Response

Abstract

The contributions of Kavanagh and Finlayson highlight how the various inputs to Blairism make it a difficult ‘ideology’ to define. Helpfully, both authors demonstrate two points essential to any understanding of the complex relationship between Blair and social democracy. First, Blairism was concerned with making the Labour Party a natural party of government, rather than an ideologically obsessed glorified debating society. Pragmatism and electoralism were thus the two ‘isms’ that mattered most, designed to overcome Labour’s historically justified fear of failure at the polls. Second, Blairism was a response to the perceived failings of social democracy — too statist, too concerned with the division of goods rather than their creation and insufficiently pro-market.