3min chapter

These Times cover image

When Labour Wins

These Times

CHAPTER

The Difficulty of Finding Credible Reform Messages

I think that this goes back to the difficulty of what MPs in regards to their individual constituencies are going to vote for. I don't see an ideology from either side that they're clear about, that has become dominant or unaccepted. It's quite another having a narrative about reform if you can't do anything. If they had a majority, it'd probably be less controversial for them than... I'm not so sure about that. The world of the 1990s was just a lot less geopolitically complicated for Western countries than it is now. While Blair could think of having a new labour project that was very domestic, all he really had to do internationally was to go with the flow

00:00
Speaker 2
I guess Labour could probably squeeze that through the house of comm... If they had a majority, it'd probably be less controversial for them than...
Speaker 1
I'm not so sure about that. I think that this goes back to the difficulty of what MPs in regards to their individual constituencies are going to vote for. It's one thing having a narrative about before, if it's credible, that energy forms can take place. In a way, I think that Blair did with public services, perhaps with education, but it's quite another having a narrative about reform if you can't do anything. I think that because we live in such more complicated economic times than was the case in the 1990s, that finding credible reform messages is a lot more difficult.
Speaker 2
Is that something that's why we basically don't have them? What strikes me is you have these cycles in post-war British politics where you have a certain theory emerges and then is eventually adopted as what is wrong with the British economy and what is required. It becomes planning and modernisation in the 60s. That is then rejected in the 80s when monetrism and free markets becomes the dominant philosophy. Today, everyone can see that the economy is in desperate trouble, is not functioning, the Britain needs modernising, whatever that means, but I don't see an ideology from either side that they're clear about, that has become dominant or unaccepted. What is the answer to Britain's economic problems? How are we going to solve this? I don't see an obvious solution.
Speaker 1
I think that it's quite difficult for any British politician, regardless in this respect of which political party they are in, to come up with a radically different way of imagining how Britain is going to change economically as a place over the next 10 years. Also the bits of globalisation, if we're going to call it that, are still there, which is quite a lot of it, is going to exist. The geopolitical competition between the United States and China, consequences of that for everybody else, in that sense, whilst Blair could think of having a new labour project that was very domestic, all he really had to do internationally was to go with the flow, so to speak. I just don't think that's an option for Starmer, just because the world of the 1990s was
Speaker 2
just a lot less geopolitically complicated for Western countries than it is now.

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