The TV home property show has been very much "on message" for the New Labour zeitgeist. Meanwhile, gangs of executives from the likes of the Regional Developments Agencies, as well as some major urban local authorities, have headed south (literally) to international property shows of the kind held annually in Cannes.
However, many urban areas in Britain now have a glut of empty property, mainly 1 and 2 bedroom flats built for the, anticipated, swell in numbers of young professionals in well-paid work. The real growth has actually been in multi-occupancy households, many on very low incomes : the amount of low-paid work is certainly growing.
Indeed, the growing gulf between the fantasy world of so-called evidenced-based policy-makers, many of whom would deny the evidence of their own eyes if spurious statistics dictated this, and actual reality, is, I maintain, one of the key manifestations of the New Labour Project. This is precidely why its deconstruction is essential.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Friday 7 March 2008
The Ideology of New Labour
The politics of today's Britain are said to be non-ideological, but is this true ? The argument here is that there is a great deal of ideology at work in Britain's New Labour Government and an important aim is to deconstruct this by examining a number of policy areas, given below in no particular order, including :
- Culture, Media & Sport
- Foreign Policy Interventions
- Domestic Consumption
- Housing & Planning
- Children & Families
- Health & Disability
- Role of Education
- Employment & Immigration
- Social Wellbeing & Cohesion
A key question in this examination is whether New Labour's policies for economic growth are socially sustainable, particularly in the medium and longer terms. There will also be a strong focus on the role of the Media, especially the BBC, and whether the gravitational pull of issues favoured by New Labour has led to under-reporting of other important matters.
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