History as Political Rhetoric

Abstract

In this book as in previous ones,Anthony Giddens underpins a political argument by the use of history.Three central tropes of this history are apparent. First is that globalisation is a new phenomenon, and therefore requires new policy responses. Second is that the Old Left/Old Labour had ideas wholly inadequate to deal with this new situation, and thus New Labour was required.Third, a declinist account of post-war Britain is given, in which Thatcher's policies reversed aspects of economic decline, but did damage in other directions, and therefore needed correction. In this schema, Old Labour represented the first way, Thatcherism the second way and New Labour the Third Way. In this new book, advocacy of the Third Way is essentially continued but, it is argued, it needs 'tweaking' to face the challenges after ten years of New Labour.My contention in this essay is that each of these three 'histories' is at best problematic, at worst wholly misleading.

Author's Response to Reviewers

“…But I was concerned only with that period —; roughly from 1960 to the mid-1980s —; at which the UK was doing rather poorly in relative terms, compared not only to other West European states, but to most other industrial countries as a whole. The ‘wholly factually inaccurate assertion’ (Tomlinson, 2008, p. 303) I make that Britain at that time was underperforming in relative terms is not inaccurate at all. What Tomlinson says about Dundee is interesting, but has no relevance at all to my views on globalisation.…”