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, cosmopolitan modernity. As Griffin’s BNP publicly distanced itself from Tyndall ’s more overt racist framing, it was governed by four key terms that defined its modernisation strategy: Freedom, Democracy, Security and Identity, the last in many ways being the most important. By talking about defending British identity from attack, Griffin reasoned, a discourse around white
8 The meaning of modernisation: New Labour and public sector reform Eric Shaw Introduction If there is a dominant motif in Labour’s approach to the conduct of domestic policy, it is ‘modernisation’ – and its synonym, ‘reform’. No set of institutions were more frequently and in a more thoroughgoing and sustained manner the object of modernisation than the public services.1 ‘The reform of our public services’, John Reid declared, ‘is the crucible in which the future shape of the progressive centre-left politics is being forged’ (Reid 2005). It was, the Prime
9 ‘Modernising’ the system 1951–79 The incoming Conservative Government of 1951 had no developed plans for reforming local government. The Butskillist common ground between the Conservative and the Labour Party encompassed a tacit consensus on the structure and functions of the system as it had developed into a more service-orientated approach since 1945. Underlying this common outlook also ran an undercurrent of modernising zeal that had propelled Jowitt, Willink and, later, Bevan to consider the restructuring of the system into larger units. During the 1950s
7 The slow road to ‘modernisation’ The inter-war years were dominated by a resurgent Conservative Party. Many of its members’ sympathies still lay, as regards local governance, on the Salisbury plain of a dual polity. However, fears that urban government might be captured by socialists and used to further ownership of the means of production compelled Conservatives to reluctantly interfere in local politics. Even Conservatives like Neville Chamberlain who sympathised with New Liberal values of equality of opportunity tempered their support for the larger
This monograph recasts the modernisation of the Labour Party and sheds new light on Labour’s years in the wilderness between 1979 and 1997. The monograph uniquely traces the party’s major organisational changes across its eighteen years of opposition. Labour’s organisational modernisation in this period fundamentally altered the party’s internal structures, policy-making pathways and constitution. The study begins with an investigation into the scene inherited by Labour’s leadership in the early 1980s and examines Neil Kinnock’s quest for a stable majority on the party’s ruling National Executive Committee between 1983 and 1987. From this position the monograph surveys the major organisational changes of the Labour Party in their period of opposition: the Policy Review (1987–92), One Member, One Vote (1992–94), Clause IV (1995–96) and Partnership in Power (1996–97). Through a re-examination of Labour’s modernisation, in the light of new source material and extensive primary interviews, this research significantly contributes to the understanding of the rise of New Labour.
169 5 Postwar modernisation and the stadium, 1945–98 When the Parc des Princes stadium reopened its doors in May 1972, after five years of renovation and reconstruction, it was immediately lauded for its aggressively modern appearance. L’Equipe, the influential daily sports newspaper, praised the ‘superb, imposing, luminous’ Parc as an ‘oval cathedral of grey concrete’ that was ‘pure and clear like the sky of the Ile-de-France’.1 The chief administrator of the city of Paris, Jean Verdier, wrote that the spectator would be awed by the new 50,000-seat
7 The modernisation of German social democracy: towards a third way and back? Hartwig Pautz The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) has undergone a number of revisions since its birth in the nineteenth century. This chapter will explore the latest debate about what the SPD stands for. As a programme party, the debate about long-term objectives, values and ideological principles has been of particular importance to party members, its leaders and the public. Hence the focus of this chapter: it will document and analyse the programmatic discourse of the SPD
expectations are widely understood, Chinese and Indian discontent are much less discussed. To untie this Gordian knot, we argue it is important to understand the role of life sciences in the dual processes of modernisation and globalisation. We examine these themes in the next two sections. This gives insight into a particular subaltern anxiety shared by both countries that simultaneously gives rise to their aspirations and vexations. The discussion in this chapter effectively provides essential historical background which leads to
Between 1850 and 1913, the navy almost quadrupled in size, from 39,000 to 146,000 men. British naval expansion during the late nineteenth century resulted from a variety of developments – diplomatic tensions, naval scares, imperial uncertainties, internal domestic pressures and new technologies – which forced the navy to modernise its ships and to professionalise its men
the people.’ The article went on to list seven different areas in which the Government currently contributed to Hong Kong’s continual modernisation, while reminding its readers that these achievements occurred notwithstanding ‘Hong Kong’s very low tax rate’. 2 Chapter 2 argued that Hong Kong Britishness included a libertarian vision of unconstrained capitalism in