As the party that has held power more times than any other, the Conservatives have played a crucial role in the shaping of British society. And yet the leaders who have stood at its helm – from Sir Robert Peel to Rishi Sunak, via Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher – have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success, particularly latterly, when the short but destructive tenures of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss did much to damage the party's reputation for competenc...

The New Labour project was not conjured up out of thin air — it only looks that way because of the party's amnesia about the intellectual roots and political traditions which have guided it. This book provides extracts from fifteen thinkers and politicians located within the revisionist tradition as an antidote to that amnesia. It is an 'all star cast' from R.H. Tawney, Hugh Gaitskell and Anthony Crosland to Roy Hattersley, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. The collection demonstrates that Labo...

A compelling chronicle of the Labour Party’s perpetual internal divisions.The biblical adage that “if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” remains sound theological advice. It is also essential counsel for any political party that aspires to win elections. When a party is riven with division, the public does not know what it stands for. Though both major UK parties have been subject to internal conflict over the years, the Labour Party has be...

Exploring British Politics is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible guide to the subject. Fully updated and revised, the new edition covers developments since 2016 in the role of the executive, parliament, the civil service, political parties, general elections, party ideology, and membership, as well as examining turmoil and leadership battles within the Labour and Conservative parties, the politics of growing inequality, public action and reaction, demographic trends and thei...

This book provides a novel account of the Labour Party’s years in opposition and power since 1979, examining how New Labour fought to reinvent post-war social democracy, reshaping its core political ideas. It charts Labour’s sporadic recovery from political disaster in the 1980s, successfully making the arduous journey from opposition to power with the rise (and ultimately fall) of the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Forty years on from the 1979 debacle, Labour has found itself...

After a period of electoral dominance, centre-left parties in western Europe have suffered a dramatic erosion of support; the vote share enjoyed by social democrats is at its lowest ever level. Social democracy stands at a point of great promise, but also peril.This book explores these themes and argues that to write off centre-left politics now would be a great mistake. It counters the idea that social democratic values have been rejected by voters. The ideal of solidarity and the...

This Palgrave Policy Essential maps and assesses key changes in the Whitehall model over the last two decades. It argues that the traditional Whitehall model is being replaced by a system of ‘New Political Governance’ (NPG) centred on politicised campaigning; the growth of political advisory staff relative to the permanent civil service; the personalisation of bureaucratic appointments; and the creation of a government machine that is ‘promiscuously partisan’. It provides a snapshot of the...

The politics of austerity has seen governments across Europe cut back on welfare provision. As the State retreats, this edited collection explores secular and faith-based grassroots social action in Germany and the United Kingdom that has evolved in response to changing economic policy and expanding needs, from basic items such as food to more complex means to move out of poverty.Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social inte...

Number Ten Downing Street and the Cabinet Office are at the apex of power in British government, but relatively little is known about the day to day functioning of these great institutions of state. With an unprecedented level of access, and wide-ranging interviews from former ministers, senior civil servants and political advisers, Patrick Diamond examines the administrative and political machinery serving the Prime Minister, and considers how it evolved from the early years of New Labour...

Anthony Crosland bequeathed a significant intellectual legacy to the Labour Party including his celebrated treatise The Future of Socialism published sixty years ago. In this timely book, Patrick Diamond argues that Crosland continues to serve as a vital reference point for today’s Labour Party. He considers a wide range of Crosland’s writings on the economy and politics, relating his ideas to ideological debates taking place within the Labour Party about egalitarian social democracy, elec...

What is the relationship between the principles of social justice and global justice? How can we best reconcile the quest for greater social justice ‘at home' with greater social justice in the world? Are the social justice pressures our societies currently face the result of globalisation or are they domestically generated? How can we advance social justice in the light of the new social realities? In this volume, leading international experts offer compelling answers to these questions.

The surprise decision expressed by the British people in the referendum held in June 2016 to leave the European Union was remarkable. It also presents a "natural experiment" where the exposure of a society to an extraordinary event allows scholars to observe, in real time in the real world, the interaction of variables.The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit takes stock of what we know in the social science community about the Brexit phenomenon so far and looks to make sen...