ABSTRACT
The crucial test of New Labour’s impact in breaking with the legacy of Thatcherism is how far institutions endured after ministers ceased to hold office. To what extent were Labour’s reforms entrenched as the unquestioned framework for public policy in Britain, ensuring lasting and radical change? The transfer of power to independent institutions was the hallmark of Labour’s legacy in economic policy, a shift known as constrained discretion. Although Labour revisited the 1940s’ Beveridge settlement, the government sought to entrench ‘progressive universalism’ as its institutional legacy in social policy. Labour’s welfare strategy is depicted as merely resorting to targeting and means-testing. A further institutional legacy of New Labour was the liberalisation of British society. Of course, attitudes in Britain were already evolving in the 1980s and 1990s. Legislation was introduced to strengthen legal penalties against domestic violence, creating specialist domestic violence courts to increase the rate of prosecution.
