Mr Crosland's Nightmare? New Labour and Equality in Historical Perspective

Abstract

This article has, as its broad context, the question of the ideological location of New Labour. Particularly, it aims for a broad reassessment of the relationship between Croslandite and New Labour conceptions of equality. Critics of the present Labour government suggest that it has clearly abandoned any commitment to Labour's historic ‘central organising principle’. This article argues, somewhat against the grain, that New Labour's approach to equality rests firmly within the tradition of revisionist social democracy established by Anthony Crosland. It argues that such critics simultaneously underplay the revisionist element of Crosland's thinking, the sometimes circumspect nature of Crosland's egalitarianism and the degree to which the (New) Labour government has applied underlying principles of equality to a wider programme of social justice and economic efficiency in dramatically changed circumstances.