New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain

Labour's 1997 victory was widely credited to the party's reinvention of itself as New Labour. Richard Heffernan argues that the transformation of the Labour Party is best understood as the product of Thatcherism, and marks the emergence of a new consensus in British politics. Despite Labour's claim to be reapplying traditional values, Tony Blair's politics owe more to neo-liberalism than any traditional social democratic perspective. This wide-ranging and controversial assessment of both Thatcherism and New Labour is used to illustrate a new theory as to how the process of political change takes place in practice.