There Is a Better Way: A New Economic Agenda

In this critical account of New Labour's economic and welfare policies in their first two terms in office, John Grieve Smith suggests that, far from pursuing any radical new agenda, they have been actively consolidating the Thatcherite Revolution. If Labour is to offer a genuine alternative to the Tories, and achieve its long standing objective of a fairer society, radical developments in policy are needed. John Grieve Smith discusses the policies needed to ensure expansion and full employment here and in the rest of the European Union. He examines the whittling away of pensions and other social security benefits, and the growing reliance on means testing, together with the need for higher and more progressive taxation if the quality of health and education services is to be improved.

This lively and controversial book is a timely contribution to the debate of the future of New Labour.

John Grieve Smith is a Cambridge economist with wide experience of government and history. He has worked in the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, as an Under-Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs and then as Director of Planning in the British Steel Corporation. He is a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, and has written and edited a number of books including Business Strategy (Blackwell, 1985) and Full Employment: A Pledge Betrayed (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). He is also a frequent contributor to newspapers and periodicals.