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still uttered the word socialism; and whose conferences were unpredictable assemblies capable of thwarting the will of its leaders, or wishing on them highly unwelcome policies. Fortunately for Blair, it was a party so demoralized by fifteen years of Tory rule that it could be taken in hand without much resistance. Within no time, Clause Four was abolished, talk of socialism vanished, class war became an iniquity of the other party, and conferences obedient acclamations of the leader. There was nothing wrong with capitalism: it just needed socially responsible rulers to ensure it benefited everyone. Thatcher had done the country a great deal of good, and far from reversing her achievements—legislation to prevent abuse of union power, privatization of inefficient public industries and services, lowering of corporate taxation, emancipation of finance—New Labour governments would now preserve and, where necessary, extend them: handing independence of action to the central bank, contracti...

UKANIA PERPETUA? Some six decades —three generations—ago, this journal developed a set of arguments about British state and society that were distinctive, and controversial at the time, as they have remained since.footnote1 What bearing, if any, do they have on the present conjuncture, generally—if not incontestably—described as a turning-point in the history of the country? To get a sense of the question, it may be of use to resume briefly the original theses sketched in nlr in the early sixties and their sequels. Their novelty lay in both their substantive claims, on which debate has principally focused, and their formal concerns, which set them apart from ways of thinking about the United Kingdom current on the left, and beyond, in those years. Four features in the journal’s approach to the country were new. It aimed at a (naturally, schematic) totalization of its object, that is, a characterization of all the principal structures and agents in the field, rather than exploration of ...