Labour Research March 2007

Reviews

After Blair

Politics after the New Labour decade

Gerry Hassan, ed, Lawrence & Wishart, 224 pages, paperback, £12.99

This booklet is a collection of 15 essays reflecting on the era of New Labour and Blairism from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.

The book asks important questions about what the future holds for the Labour Party, the reasons for the shift from old to new Labour, and the state of public sector reform.

Contributors also reflect on the Blair/New Labour legacy by looking at it in the context of Thatcherism and its aftermath as well as drawing comparisons with previous Labour governments.

They also examine the ideas that have been behind the main developments of this period and then look further afield at the key global social, economic and politic events, such as 9/11, the subsequent global war on terror and globalisation that have defined this government.