Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
I agree with you, lucy. New Labour owes more to Maggie Thatcher than to Ramsay MacDonald or Clement Atlee. It might not have forsaken young nymphomanics, but it has lost its socialist principles!

There is a current trend among two party democracies for both parties to move towards the centre. Oppositions tend to co opt incumbents policies, eventually bringing both parties full circle with very similar positions on a lot of things.

It happened in Australia last year, with a labour government being elected on a platform almost identical to that that the liberals (who are the conservatives here, i know that is confusing, esp for Americans) had run on four years earlier, the major differences being symbolic gestures rather than hard policy.

From what i observe of British politics, the conservatives are co opting a lot of new labour's social and environmental policies.

And even in America Obama has made a point of matching the republicans on points such as national security. The republicans, on the other hand, are throwing state money at private enterprises.

I'm not saying this is bad - it seems to me to be a case of political parties trying to form the sort of government that people want, which is what democracy is all about. after all. Or maybe just society evolving and learning to work outside rigid political belief systems.

Parties of small government are becoming a thing of the past - because once a party becomes a government it becomes in its own interest to grow.