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  • I also never want to hear anyone refer to Starmer (or Blair) as 'neoliberal' ever again. We had a taste of genuine neoliberal policy when Liz Truss got in. Starmer might not be going far enough for you, but he is not neoliberal. You couldn't even accurately characterise Hunt/Sunak as neoliberal

    Hmmn..

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#ExplChalTerm

  • I've read that several times - where it describes Liz Truss very well, and Blair / Starmer very badly, is in the phrase 'limited welfare state'. Blair unveiled the most wide reaching expansion to the welfare state anyone under 80 had ever seen - it's clearly Starmer's ambition to do something similar. You have a stronger argument to make that Cameron was neoliberal than Blair or Starmer.

  • Blair ran very tight fiscal and monetary policy for most of his reign. The spending was financed through the growth in tax receipts as the UK benefited from upside business cycle trends. Off balance sheet wheezes like PFI allowed capital investment from the private sector. Sounds pretty nl to me.

  • 80 years before ‘97 was 1917 — I think you’re being disingenuous here.

    The Blair project was typified by a modernising programme, large parts of which were a heady mix of social democracy and market ideas. They’re not totally neoliberal by any means, and that term should be kept solely for the likes of Peter Thiel and advocates of special economic zones, but there has definitely been a thread of neoliberal thought running through all UK politics for the best part of 50 years.

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