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slippers
Ok - just wasted an hour reading around this while trying to do real work
I get where you're coming from. However I read your line of reasoning as
"they were making it up on the fly, therefore it was ideological; as its a neo-lib concept, then new Labour are (in this respect) neo liberals"
But the first part of this is incorrect as its fairly well documented that it was a multi-year plan-in-secret by Blair and Brown to get inflation under control.
I think in order to label them neo-liberal or not (in this narrow regard), you'd need to understand _why _ they thought it would work. If it was a case that they'd read they theory and subscribed to it, then yes, neo-lib. However if was a more practical stance that the fed and others were independant and these economies were doing better than the UK, then I would find it less convincing.
I guess its the wider problem of, at what point do you label someone based on their actions. When the Tories take a train company back under national control or spend gazillions on social support during a pandemic most people wouldnt label them socialists (although, some do).
Actually - just browsing the thread, ReekBlefs made this point about China and trade
So, I'll give you "New Labour did something that has support from neo-liberals, and it generally worked at the time", but I'm not convinced with "New Labour were neo-liberals, or had neo-liberal tendencies"