Strategic Choices in the Study of New Labour: A Response to Replies from Hay and Wickham-Jones
| Author | David Coates |
| Published date | 01 October 2002 |
| Date | 01 October 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-856X.00090 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Vol. 4, No. 3, October 2002, pp. 479–486
Strategic choices in the study of
New Labour: a response to replies from
Hay and Wickham-Jones
DAVID COATES
The value of academic exchanges of the kind in which we now engaged
are always difficult to judge. There is always the danger that the minutiae
of the differences being explored will prove to be of interest only to
the immediate participants, such that their pursuit in a string of related
articles will eventually decline into an exercise in self-indulgence. I cer-
tainly hope that this is not the case here. I hope that both the content
(and the tone) of the present exchange serve more general purposes and are
of more general interest and value. That was certainly the intention tucked
away in the design of the first article (Coates 2001): that we could clarify
general and strategically significant alternative ways of analysing Labour
Party and Labour government performance, by comparing and contrasting
three individual approaches which were representative of (and indeed, in the
case of both Mark Wickham-Jones and Colin Hay’s work at least, the finest
available examples of) different forms of radical scholarship. In response to
the opening article, both Hay and Wickham-Jones have quite naturally
focused their comments on the adequacy of the description and evaluation
of their positions in the original article. What I would like to do here, rather
than go point by point through a further round of rebuttal and counter-
rebuttal (which I am sure I would lose!), is use their responses as a vehicle
© Political Studies Association 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and
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479
David Coates
through which to reflect again on the choices we all face in the development
of a radical understanding of the Labour Party.
En route to that, however, it is only proper to make some general
remarks in response to what both Hay and Wickham-Jones have said
about the treatment of their arguments in the original article. As must now
be clear, and was always likely to be the case, they are both much better
at capturing the detail and nuance of their arguments than I was in the
constrained space of the original piece and I apologise unreservedly for
any distortions that crept in. Having read both replies, I now do have a
clearer sense of the underlying frameworks of their thought than was the
case when drafting the first article; and I hope other readers will also have
that clearer sense. That is important, because in their reflections on the
degree to which I misunderstood or misrepresented their arguments they
have helped to clarify some important general features of the choices that
all analysts of New Labour now face.
Hay’s response makes at least three telling amendments to my specifi-
cation of his views.
•
First, he reminds us that it is wise to problematise the relationship
between policy made by the Party in opposition and its performance in
government. He is keen to point to the dangers of deriving judgements
about a party’s conduct in office by extrapolating from its behaviour in
opposition. Those of us arguing for a persistent conservatism in Labour
politics tend to glide seamlessly between the two stages of the Labour
experience, thereby missing what he terms ‘the moving target’. In fact,
intriguingly, Hay insists on separating opposition and government,
while simultaneously suggesting that perhaps it is the preference-
shaping capacities of the period of opposition that are crucial to the
subsequent capacity of Labour in power to set a new course.
•
He is also insistent that we problematise the concept of...
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