WE ARE ALL THATCHERITES NOW (via Daniel Merriman):

It's the Third Way, Old Chap: The similiarities and differences between American and British politics. (MICHAEL BARONE, May 14, 2005 , Opinion Journal)

"There is no alternative," Margaret Thatcher proclaimed in the 1980s to critics of her policies. British politics for the last 25 years has been a struggle by the parties to define themselves as the only plausible alternative and to define their opponents as unacceptable. The Conservatives under Mrs. Thatcher were able to do that in the 1980s. The Labour Party under Tony Blair was able to do that in the 1990s and up through the election last Thursday. Only in 1992 was there a genuinely close election between the two major parties, the first since Mrs. Thatcher was first elected in 1979.

In American politics, in contrast, neither side has been able to define the other as unacceptable to a majority of voters, going back at least to the 1984 election, and arguably back to 1964. Democrats and Republicans have had shifting percentages of the vote, but have been competitive.

What does the British election (and British politics) tell us about American politics?

• It suggests that Third Way politics is, after a while, fissiparous. It is an unstable chemical compound which, when it sticks together, is very powerful, but which tends to fall apart. And when it does, the center-left party becomes simply left.

Mr. Blair accepted Thatcherism, promised restraint in growth of government and reform of services, and backed a robust foreign policy. He created genuine enthusiasm from 1994 to 1997: Spin worked. But services remain ragged. Education and crime have not been solved, and New Labour's authoritarianism has sparked some protest. The robust foreign policy was fine with the left when Mr. Blair worked with Bill Clinton but not when he worked with George Bush. The rise in government spending, payrolls and deficits has not caused trouble yet, since the economy has remained sound. But it could provide an opening if the economy turns sour.

• It suggests that a right party that wants to be a center-right party needs to combine economic and cultural conservatives. The problem in Britain is that there aren't very many cultural conservatives except on issues like immigration and crime--which can easily get a party labeled racist. There is no equivalent of the American religious right: Tony Blair is the Christian leader of a pagan country. [...]

We had our own Third Way with Mr. Clinton. Trust in him and his project frayed too. Unlike Mr. Blair, he let his domestic policy be shaped by the Republican opposition...

In other words, the Third Way was taken over by the GOP, a process greatly accelerated under George W. Bush.

MORE:
How far will they go? (Leader, May 14, 2005, The Guardian)

The third Labour term opens with the biggest changes to the National Health Service since its foundation in 1948 set in place and ready to roll. Even the best-informed insiders concede they cannot predict what will happen. Almost all acknowledge that the NHS - described by one American health commentator as the finest piece of social legislation since Magna Carta - is entering a period of instability. No one knows how six separate major changes will interact with each other: the right of patients to select the hospital of their choice; payment following the patient to the hospital of their choice; the expansion of foundation hospitals from the current 31 to all 300-plus trusts; the introduction of the world's biggest civilian IT programme (£6bn) linking all parts of the NHS and its 60 million patients; the promotion of GP commissioning, which should result in less hospital work through more routine surgery by GPs; and wider use of private-sector hospitals for NHS work. Not one of these six changes - let alone all six - received even a fraction of the coverage that MRSA was given in the recent election thanks to the diversion created by the Conservative campaign.

Yesterday, to coincide with the first speech by Patricia Hewitt as health secretary, the department chose to emphasise just one of the six big changes: a new five-year £3bn contract with the private sector to carry out 1.7m extra operations. It was meant to signal that New Labour was still pursuing radical reforms.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 14, 2005 11:38 AM