New Labour and Thatcherism

Labour's 1997 victory was widely credited to the party's reinvention of itself as New Labour. This book 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 re-applying 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.

'In this arresting and cogent study, Richard Heffernan argues that Thatcherism inaugurated a new consensus in British politics and that the biggest demonstration of its success as a political and economic project is the transformation of the Labour Party into New Labour after 1983. In doing so he provides us with a powerful analytical framework for understanding and assessing processes of party and party system change. This book is certain to become a major reference point in the debate on the nature and significance of New Labour' - Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield 'Richard Heffernan's book offers a comprehensive account of how a new centre-right consensus has become consolidated in contemporary British politics and about how this consensus has come to embrace New Labour. This is a valuable analysis of how political realignment can occur within a continuing party system'. - Peter Mair, Professor Comparative Politics, University of Leiden, The Netherlands

RICHARD HEFFERNAN is Lecturer in Government and Politics at The Open University in the UK, and has previously taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is co-author of Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party (1992) and co-editor of The Labour Party: a Centenary History (2000).