The two docudramas chosen for this essay are The Deal (2003) and Einstein and Eddington (2008). The first is a political story of significance to recent domestic and foreign policy in Britain. The latter is an enduring story of two men of science, whose discoveries and theories are central to modern physics and astronomy. Both…
Tag: New Labour
Is Social Policy primarily determined by the needs of the economy?
There is much truth to the statement that social policy is a product of economic imperatives. This is not in the true spirit of social democratic principles espoused in the legislatures, but has nonetheless become inevitable under the heavy influence of private capital (both domestic and international) in the era of neo-liberalism. Britain was for…
Should the UK Tax system be simplified?
A good indication of how complicated the present tax system in the UK is, is learnt from the size of the most authoritative guide to the subject. Tolley’s Yellow Tax Handbook, which is being published every year since 1983 is getting bigger each subsequent year. To give an example, it totalled close to 6,000 pages…
National Health Service (NHS): A study of its Structure, Funding and Regulation, Strengths and Weaknesses
The National Health Service, which is a government run public health care enterprise, is an important institution in Britain. Both the Tory party and the New Labour Party have competed to claim the NHS as their own and no election campaign in Britain is without numerous references to the benefits offered by the NHS. While…
What is distinctive about New Labour’s view of the welfare state and what has been its impact?
When the New Labour government rose to power in 1997, it was expected of it to engineer a more egalitarian society. A British society where the elderly will not be abandoned, the poor not neglected, etc. Now into its third term in power, the party’s promises to the underprivileged sections of society remains largely unfulfilled. …
How and why has “Financial Support for Parents” changed over the last 25 years
The notion of financial support for parents has undergone notable changes over the period of the last twenty five years. The era of Conservative hegemony, which started in February of 1975 with the election of Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Tory party, gave rise to the implementation of a political philosophy that strongly believed…