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New Labour and Equality: A Response to Hickson

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorStephen Meredith
DOI10.1111/j.1467-856x.2007.00272.x
Published date01 February 2007
Date01 February 2007
Subject MatterControversy
New Labour and Equality: A Response to Hickson doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2007.00272.x
B J P I R : 2 0 0 7 V O L 9 , 1 6 9 – 1 7 0
New Labour and Equality: A Response
to Hickson
Stephen Meredith
Firstly, I would like to thank Kevin Hickson for his thoughtful reply to my article
(Hickson 2007) and the important points he makes concerning the general
theme(s) of the paper (Meredith 2006). The general thrust of his response is one
that has been central to arguments over the relative social democratic credo of New
Labour and the degree of continuity between so-called ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Labours—
that is, respective understandings and applications of equality, and particularly the
commitment of the latter to a general standard of equality established by the father
of ‘moderate’ social democracy, Tony Crosland.
However, Hickson abstracts just one of a number of related themes of the original
piece on which to focus his response—namely, the apparently explicit differences in
conceptions of equality of New Labour and Crosland and his ‘unrepentant’ band of
‘traditional social democrats’. He largely ignores the important related points
addressed in the article that the social democratic critique of New Labour under-
plays the revisionist and pragmatic aspects of Crosland’s thinking and the fact that
often, in practice, his approach to equality and the pursuit of social justice was
tempered by his sensitivity to the limits of economic circumstances and the needs
of a dynamic economy. Neither did Crosland come close to believing in equality of
outcome. The disincentive effects of a move to ‘complete equality of wealth’ would
be untenable. He believed that inequalities should be tackled not in a ‘bull-headed’
way, ‘but with circumspection, bearing soft on those which are relevant to growth
and efficiency and hard on those which are not’ (Crosland 1962, 28–29). There is
an argument to suggest that views of Crosland’s conception of equality are mis-
conceived. There is a tendency to think that Crosland and fellow...

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