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The moderator's opening remarks Mar 30th 2010 | Andrew Miller
It is increasingly hard to remember just how euphoric much of Britain felt when Tony Blair became prime minister in May 1997. New Labour, the flexible centrist中间派议员 movement into which he, Gordon Brown and their allies had transformed the old Labour Party, had won power with a landslide.这个词好 The sun shone; the Conservatives were routed; "Things can only get better", proclaimed the New Labour election anthem.赞美诗（这个词居然忘了） That was then. Now New Labour, under Mr Brown's leadership, looks likely—despite a recent narrowing of the Tory保守分子 opinion-poll
民意调查lead—to lose power at the general election that is expected this May. Its problem isn't only that Mr Brown is much less popular than Mr Blair once was. Mr Brown boasted of abolishing economic "boom and bust"; but he didn't, and Britain is now limping out of a long and deep recession. New Labour promised to be a prudent guardian of the public finances; yet it has accumulated a record peacetime deficit赤字. That is not to mention the controversial war in Iraq, or the facts that 5m Britons still subsist on welfare benefits and that large numbers of children, born during New Labour's time in office, leave primary school unable to read and write properly. Arguing our motion, David Willetts, the Conservative shadow minister for universities and skills (nicknamed "two brains" for his intellectual prowess), writes that Mr Blair "was like a very talented footballer who spends the match dribbling the ball rather flashily around the front of goal but rarely scores". He grounds his criticism of New Labour in its (mis)management of the economy. He makes some unflattering comparisons between the ways in which Britain and other countries have coped with their recessions. He points out the folly of leaving the British economy as dependent on financial services as it became—and the naivety of chucking money at the public services without commensurate reform. Yet New Labour has survived in office for 13 years, winning three general elections and outliving the other governments of the centre-left that were once its peers. It is misleading to suggest that it hasn't managed some big and enduring achievements in that time. Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian费遍主义，拖延时间 Society—and one of the most interesting and original thinkers on the left of British politics—justifies the party's record in three main ways. Britain he argues, is a fairer country than it was in 1997. The government's redistributive measures have made the country less unequal than it would otherwise have been; some of its anti-poverty measures have worked—which matters if you are among the poor. Second, Mr Katwala argues, Britain is now a nicer and more pleasant country to live in. He cites, among other things, the introduction of civil partnerships and peace in Northern Ireland. Lastly, Mr Katwala points out (with some justification) that many of New Labour's policies have proved so successful, politically or otherwise, that they have been adopted by Mr Willetts's own party. He mentions the minimum wage, which the Tories once opposed, and their commitment to protecting the National Health Service, about which they once seemed much less enthusiastic. What have these two intellectual titans left out? Is it wrong to judge New Labour by a recession that was at least exacerbated by the global financial crisis? Or, on the contrary, does the recession prove that New Labour's apparent successes were only possible in a benign economic climate? Rather than saying that it failed, might it be fairer to say that New Labour was the right solution to the problems of 1990s Britain, but that the country needs a different one today? Over to you. | 
楼主: lvruochen
发表于 2010-5-4 18:10:31
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