Word: labour
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...took command after his predecessor died of a heart attack), but it also comes from calculation. Just as Bill Clinton reinvented himself as a New Democrat to capture the White House in 1992, and then as a reborn centrist to win a second term last year, Blair has retooled Labour so that it sometimes seems like nothing but a more caring version of Toryism. Gone are the old socialist slogans. Gone is the pledge to redistribute income and nationalize industries. Blair calls his party "new Labour." His opponent, Conservative Prime Minister John Major, describes it as "really pretty much...
...thwart what seems inevitable, Major's troops have turned to the same weapon George Bush wielded unsuccessfully against Clinton. Blair, they charge, is merely an opportunist, a leftist in middle-of-the-road campaign clothing. "With Labour taking many of our positions and all of those that are most important," says Tory strategist Andrew Cooper, "fear is all we've got left. We've got to try and cause people to worry that Tony's changes are just for show, to fear his change rather than welcome him as a nonthreatening crypto-Conservative they can comfortably take a risk...
...join a union if a majority vote to do so is neither new nor particularly objectionable. Still, Blair reasoned, simply stating the facts might not do the trick--and he dearly wanted to spike the Tory attack since it struck at the very heart of his hard-won Labour Party reforms...
With the red-rose symbol of new Labour behind him, Blair responded, "If a majority wants to be in a union, they should be allowed to do so, just like in the United States. Even Ronald Reagan was for majority rule. He spoke of workers having a choice, and no one ever suggested that Ronald Reagan was a pig. Ronald Reagan was against the closed shop...
...immediate task--getting elected--Blair has proved conclusively that he knows exactly what's worked for Margaret Thatcher and John Major. He has singlemindedly refashioned Labour to contest for the leadership of modern Britain, and done so largely by grafting the most popular and successful Tory program planks onto Labour's manifesto, which means Labour is fairly seen as a Tory clone. Thatcher's success, especially, made reforming Labour both necessary and possible, and she regularly complains about a "conversion of convenience" while insisting that "imitations are still fake." Newspapers like the Independent rail about new Labour's "miserable, defensive...