The British Labor Party and the Social Democrats

One would have thought that the Thatcher government would provoke a much needed renewal of the Labour party. Thatcherism has involved an explicit repudiation of the whole framework of postwar consensus politics, and has defined the policies of both the previous Labour and the Conservative governments as “creeping socialism.” What was in fact the period of the highest living standards in Britain’s history, and of the greatest advances in public services and social rights, has...