Principles and Politics in Contemporary Britain

This is an important and innovative new text on British politics since 1970. It is designed to show in concrete terms the importance of political ideas in politics and policy-making and to demonstrate the extent to which pragmatic considerations preclude the imposition of rigid idealogical programmes. The book charts the decline of "consensus", the Conservative Party's embracing of "Thatcherism" and the drawn out struggle between socialism and social democracy in left of centre politics and the growing emergence of single issue politics such as environmentalism, feminism. The book concludes with an analysis of the Thatcherite legacy and the emergence of the "New Labour" of Tony Blair.