Liberalism rediscovered

Should Tony Blair be seen as a mere consolidator of the Thatcher revolution, or as a revolutionary in his own right? We asked Samuel Beer—for many years, America’s foremost scholar of British politics—to judge*

Feb 5th 1998|

“DIVISION among radicals almost 100 years ago”, Tony Blair told the Labour Party last year, “resulted in a 20th century dominated by Conservatives. I want the 21st century to be the century of the radicals.” This statement demands careful consideration.

What happened in 1899 was that the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which had been acting as a pressure group in “the interests of labour”, voted to set up a separate political party. At first called the Labour Representation Committee, the new organisation in 1906 took the name Labour Party. Today the leader of the Labour Party is telling us that the founding of the Labour Party was a great mistake and that he looks forward to reversing that fatal deviation.

This article appeared in the Unknown section of the print edition under the headline “Liberalism rediscovered”