New Labour, where art thou?

It seems like not that long ago that Blair’s New Labour cemented its postion as the new elite force in British politics. Now serious journalists are suggesting that whilst it is too soon to pronounce the project as dead, it is on the way out. Further, it seems intent on auto-administering a lethal injection

Since I have started teaching the AS course this year I have become increasingly convinced that the move from three modules to two has been a good one. Now we have only four topics to teach this term in order to prepare for a January module.

I have found that I have now got the luxury of delving into areas of politics that I haven’t spent much time on since curriculum 2000’s inception. I have the started course by looking at political parties. Figures (i.e. the number of candidates who have answered questions on this topic in the AS exams, and feedback from students) suggest that this is the least popular of the people and participation topics. This is a shame since parties are the lifeblood of democracy and the tapestry which weaves through the whole political fabric. Moreover, students taking Politics should be presented by the challenge of something more than another A level; it is the chance to gain a deeper understanding of the system of governance they live under as citizens and potential young voters.

So over the past week or so I have given students a tour of British politics since 1945, encompassing the post war consensus, the Thatcher decade, Blair’s so called third way, and the modernisation of the Tories under Cameron.

The penultimate part of that list relates to the last major period of change in UK politics (love him or loathe him, Blair has to be credited as the person who did more than anyone in forging the new consensus). And I wonder how many students embarking on their Politics studies are aware that New Labour is being read its last rights at this very moment. (I should also note here for teachers’ sakes that New Labour therefore bookends the curriculum 2000 syllabus, if that’s the case.)

Anyway, I am writing this in haste and the principal point of this posting is to draw your attention to the rather excellent piece in today’s Economist on the life and death of New Labour. I don’t agree with everything it says – it underrates, for instance, the damage caused by Iraq to the morale of the party/the trust of the electorate – but I guarantee that we will spend a good 30 minutes discussing it in next week’s Media Monday/Tuesday session.