This major new work from the well-known team of Heath, Jowell and Curtice explores the emergence of New Labour from the ruins of old Labour's four successive defeats at the hands of the Conservatives. Based on the authoritative British Election Surveys the book explores some of the key questions about contemporary British elections and the social and political factors that decide their outcomes.
The book begins with the electoral legacy of Margaret Thatcher. How far had Margaret Thatcher converted the electorate to her vision of a free-market, low tax society? Did her electoral success prove the popularity of her policies? Does any scope remain in Britain for left-wing policies? The Rise of New Labour explores the reasons for the failure of previous attempts by Labour under Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock to win the electorate's backing for left-wing policies and dissects the electoral benefits of Tony Blair's abandonment of socialism. The research shows that policies play a much smaller role in electoral change than is usually supposed, and that the parties may be less constrained than they imagine.
The book explores the key assumptions underlying New Labour's diagnosis of the problems the party faced during the eighteen years of Conservative rule. It shows that many of these assumptions were at best half-truths and that much of the conventional wisdom (shared by politicians and commentators) about how voters decide is seriously flawed. The book concludes by putting forward a new model of electoral behaviour which is better able to account for the wide array of research findings.
Arvustused
This is a fascinating study of the dynamic of public opinion and its relation to individual voter choice. Non-experts will easily follow the main text with more complex confirmatory analyses restricted to appendices * Parliamentary Affairs *
List of Figures ix List of Tables x List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1(9) Social Change and the Future of the Left 10(21) The Decline of Labours Social Base 13(5) Room for Class Politics? 18(2) Increasing Disadvantage and Insecurity? 20(5) Room for Socialism? 25(3) Conclusions 28(1) Appendix 2.1. The Construction of the Measure of Social Group 29(2) The Electoral Success of Thatcherism 31(27) Inflation and Unemployment 35(3) Trade Union Legislation 38(3) Privatization 41(3) Tax Cuts and Government Spending 44(4) Taxes and Spending 1992-1997 48(5) Conclusions 53(1) Appendix 3.1. Supplementary Tables 54(1) Appendix 3.2. Logistic Regression of Credit, Blame, and Vote-Switching 55(3) Margaret Thatchers Nationalism 58(24) Defence 62(2) Devolution for Scotland and Wales 64(4) Europe 68(5) The Referendum Party 73(2) Conclusions 75(3) Appendix 4.1. Supplementary Table 78(1) Appendix 4.2. Changing Ideological Dimensions in the British Electorate 78(4) Old Labour and the Social Democratic Party 82(19) Labours Ideological Appeal in 1983 85(3) The SDP and the Alliance 88(4) The Social Bases of Centre-Left Voters 92(4) Conclusions 96(1) Appendix 5.1. Measuring the Relativie Importance of Issues 97(2) Appendix 5.2. Multivariate Analysis of Social Group, Ideology, and Support for Labour 99(2) Labours Long Road Back 101(21) The Economic Issues 106(4) The Non-Economic Issues 110(3) The Squeeze on the Liberal Democrats 113(7) Conclusions 120(1) Appendix 6.1. Supplementary Tables 121(1) The Changing Social Basis of Party Support 122(25) The Parties Appeal to Different Social Groups 124(4) The Conservatives and Essex Man 128(4) John Majors Conservatives and the Growth of Middle-Class Insecurity 132(2) Labour Support among the Two Lefts, 1979-1983 134(2) Neil Kinnock and the Party Review 136(1) Tony Blair and New Labour 137(2) The Centre Parties 139(2) Conclusions 141(1) Appendix 7.1. Supplementary Tables 142(1) Appendix 7.2. Multivariate Analysis of the Social Basis of Vote, 1979-1997 143(4) Were Traditional Labour Voters Disillusioned with New Labour? 147(9) Conclusions 155(1) Party Policies and Voter Choices 156(11) Appendix. The British Election Surveys, 1979-1997 167(4) Katarina Thomson References 171(8) Index 179
