Introduction

Crosland’s radical ‘cast of mind’ would recommend a revisionist social democratic strategy for twenty-first century Britain. The starting-point of revisionism is to comprehensively assess New Labour’s legacy, just as The Future of Socialism was informed by rigorous and granular analysis of Attlee’s achievements. While Attlee’s ministers presided over a war-torn economy on the verge of bankruptcy, the situation confronting New Labour was seemingly propitious. Throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, the UK economy was stable with growth aided by the boom in financial services. Buoyant tax receipts flowing into the Exchequer ensured a record public sector surplus, enabling redistribution and public investment without antagonising the middle classes. As Crosland envisaged, growth made it possible to increase discretionary consumption and living standards across the income distribution, while delivering additional funding to public services. After the structural aftershocks of the 1970s and 1980s, a model of capitalism emerged in the western economies: higher growth meant governments no longer had to choose between ‘private affluence’ and ‘public squalor’. This mood of relative affluence suited New Labour’s electoral strategy which was centred on a shift towards, as well as a reconstruction of, the centre ground appealing to the median voter as well as the party’s traditional working-class supporters.

The Conservatives, for so long the natural governing party in British politics, were in disarray having lost three consecutive elections for the first time in modern political history. Thirteen out of 15 countries in Western Europe were governed by social democratic parties, heralding a new era in which the centre-left dominated the electoral scene.