New Labour and the continuation of Thatcherite policy

The aim of this paper is to analyse the extent to which new Labour, on entering office in 1997, continued the policies put in place by previous Thatcherite governments. In economic policy, significant coherence is evident between the Thatcherite and new Labour approaches but this is less so within the welfare sphere, where subtle yet evident social democratic shifts returned the party back to the left of the political spectrum. Whilst largely in agreement with Martin Smith that the third way appeared to offer numerous faces, the analogy of „hydraheaded‟ seems to have negative connotations. Instead, due to the belief that the party did not have malicious intentions or the aim to mislead, it is advocated that what the third way offered, was a “chameleonic approach”.