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CJ
Chaminda Jayanetti
@cjayanetti.bsky.social
Freelance journalist covering politics and public services, these days mainly for the Observer, Big Issue and Politics Home. Not a tribalist. What was over there, is over here.
5.4k followers411 following1.2k posts
CJcjayanetti.bsky.social

The Tories' ideological cult of Thatcherism, combined with a strategic need to oppose New Labour from the Right, meant the Tories either didn't realise or outright ignored that Blair and Brown sought to pursue their aims within a broadly Thatcherite economic model.

The Blair-Brown governments weren’t “Thatcherite,” but they did work within Thatcher’s overall economic settlement — the aim was to secure the best public services and maximum redistribution as could coexist with the underlying economic principles that Thatcher put in place. Funding for public services increased, but without Old Labour’s “soaking” of the rich. Those public services were often run under the principles of New Public Management, with an emphasis on efficiency, competition and private-sector partnerships. The benefit system was expanded, but mainly in ways that fitted within a “work-first” approach to welfare — in-work benefits were rolled out, but the unemployed were subjected to harsher conditions than before.
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Llukeaguest.bsky.social

Churchill's and Thatcher's legacy was the single market and the EU, the nazi tories have SHIT all over that legacy.

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Ttootlefish.bsky.social

The Tories not recognising the Thatcherite economic model continuity. Do you think they saw this - and it was a deliberate attempt to create a "wedge narrative" ; or Fanboy behavior where Thatcher was their favourite band and they couldn't comprehend/accept New Labour quietly owned a few singles?

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CJcjayanetti.bsky.social

Then there's the 2008 financial crisis. The reasons for the banking crisis went to the heart of Thatcherism - but as it hit under a Labour government, the politics of it played out very differently:

Then came 2008. The banking crisis was one of deregulated finance capitalism. But in Britain, it struck under a left-leaning government — which had let the country’s finance sector run wild to help fund its public spending — meaning the right-leaning Tory opposition reaped the electoral benefits. Instead of confronting what that meant for free-market economics, it was easier for the Conservatives to pretend this was actually a crisis of public spending and welfare dependency — the latter a particular object of voters’ opprobrium.
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CJ
Chaminda Jayanetti
@cjayanetti.bsky.social
Freelance journalist covering politics and public services, these days mainly for the Observer, Big Issue and Politics Home. Not a tribalist. What was over there, is over here.
5.4k followers411 following1.2k posts
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