Quotes About New Labour

Certainly, 'creativity' has been a vital plank of New Labour strategy. It not only hands out money with the enthusiasm of a Medici, but also invites the talented arts world into the very heart of government.

When New Labour came to power, we got a Right-wing Conservative government. I came to realise that voting Labour wasn't in Scotland's interests any more. Any doubt I had about that was cast aside for ever when I saw Gordon Brown cosying up to Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street.

British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.

Politicians.Their first thoughts are always with the loved ones of the British serviceman tragically killed in action. And whether they'll vote New Labour at the next election. There's no need to be cynical, Susan. Why not? You've got me there.

New Labour was the most short-sighted, self-serving, incompetent, useless, and ineffective government that Britain has ever known.

When I am back in old Blighty, I am surrounded by the old and familiar concerns: New Labour, Europe, the Middle East and the rest. If you live in Britain, you will know what I mean - except you won't, because you will take it for granted that this is what the world is all about.

Politically active people felt more and more disenfranchised, particularly during the ultra-New Labour years.

There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole.

I find the whole Blairish idea more and more repugnant every day. 'New Labour': the term itself is so trashy. Kind of ersatz.

The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

Ironic, isn't it! A group of socialists who had espoused the values of New Labour and who were loudly beating the drum for equality of opportunity and education were ready to pile onto a working-class kid who'd never had one-tenth of the privilege of their own son.

The neoliberal policies implemented first by the Thatcher governments in the 1980s and continued by New Labour and the current coalition have resulted in a privatisation of stress.

New Labour needs to realise that family life and the way we raise our children are private matters.

The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.

New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our natural supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.

Blair's support for the Americans should not be seen as an aberration; on the contrary, it is closely linked to the main contours of New Labour policy. This has been a government that has majored on hyperbole, but in fact, from the outset it was hugely timid and cravenly orthodox.

On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so.

Essentially we need a new social consensus for economic reform as New Labour has achieved in Britain.

I hesitated, too, because for better or worse, I have been one of the principal architects of New Labour and I have worked closely with Tony Blair and the team for nearly 20 years.

It's one of the great mysteries to me how anybody who has ever believed in socialism can conceivably vote for Blair or New Labour, which is further to the right of any Tory government apart from that of John Major, and is taking privatisation into realms unheard-of.

There was such a sense of relief on the left when New Labour came to power that certain orthodoxies could not be challenged. People became desperate to hang on to the ascendancy of left ideas without really questioning what they were about.

I probably owe my political dismay to New Labour, but also my growing sense that the satirical shape of human affairs is international and historical, not glued to the tawdry ambitions of a team of politicians who represent nothing but themselves.

Bluntly, what Labour has stood for in terms of values has been magnificent; its achievements in government huge; but as a political competitor, it has too often been a failure. It has only once been elected for two successive full terms; only once for three; and both as New Labour, a period much of today's party wants to disown.

The New Labour political elite has long conspired to secure a so-called 'smooth transition' for Blair's successor. This would amount to little more than the imposition of a leader on the party and our supporters without any real democratic participation.