ABSTRACT
This chapter conceptualises New Labour as a form of bureaucratic populism centred around the empty signifier of modernisation and opposition to the forces of conservatism both in the form of Thatcherism and ‘old’ Labour. This project served to reinvigorate the hegemonic basis of neoliberalism, while also further rolling-out the neoliberal governmental revolution. In terms of neoliberal governmentality, the argument is put forward that New Labour was significant mainly because it vastly extended the reach of economic measurement in the public sector by means of new partnership arrangements, premised on systems of financial incentives and through major changes in the role of audit because of its promotion of the image of the citizen-consumer and life-long learner, and because of its inculcation of financial literacy as part of its broader programme of asset-based welfare.
