[A-List] UK: New Labour as unabashed Thatcherism

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Mandelson: we are all Thatcherites now

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Guardian Unlimited

Monday June 10, 2002

Peter Mandelson has re-entered the political fray with a provocative
declaration that "we are all Thatcherites now" in an article in today's
Times.

In a wide-ranging defence of New Labour and a routemap for Europe
centre-left parties, Mr Mandelson calls on social democrats to seize the
ground on controversial issues such as crime and immigration and "not
vacate space to be occupied by the right".

The Hartlepool MP's defence of the "third way" - he mentions the term
six times in his article, after pundits had detected a slight
embarrassment at the phrase in recent years - comes after the
weekend-long policy brainstorming session attended by Bill Clinton; the
prime minister, Tony Blair, the chancellor, Gordon Brown, and others.

Ahead of this week's French parliamentary elections, Mr Mandelson
analyses the failure of Lionel Jospin and declares that: "No serious
challenge on the left exists to third way thinking anywhere in the
world."

However, in his most deliberately contentious passage, Mr Mandelson, who
is a director of the Policy Network, says: "Globalisation punishes hard
any country that tries to run its economy by ignoring the realities of
the market or prudent public finances. In this strictly narrow sense,
and in the urgent need to remove rigidities and incorporate flexibility
in capital, product and labour markets, we are all Thatcherites now."

As a former director of media relations for the Labour party, Mr
Mandelson will be well aware how vehemently many on the Labour
backbenches will disagree with that sentiment.

Within hours of the publication of the article, Labour ministers had
rejected the Thatcherite claim.

Work minister Malcolm Wicks told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'm not
a Thatcherite now. It's not language I would use.

"If he is saying Mrs Thatcher put emphasis on strong economic policy,
then yes, of course we are agreeing to that.

"But remember the Thatcher era. There were three to four million people
unemployed. What we are talking about today is moving back towards full
employment."

The criticism was joined by the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith,
in Washington for a meeting of right-wing political leaders.

He told the BBC: "The third way was ultimately only a process for
getting into power by saying that they weren't old Labour and they
weren't the Conservatives, so somehow they must be all right. In fact,
they haven't delivered. Things have got worse."

Also in the article, Mr Mandelson singles out the failure of the left in
France to deal with "crime and anti-social behaviour and immigration
without integration", and argues that there are similar dilemmas for
social democrats in Italy, Denmark and Norway.

He notes the symptoms as "staleness among incumbant administrations,
weak leadership personalities, failure to project a stronger economic
and social purpose and the lack of courage in seeing through necessary
reforms", although he sees hope in the recent electoral victories for
the left in Hungary and Poland