Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T13:21:19.186Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The Labour party and Keynes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2009

Richard Toye
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History Exeter University
E. H. H. Green
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford
D. M. Tanner
Affiliation:
University of Wales, Bangor
Get access

Summary

In September 1994, during the early months of the phenomenon known as ‘New Labour’, The Independent carried the headline ‘Blair ditches Keynes’. It was reported that Labour leaders would tell a conference of businessmen and academics ‘that the party has turned its back on Keynesian economics and “the old ways of corporatism”’. In fact, Blair used his speech to insist that Keynes's legacy of demand management had never implied increasing demand ‘irrespective of economic circumstances and even at a time of inflation and high borrowing’. Real Keynesianism, in his view, represented a wider critique of the functioning of capitalism – not a call for permanent government pump-priming. Likewise, Gordon Brown stated on the same occasion that ‘I am not here to bury the real Keynes but to praise him’. This is an approach that New Labour followed in government. Blair continued to cite Keynes as an example of the beneficial influence of Liberalism on the Labour party. Brown, as Chancellor, asserted that although New Labour rejected ‘crude “Keynesianism”’, the government sought ‘to draw on the best of Keynes’ insights about political economy and put a modern Keynesian approach into practice'.

Blair and Brown's approach represents an attempt, whether conscious or otherwise, to employ Peter Clarke's useful distinction between ‘Keynesianism’ and ‘the historical Keynes’. In their opinion, the views of the ‘real’ (or ‘historical’) Keynes were misinterpreted by the economists and politicians who came after him.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Strange Survival of Liberal England
Political Leaders, Moral Values and the Reception of Economic Debate
, pp. 153 - 185
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×