New Labours Policies - Essay Example

This research will begin with the statement that New Labour’s policies and principles that have given the party victory in elections for three consecutive terms since 1997 have focused on three crucial areas including the economy, public services including health and education and crime and asylum.  Labour has highlighted its achievements since 1997 focusing on the fact that it has helped to bring down inflation rates to a considerable extent and Britain has now been experiencing a period of sustained economic growth with very low levels of unemployment.

Considering changes in health policies, New labour points out that hospital waiting times and waiting lists of patients are at the lowest level and the NHS now has 19,300 more doctors and over 77,500 more nurses since 1987 and more modern equipment have been provided in these hospitals. Police numbers being at record levels, Labour claims that crime is under control and the Home Office has laid out strict policies to control undue asylum and benefit seeking. Barry and Patterson have discussed New Labour’s role within the framework of globalisation and ecological modernisation and suggested that all environmental policies and reform projects could only be understood within the context of ecological modernisation or EM principles considering the political factors as well.

According to Barry and Patterson, globalisation lies at the centre of any discussion on environmental policy and the study shows New Labour’s use of EM approach is consistent with the aims of globalization.. ith its unique policies on the issue of asylum and social exclusion, education (Ryan, 2005), public health (Davidson et al , 2003) and economic policies (Raco, 2002) as well as public participation in the governmental agenda and decision making. Moss and O'Loughlin (2005) highlight the wide ranging public policy programme initiated by New Labour in areas of information and communications technology.

The political ideology of new Labour seem to be the best explanatory tool for providing insights into New Labour's policy developments. Moss and O'Loughlin provide an ideological explanation of New labour's approach to policy structures and suggests that New Labour's approach to policy development in technology is structured, defined and is also conceptual and epistemological. Thus New labour seem to be responding to the new political ideology of the information age at the level of policy and this is reflected in its positive attitudes to new technology.

The relationship between ideology and policy seem to be clearly related and would require further analysis to understand whether New Labour project is in any way unique and if so whether there is a clearly defined political philosophy followed by New Labour that seems to reflect in its policy implementations. However one important aspect of governance that seems to set apart New Labour and make it different with a definite New Labour project is the party's attempt to connect with citizens at all levels.

As Morsion and Newman (2001) state, the Labour government has been increasingly using technology to connect with citizens and to this aim the UK Online and Citizen's Portal initiative was launched to improve the level of service and improve interaction between government and the citizens. However Morison and Newman claim