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Vol1 No 2 Spring 99.Qxd V olunt ary Action Volume 1 Number 2 Spring 1999 67 This paper looks at the emergence of the Third Way as the guiding principle of the New Labour government of Tony Blair, and at what implications it has for volunteering in the UK. It is argued that because the Third Way emphasises the development of civil society, this implies a central role for voluntary action. But the government’s current policies - apart, of course, from volunteer-specific initiatives - need examining to assess their impact on the development of volunteering, as some are clearly hindering it. Volunteering for Blair: The Third Way Steven Howlett, Institute for Volunteering Research Michael Locke, Centre for Institutional Studies, University of East London Introduction He talked of voluntary organisations, Volunteering and voluntary action are social entrepreneurs, community action assuming key roles in the policy and millions of people getting involved agenda of the Labour government. in the community. It was a speech that When the prime minister, Tony Blair, sought intellectual substance, outlining gave the keynote speech to ‘Third some of the history and philosophy of Sector, Third Way’, the annual voluntary action and relating this to conference of the National Council for government initiatives to support the Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), in rebuilding of communities. He asserted London in January 1999, he asked a that ‘government and community need ‘fundamental question’ about: each other’: [What] kind of people we believe we That is why the Third Sector is such an are and what kind of people do we important part of the Third Way. want to become? This Third Way figures largely in the He focused attention on: prime minister’s thinking. But what is the Third Way? And how does it relate Each day, in communities across the to voluntary action? country, people act out their vision of Britain - rejecting selfishness and In this article we shall explore the embracing community . [On] what is debate about the Third Way and try to happening up and down this great analyse its implications for voluntary country - ordinary people making an action and the promotion of extraordinary difference. volunteering in the UK. V olunt ary Action Volume 1 Number 2 Spring 1999 68 The hole in the middle and is hence an insidious attempt to According to the commentators who intervene socially). Others dismiss it as have assumed responsibility for ‘so much waffle’ (The Economist outlining the intellectual foundations of 1998:13). Blairism, the Third Way is of great significance. Charles Leadbeater Standing for values (1998) believes it is the term around The key to understanding the Third which the character of Blairism will be Way is to see how the Labour Party debated - although at the same time he has been transformed under Blair’s acknowledges that the vagueness of leadership. John Sopel, in his the idea makes it easy to mock. The biography Blair the Moderniser (1995), Third Way has generated a vast describes how the Labour defeat in the amount of discussion, but so far it is 1992 general election represented a unclear how the concept will contribute critical point in Tony Blair’s vision of to policy development. what the Labour Party could do for Britain. The defeat vindicated Blair’s The Third Way is neither old-fashioned view that the party had not changed state socialism nor statist social enough to become attractive to the democracy, nor is it free market neo- electorate. The work of the Shadow liberalism (Giddens 1998a). But for Communications Agency and its focus authors such as Kay (1998), the groups had persuaded Labour to ditch temptation to define the concept by what a vast swathe of policies; but the it is not threatens to make a caricature of electorate still rejected the chance to it. vote in a Labour government (Anderson and Mann 1997). Blair was Some of the debate is shaping up convinced that something new was along party political lines - which is needed, that a new era needed a new disappointing, given that the Third Way government, and if that was to be a is based on the axiom that the old left- Labour government it needed to be led right divisions are irrelevant in the by a new sort of Labour Party. modern world. Those sympathetic to Blair admit that ‘with a refreshing Commentators have noted how Blair’s openness it is acknowledged that the style of governing is influenced by his precise details are still open’ (Mikosz Christian background and by the 1998:13). Those opposed to Labour ethical socialist political philosopher prefer to claim, as Michael Howard John Macmurray, who, Blair claimed, does (1998), that it is so all- was a pioneer of communitarian anti- encompassing that nobody is likely to liberalism (Anderson and Mann 1997). argue with it (he simultaneously argues The ideas of communitarianism, with that the Third Way is an its concern about the breakdown of acknowledgement of the fact that civilised modes of behaviour and the Labour cannot intervene economically decline of personal responsibility, V olunt ary Action Volume 1 Number 2 Spring 1999 69 together with the call for values and an and active community that the ‘active society’ (Gauly 1998), have been individual thrives (Blair 1996a). absorbed into the language of New Labour. The question for Blair now was how to get his ideas about governance over to In Blair’s view, this emphasis on the public. For a while, it looked as responsible individuals did not sit though Labour was going to adopt comfortably with a party whose stakeholding as its Big Idea; after all, ideology appeared to the electorate to Blair had said as much: favour more state intervention. The There is a big idea left in politics. It restructuring of Clause Four was, for goes under a variety of names - Blair, an opportunity to make the party stakeholding, one nation, inclusion, appear more electable and to distance it community - but it is quite simple. It is from the constraints of ideology. Blair’s that no society can ever prosper Labour Party shifted its emphasis to economically or socially unless all its talking about mutual responsibility and people prosper, unless we use the common purpose, about strong talents and energies of all people communities being the basis of rather than just the few, unless we live individual freedom. up to the ambition to create a society where the community works for the Restructuring Clause Four was largely good of every individual, and every a symbolic act, but to some it individual works for the good of the suggested that Labour had lost sight of community (Blair 1996b: x-xi). its fundamental beliefs. It was not a question of defending Labour’s Stakeholding at the heart ideology, but a perception that: Around this time Will Hutton (1996) published The State We’re In, his view Without such principles New Labour of the problems facing Britain’s risks being no more than a group of economy and society. The fact that the well-intentioned men and women book became a best-seller seemed to making it up as they go along (Hutton show how willing people were to join in 1998a). the search for new ideas. In his critique of British capitalism, Hutton argued for Blair, however, had said that he and his a stakeholder economy that would party were guided by the ‘underlying involve the reform of the present system of values ‘which ‘was one of system, which is typified by the short- the Labour Party’s greatest strengths’. term approach of the City. Although the Moreover: book gained many supporters, there were also many who believed that My value system is based on a belief Hutton’s stakeholding was too much of about individuals and the society in a complement to the interventionist which they live. It is only in a strong German and Japanese economies. V olunt ary Action Volume 1 Number 2 Spring 1999 70 Worse, for many it was too close to the views of Old Labour. Given the amount of capital Blair has invested in the concept of the Third Blair distanced himself from Hutton’s Way, it is impossible to escape the Keynesian and corporatist approach, conclusion that . Blair is deadly and consequently any idea Blair may serious about the need to construct a have had about a stakeholder distinctive ideological platform for the economy became modified into a plea centre left. The Third Way may be an for a stakeholder society. Once this ugly term with a chequered history, but distinction was made, the remit of it is not one of those New Labour stakeholding became imprecise, and phrases tested in a single speech and critics found it easy to demolish notions then discarded (such as ‘the giving of how a stakeholding society might society’) or, like ‘stakeholding’, seized come about (Plender 1997). Eventually upon without proper understanding of stakeholding was quietly filed in the its contemporary meaning. Blair has drawer labelled ‘non-starters’, to make invested sufficiently heavily in the Third way for the Third Way - even though Way game that he had better continue Hutton argues that many of the values to spend, or look foolish (New and ideas cited as belonging to the Statesman 1998:4) Third Way are part of the stakeholder agenda (Hutton 1998). Straddling the paradoxes In order to grasp what the Third Way Enter the Third Way means, we need to break out of Stakeholding seemed above all the comfortable ways of thinking. Its embodiment of Blair’s values. Roy argument is that, at the end of the Hattersley, who is often critical of Blair, twentieth century, the old left-right concedes that he is most definitely a divisions cannot accommodate the man of principle; the problem is that issues that need to be addressed: these principles are so all- today’s solutions are not on the same encompassing that ‘they can easily be continuum as yesterday’s.
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