Old New Labour

‘New, new, new,’ Tony Blair told a meeting of European socialist leaders shortly after becoming Prime Minister, ‘everything is new.’ Embarrassing at the time, that declaration now seems merely a distant and risible memory. For, after nine years, the one thing this administration cannot possibly claim to be is ‘new’.

In his original campaign for office between 1994 and 1997, Mr Blair presented novelty as a good in itself. By relabelling Labour as ‘New’, he signalled not only that the party of old-fashioned socialism had changed, but that it offered a fresh and vernal alternative to the Conservative winter. Underpinning this was the false implication that mere novelty would translate into change for the national good: a radical improvement in the lives of the electorate would follow the ‘dawn’ of 2 May 1997.

In myriad ways, that claim has now been tested to destruction. The latest OECD figures show that Britain now faces a heavier tax burden than Germany.