, February 21st 2004 John Meadowcraft, there a Liberal alternative? [...]

[...] We will successively examine the policies advocated by the three major British parties, starting with the Conservatives and finishing with Labour. In 1997, the Conservatives experienced their worst ever defeat. Successive leaders, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith, failed to gather momentum and were ditched. In November 2003, Michael Howard, a former Home secretary was elected Tory leader, and since, the party has seemed to regain some unity and to be able to attack the government frontally. The current policies advocated by the Conservatives show a strong continuity with those of Margaret Thatcher, hence the new Tory slogan people, small government”. [...]

[...] The Tories are still campaigning on their core values and support a retreat of the state, less taxation, less bureaucracy to encourage initiative. They advocate a tougher approach on crime and asylum policy, with their commitment to 40,000 extra police and quotas for refugees, which reminds of the policies of the last Conservative governments. The conservatives also insists that the abuse of the welfare state should be tackled, thus striking a populist chord. On Europe, even if Michael Howard recently made a speech with a softer tone in Munich, the Conservatives still oppose Euro membership and regard further integration as no less than a threat to British identity. [...]