This note discusses how rights and responsibilities may be balanced in the context of the three themes which have been central to New Labour’s approach to date.

The idea of a ‘Third Way’ which encompasses and reconciles policies and approaches previously regarded as antagonistic (Blair, 1998). In the case of welfare this involves a recognition that there is a need for both a broader redistribution of income and for policies which are focused upon and demand more of the long-term poor. The work of Robert Walker, John Hills and others on ‘the dynamics of poverty’ has fundamentally changed our understanding of the nature of poverty and deprivation. Their analysis of longitudinal data has demonstrated that it is not a problem of poverty but of different forms of poverties which have different causes and require different policies. In particular they have identified the trajectories through which people move in and out of poverty and the events and personal characteristics which make them more likely to experience poverty (Hills, 1998; Walker and Park, 1998). Tackling these will require a greater honesty and candour about the role of behaviour in social pathology than was shown in academic and political debates for much of the post-war years. At the same time it is important to heed Philip Selznick’s warning of the dangers of a ‘selective concern’ with ‘personal virtues, personal morality’ and consequent neglect of communal responsibilities. As he emphasises, “personal responsibility is most likely to flourish when there is genuine opportunity to participate in communal life. These conditions require substantial investment by the community and its institutions” (Selznick, 1998, p 62).

The idea of social exclusion as a dynamic process. The recognition that poverty is not a static condition and that the poor are not homogeneous does not in itself resolve arguments over causation. It would be only something of a caricature to distinguish between an ‘Old Labour’ view of the poor as excluded by external structures and processes and a New Right view of the poor as excluded by their behaviour and culture. Effective policies cannot be based upon either of these simple models.