"One Thousand Days of Degradation": New Labour and Old Compromises at the Turn of the Century [1]

Abstract

We haven't opposed a criminal justice measure since 1988 (Jack Straw, January 1997, cited in Anderson and Mann, 1997: 269). I would trust Jack Straw's judgment. He is a very fair man (Margaret Thatcher, cited in The Guardian, January 12, 2000). ON JANUARY 26, 2000, THE LABOUR PARTY COMPLETED 1,000 DAYS IN government. In a century dominated by Conservatives, who between 1905 and 1997 were out of a mere 29 years (Seldon, 1996: 17), Tony Blair looked forward to next general election and a second successive five-year term as prime minister. For Labour, this was a feat that was unprecedented in its political history. In a mirror image of Tories' years in government, Labour had held for only 22 years in its century of existence. Central to party's popular legitimacy and consolidation, according to Blair and Home Secretary Jack Straw, was its new, realism concerning crime, punishment, economy, social welfare, health, and every other government responsibility. In keeping with its leader's evangelical spirit, party's spiritual baptism in soothing waters of third way had transformed nonbelievers of old Labour into born-again, free-market zealots of New Labour (NL). In process, party had s hifted politically from being an unelectable pariah to a force in which voters of Middle England could place their trust to deliver a promised land built on prudent accumulation, thrift, and prosperity free from ravages of degenerate, deprived, and depraved. Tough on crime, tough on causes of had become incessant mantra that was chanted in build-up to 1997 election. By time of election and in febrile context of a rise in rate of reported crime, criminal justice mismanagement and inefficiency, and Tory political and moral sleaze, NL was claiming in its manifesto that it was the party of law and order in Britain today (The Labour Party, 1997:23). In next three years manifesto's comment was to prove prophetic. This article explores a number of themes in relation to NL's law-and-order strategy. First, it sets this strategy in context of two decades of near-Conservative hegemony and impact and legacy of that hegemony on government's conceptualization of crime and punishment. Second, it explores extraordinary events that occurred in first months of new millennium. These events -- from refusal to extradite Augusto Pinochet to Spain to face charges arising from 1973 coup in Chile to 22 life sentences imposed on an armed robber whose collective haul amounted to [pound]1,500 -- provide a penetrating case study of who are the proper objects of power (Fiske, 1993: 235) in NL's globalized world. Finally, conclusion critically analyzes New Labour's commitment to human rights through incorporation of European Convention on Human Rights into U.K. law. Although this development is to be welcomed, our article argues that government's narrow, legalistic conception of human rights could lead to obfuscation and marginalization of material social processes that are central to delivery of democratic accountability and social justice in a society where the richest 10 per of population own 65 per of marketable wealth, excluding dwellings, while half population between them have only 6 per cent (Jones and Novak, 1999: 19). The Roots of New Labour's Law and Order Strategy [2] The Conservative Legacy The period of Conservative hegemony that began in February 1975 with election of Margaret Thatcher as Tory leader ushered in an epoch of iron times built on corrosive discipline of authoritarian populism (Hall, 1988a). There are four important points to note about often searing law-and-order strategy pursued by Conservatives between their first election victory in May 1979 and their crushing defeat (at least with respect to number of Parliamentary seats they lost) in May 1997. …