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Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access published online on May 10, 2008
Parliamentary Affairs, doi:10.1093/pa/gsn019
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Rebels: How Blair Mislaid his Majority

Eric Shaw

P. CowleyThe Rebels: How Blair Mislaid his Majority, Politico's, 2005, 317 pp., pb, £9.99. ISBN 1-84275-127-1.

S. DriverAND L. MartellNew Labour, 2nd ed. Polity, 2006, 242 pp, pb., £15.99. ISBN 0-7456-3331-5.

S. KettellDirty Politics: New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq, Zed Books, 2006, 213 pp., pb. £14.99. ISBN 1-84277-741-6.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The historian contemplating the Blair decade may seize upon three expressions which—some might say—define the former Prime Minister's contribution to British political life: ‘New Labour’, ‘control freakery’ and ‘Iraq’—analysed, conveniently, by the three books under review.


   Control Freakery
 
In his account of British policy on Iraq, Kettell draws attention to the ‘all-pervasive strictures of party discipline’. Since most MPs are reliant on currying favour with their party for career advancement, ‘the result is to create mass ranks of MPs who are little more than docile lobby-fodder’ in the hands of the leadership' (Kettell: 17). Cowley expands a little: the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is full of ‘tame, compliant career politicians’, ‘gutless and feeble ... terrified to follow their own consciences ... led by the nose to vote for almost everything put before them ... a flock of tame sheep’ (p. 1). Such, he notes, is the received wisdom, trotted-out regularly by commentators, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   New Labour
 

   Iraq
 

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