Word: socialism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...results of the European parliamentary elections, held across the European Union's 27 member states last week, can be seen as a continent-wide rejection of the center left and an embrace of the center right - with some far-right candidates doing well, too. Socialist and social democratic parties were badly beaten, despite the global economic crisis and misgivings in Europe about unbridled capitalism. "Voters do not want socialism, they want a market system that works," reckoned Corien Wortmann-Kool, who was re-elected for the Dutch center-right CDA party...
...just about the danger of electoral wipeout, although that possibility is very real. The center-left consensus that has shaped Britain since Labour swept to power under Blair in 1997 is disintegrating, and the New Labour project that created it - the potent mix of idealism and pragmatism, of social-democratic aspirations and fiscal conservatism, of commitment to equality and opportunity - needs a radical overhaul. The big question: Can Labour recast itself, delineate a new identity and purpose? Or is this party, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, definitely deceased? (Read "European Elections: A Blow to Brown, Boost...
...Conservative predecessors. Even after that date, as Labour's Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Finance Minister - the office that best suited Brown - he held to his "golden rule," borrowing only to invest, and resisted raising the tax rate paid by top earners to fund Labour's social-justice and equality initiatives...
...even as the downturn forced Labour to dump its tarnished rule to start spending like Paris Hilton on a shopping spree, it revealed weaknesses in Labour's orthodoxy about wealth creation as the means to social justice. After years of boom, the gap between rich and poor in Britain has actually widened, while higher earners face swingeing future taxes to plug a widening deficit. And some of the things Brown does not do so well are the things that have made him vulnerable to leadership challenges. A serious man, a well-meaning man, he's a hopeless communicator...
...electorate will reform it by throwing it out," he says, adding: "Barring an event like the Falklands War which helped save [Margaret] Thatcher, Labour is on a trajectory to a deep loss that could mean not just the disintegration of the Labour party but the end of strong social-democratic politics in Britain...