In this episode, we look at Tony Blair’s New Labour Government. We mainly focus on his first few years of government, drawing on Andrew Rawnsley’s great book about this period: ‘Servants of the People: The Inside Story of New Labour’. I also take some inspiration from the BBC documentary ‘Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution’. The main questions I consider in this episode are what did New Labour achieve and to what extent could it have achieved more in government.

Recommendations:

1. Servants of the People: The Inside Story of New Labour by Andrew Rawnsley
2. Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution BBC iPlayer
3. Labour: The Wilderness Years
4. I can’t fully endorse Tony Blair’s biography as it’s a little bit self-justifying and not reflective enough in my opinion; there’s quite a lot of Tony Blair asserting ‘I did x because I just thought it was the right thing to do’ and not really allowing himself too much deep reflection. No doubt this confidence was part of what made him an effective leader but in an autobiography you hope for a bit more introspection and self-awareness. With all that said, if you want to understand the psychology of Blair, this is a good one to read (with a critical eye).