Goldilocks politics: The Third Way

Résumé du document

This text is an extract from The Economist, a weekly newspaper, published on 19th December 1998. The Economist is a newspaper supporting free trade and liberalism even if sometimes it can tend to be more moderate, so we can say that it is rather right of centre. The writer remains unknown so we are going to assume that it is a woman.

This text takes a critical point of view concerning the new policy implemented by Tony Blair, which is called the Third Way. It is divided into four main parts. The first part deals with a general presentation of New Labor showing what are the values advocated by the Third Way and its relationship with both the Old Labor and the Conservatives, and its foreign links. Then, it compares the Conservative Party to New Labor showing the differences between them and explaining that the Conservative Party was clearly defined by its ideology while New Labor is rather blurred and «Janus-like».

Also, the writer carries on with revealing the ulterior motive of New Labour rather based on pragmatism. Finally, the text presents the belief of Tony Blair and his workmates (the Blairites) and criticizes the fact that they do not innovate in politics contrary to what they pretend and she also underlines their hypocrisy.

From 1979 to 1997, the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher and John Major had won four successive elections (1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992). Therefore, the Labor Party felt that it had to change to go back to power. Also, the Labor Party was reformed in 1992 during the Labor Party Conference in order to compete with the Conservative Party. Contrary to the usual left wings of the Old Labor advocating social justice with the implication of the whole community, the reform meant to move the party closer to the centre in order to win the middle class votes. In 1994, Tony Blair became the leader of the Labor Party and in 1997, he was elected Prime Minister.

He was seen as the continuity of Margaret Thatcher's main policy of liberalism and thus was considered by some inside the Labour Party as a traitor. Indeed, Tony Blair continued changing the mainstream of his party. Then, he participated in reforming the Labor Party into New Labor in 1994 and the Clause IV, adopted in 1918 by the Old Labour and advocating the “common ownership of the means of production”, was abandoned by the Labor Party in 1995.

The newly created party now accepted and supported the market economy and reduced the state interventions in several sectors, policies formerly sustained by the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher. However, Tony Blair always explained that he did not follow Margaret Thatcher's ideology but that he wanted to create a new conception of society which attempted at reconciling the market economy and economic efficiency with aspiration to social justice, called the Third Way.

Extraits

[...] Nevertheless, from 1979 to 1997, the Conservatives had extended the principles of economic liberalism to all sectors of British economic and social life. That had profound influence on the Labour Party. Since 1992, Old Labour had been forced to modernize if it wanted to win further election. It was transformed into New Labour and has now become a left-of- centre party, one fighting not against capitalism and for socialism, but against conservatism, of left and right. Then, Tony Blair was criticized for his pragmatism and hypocrisy, considering his blurred policy which did not defend any clear ideology. [...]

[...] The Scottish Parliament had been created. Although, through many ways, New Labour tried to differentiate from the Conservatives, virtually or openly, a more radical change in Labour policy has already occurred. It has been introduced by the Blairites, it was the revision of the Party's attitudes to the Welfare State. Increasingly, New Labour seems to have come to believe that those primarily responsible for poverty and unemployment are the poor and the unemployed themselves, rather than calling into question the economic and social structures of capitalism like the Old Labour ) Distancing from the Old Labour 1.2 .1) A Break with the Left wings This change of vantage point has particularly been striking as regards the private sector. [...]

[...] A further measure consists in a system of tax credit for poor working families, the working family Tax Credit. At last, financial encouragement to work is provided for single mothers and the handicapped should they be willing to do so. The new measures were expected to save the welfare state by modernizing it. Under New Labour, the state was supposed to protect the poor and underprivileged not to assistance, as under Old Labour, but to a system aiming to eradicate poverty by providing opportunities to work. [...]

[...] As for the Labour Party, it was seen as indulgent towards criminals because it favoured prevention punishment. In the 1990's, determined to become an effective electoral machine, New Labour made clear to the public that a Labour Government would fight crime and insecurity with the utmost severity. Delinquency would be stopped, it was promised. Labour, not the Conservatives, was to be the party of law and order in Britain in the future, because, it was explained, crime and delinquency aggravate poverty. [...]

[...] Far from denying it, Tony Blair and his followers claim that they have changed the socialist ideology of Labour. They do admit that they have come to accept the fact that capitalism and the market economy have conquered the world. They contend that, on account of that, the old opposition between socialism and capitalism has become outdated. Ideological conflicts must now give way to peaceful pragmatism : Third Way, Mr. Blair told the French Assembly helpfully, is whatever works.” (l.239 to 242). [...]