Neo-Critical Geography, Or, The Flat Pluralist World of Business Class
When Tony Blair was re-elected in 2001, he promised to continue the moral crusade of ‘‘New Labour’’ as a force for political and moral regeneration in Britain and the world. Workers, women, immigrants, Asian and Caribbean Britons, many in the middle class, all caught the wave. The nightmare of Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberal revolution of the 1980s was still visceral in many people’s minds, and a sweeping majority still thought Blair the best of a motley crew. It was becoming increasingly clear, however, to a wide swath of people including disaffected members of his own party and eventually cabinet, that Blair was not the answer to Thatcher but was in many ways continuing her neo-liberal policies. Not only did he not roll back Thatcher’s travesties but he sought to complete various ambitions of the Thatcher government in a way that neither the Iron Lady nor her successor John Major could ever have hoped for. Blair’s second term in office consummated many of these goals, further shambolizing a Thatcherized National Health Care system and initiating university privatisation with student fees.
[Image: "IMG_5801" by benmatthewreyes]