Tony Blair's Approach to Power

Tony Blair's Approach to Power

Since Labour came into power in 1997 Tony Blair has been criticised by

some for being the 'son of Thatcher'. Many say that labour is now

following the values and policies similar to that of a Tory government

and in particular a Tory government lead by Margaret Thatcher.

Before the time of Tony Blair and New Labour, the left wing party

stood firm on one value and that was socialism. More on Labours old

Values and policies

The conservatives on the other hand have very different policies or

not so different as some may argue. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

lead the conservative government from 1979-1990 and she made some very

radical changes that have stuck. After the Thatcher years there was no

turning back, some say that we are all Thatcherites now.

"Across the world governments are almost regardless of party

introducing economic reforms resembling the Thatcherite programme.

This suggests that Thatcherism in Britain was a necessary adjustment

to changing patterns in the world economy."

Thatcher attempted to introduce historically different policies and to

replace the cooperative policy style of British government. The most

important changes Thatcher made were economic and these policies were

three fold. Her first and probably most famous was an attempt to

change the structure of ownership. In the 1980's Thatcher privatised

nearly half of the services, which had previously been publicly owned

in 1979. The Thatcher government thought that doing this would

generate income helping to cut taxes. Although many labour supporters

thought that this would see services such as the railways going down...

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...ic no longer trust Tony Blair and

the labour government Butler is correct when he says; Tony Blair's

decision had 'significant implications'. This is reminisant to when

Margaret Thatcher took Britain to war in the Falklands (1982) because

she consulted no-one in her decision. Although there is one major

difference, the Falklands Island War, or more importantly the victory

of this war boosted Thatcher's popularity rather than suffering a loss

of popularity like Tony Blair.

Another similarity between Blair in Thatcher is there 'special

relationships' with the USA and in particular the USA presidents. Tony

Blair had his first meeting with Bill Clinton in May 1997

One thing that can not be ignored is the recent queen's speech. This

contained one very important and much debated issue that is university

tuition fees.