Understanding Conservative Modernisation

For the past two decades at least, ‘modernisation’ has formed a pivotal part of British political discourse. Tony Blair, who became the living embodiment of New Labour, characterised his political raison-d’être as a crusade to modernise the Labour Party before taking on the more sizeable task of modernising the whole of British society. The UK constitution was to be overhauled and modernised, as was the NHS, our education system, our economy, local government and our transport infrastructure. In fact, modernisation became the guiding principle in the formation of almost every area of government policy and Blair’s public speeches were replete with references to the imperative of modernisation. Blair’s references to modernisation, however, were not seminal. In one form or another, modernisation discourses have been prevalent in the rhetoric used by British politicians since the 1960s, spurred mainly by an acute perception of the UK’s inability to keep apace with its major competitors both politically and economically on the international stage. However, since the election of the Thatcher government in 1979 and the subsequent transformation of the Labour Party into New Labour, the utilisation of modernisation discourses have accelerated to the point whereby the imperative of modernisation has become almost fetishised by modern UK politicians, with David Cameron being no exception. Indeed, the self-styled ‘heir to Blair’ has oftentimes been quite shameless in his plagiarism of Blair’s political style and, in particular, in framing his ascent to the leadership of the Conservative Party in terms of the emergence of a moderniser willing and able to drag the party into the twenty-first century whilst at the same time making the British economy and welfare state fit for competition in the new global economy.