Blairisum and Blairites

Blairisum
In British politics, the term Blairism refers to the political ideology of former leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister Tony Blair. It entered the New Penguin English Dictionary in 2000. Proponents of Blairism are referred to as Blairites. Politically, Blair has been identified with record investment into public services, an interventionist and Atlanticist foreign policy, support for stronger law enforcement powers, a large focus on surveillance as a means to address terrorism and a large focus on education as a means to encourage social mobility. In the early years (circa 1994–1997), Blairism was also associated with support for European integration and particularly British participation in the European single currency, though this waned after Labour took office.

New Labour developed and subscribed to the "Third Way", a centrist platform designed to offer an alternative to both complete capitalism and absolute socialism. The ideology was developed to make the party progressive and attract voters from across the political spectrum. New Labour offered a middle way between the neo-liberal free market economics of the New Right, which it saw as economically efficient, and the ethical reformism of post-1945 Labour, which shared New Labour's concern for social justice. New Labour's ideology departed with its traditional beliefs in achieving social justice on behalf of the working class through mass collectivism; Blair was influenced by ethical and Christian forms of socialism and used these to cast a modern form of socialism.


 * Core ideas include-
 * 1) New Labour tended to emphasis social justice, rather than social equality.
 * 2) The equal worth of citizens,
 * 3) The equal rights to be able to meet their basic needs,
 * 4) The requirement to spread opportunities as much as possible,
 * 5) To end unjustified inequalities.
 * 6) The Croydon Tramlink.
 * 7) The Scottish Asembaly
 * 8) To give citizens equal political and economic liberty and also as the need for social citizenship.
 * 9) Supporting the poor, needy and minority groups.
 * 10) The equal distribution of opportunity, with the caveat that things should not be taken from successful people to give to the unsuccessful.
 * 11) New Labour accepted the economic efficiency of free markets and believed that they could be detached from capitalism to achieve the aims of socialism, while maintaining the efficiency of capitalism as a "dynamic market economy".
 * 12) Markets were also useful for giving minor-corporate power to consumers and allowing citizens to make their own fiscal decisions and act responsibly.
 * 13) The party did not believe that public ownership was efficient or desirable and opposed centralised public ownership was important to the party.
 * 14) The public-private partnerships and private finance initiatives.
 * 15) Welfare reforms like the Working Families Tax Credit, the National Childcare Strategy, New Deal (I was on it in 2001) and the National Minimum Wage.
 * 16) Morefree market economic growth.
 * 17) Parts of New Labour's political philosophy linked crime with social exclusion and pursued policies to encourage partnerships between social and police authorities to lower crime rates. Other areas of New Labour's policy maintained a traditional approach to crime; the prison population in 2005 rose to over 76,000, mostly owing to the increasing length of sentences.
 * 18) Following the September 11 attacks, the Labour government attempted to emphasis counter-terrorism measures. From 2002, the government followed policies aimed at reducing anti-social behavior; in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, Labour introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).
 * 19) The heavy use of "Spin doctors", especially over the 1998-2002 Millennium Dome construction experiences and usage fiasco.