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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.
slippers-
80 years before ‘97 was 1917 — I think you’re being disingenuous here.
I wasn't clear on this so I'll take it on the chin but I meant anyone now under 80 would not have seen those kinds of reforms. Basically unless you were alive in 1946 for the Attlee NHS building, the next best thing you'd have seen was Blair in 1997 for expanding and strengthening the welfare state.
I think a lot of people - not you - use the word 'neoliberal' to mean 'things I don't like'.
ReekBlefs
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.