From New Jerusalem To New Labour

A stellar collection of contributors consider each British post-war Prime Minister and examine how they have dealt with Britain's changing role, domestic and overseas, since the end of WWII. Even at the start of the 21st century, Britain remains in a state of transition, between a world which is dead and one still struggling to be born.

Thirteen wasted years'? Or the dawn of a new 'affluent society'? This book explores which description more appropriately fits the era of Conservative government in Britain after 1951. The author assesses the changing fortune of successive administrations under Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Douglas-Home. He also analyses broader questions such as post-war 'decline', the nature of 'consensus politics' and the electoral effects of Britain's entrenched class system. In the first major stuy to have access to all official papers for 1951-64, Dr Jefferys provides a fresh critique of a key period in British political history.

In August 1892, Keir Hardie took up his seat in Parliament as the first independent Labour MP. Hardie's world was a bleak one of factories, cities, fledgling trade unions and manual work. Today, over a century on, the computer terminal has replaced the cloth cap and the party leader, Tony Blair, is on the verge of becoming the first Labour Prime Minister for nearly 20 years.

When Eve and the New Jerusalem was first published over thirty years ago, it was received as a political intervention as well as a landmark historical work. Barbara Taylor became the first woman to win the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize, and the book went on to become a feminist classic. As women across the globe find themselves at the sharp end of neoliberal 'austerity' programmes, discriminatory social policies and fundamentalist misogyny, Eve and the New Jerusalem is as essential as it ever was. Book jacket.

Russell Holden considers the policy reversal on Europe made by the Labour Party between 1983 and 1999. It charts and analyzes how the Party became pro-European, with particular emphasis on how this change was conceived and implemented. In so doing, it concentrates on how the European issue became a political priority and dynamic tool for promoting economic reform and Party unity, two essential requirements in making the Party - New Labour - a credible alternative government in the eyes of the general public.

The New Labour project was not conjured up out of thin air — it only looks that way because of the party's amnesia about the intellectual roots and political traditions which have guided it. This book provides extracts from fifteen thinkers and politicians located within the revisionist tradition as an antidote to that amnesia. It is an 'all star cast' from R.H. Tawney, Hugh Gaitskell and Anthony Crosland to Roy Hattersley, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. The collection demonstrates that Labour's revisionism is not a rigid body of doctrine but a 'cast of mind' that distinguishes between core values (ends) and policy instruments (means) — revisionist thinkers are engaged in the continuous pursuit of policy innovation, never shrinking from abandoning policies that fail to achieve the desired ends. All successful Labour governments have been determined to avoid the confusion of means and ends. These essays show a determination throughout the party's history to debate and discuss political ideas in the cause of a fairer, more equal society. Fully updated and revised edition.

An illuminative study of the most powerful political movement in Britain today, Bevir presents new critiques and radical alternatives to New Labour.