New Labour?

Tony Blair has been credited with the emergence of ‘New Labour’ from ‘Old Labour’ when he was elected party leader in 1994 after the unexpected death of John Smith. Blair was determined to improve the image of the Labour party, and remove its associations with aged rigidity, and transform Labour into a ‘young, modern party of the future for all voters’.

Although Blair has been credited for this transformation his reforms were simply a continuation of the small changes that were made under Neil Kinnock and John Smith’s leadership. Who had both begun to radically alter the shape and structure of the party. The main reason for the changes implemented by Blair was that the party members realised that if Labour were to win the 1997 general election then drastic changes needed to take place. When Blair came into leadership the Conservatives were in a weak position with a weak leader in John Major, a huge change from Thatcher’s strong leadership of the 80’s. Blair manipulated this and portrayed Labour as the better option.

1996 saw the ‘New Labour, new life for Britain’ guidelines introduced, setting out the necessary changes that were to be made to the Labour party

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1704
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)