‘Better off with Labour’? Fiscal policy, electoral strategy and the road to John Smith’s shadow budget, 1979–92

IF 0.6 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY Historical Research Pub Date : 2021-09-30 DOI:10.1093/hisres/htab037
Peter Sloman
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Abstract

The failure of John Smith’s ‘Shadow Budget’ to deliver a Labour victory in the 1992 general election has taken on a mythical status in narratives around the development of New Labour. This article sets the episode in a larger context by examining the development of Labour’s fiscal policies in opposition after 1979, in the face of rising inequality, public-sector austerity, and regressive tax reforms. It traces how successive election defeats drove a process of political learning, which came to revolve around the effort to reassure floating voters that a Labour government could control tax, spending and borrowing. The 1992 defeat seemed to demonstrate the difficulty of winning support for redistribution in the face of ‘tax bombshell’ attacks, and so paved the way for the more cautious and incremental fiscal politics of Gordon Brown and New Labour.
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“和工党在一起会更好”?1979 - 1992年,财政政策、选举策略和通向约翰·史密斯影子预算之路
约翰·史密斯(John Smith)的“影子预算”(Shadow Budget)未能帮助工党在1992年大选中获胜,这在围绕新工党发展的叙述中占据了神话般的地位。本文将这一事件置于更大的背景下,考察1979年后工党在面对日益加剧的不平等、公共部门紧缩和累退性税收改革时的财政政策发展。它追溯了连续的选举失败如何推动了政治学习的过程,这一过程围绕着向摇摆不定的选民保证工党政府可以控制税收、支出和借贷的努力。1992年的失败似乎表明,面对“税收重磅炸弹”的攻击,赢得对再分配的支持是困难的,因此为戈登·布朗和新工党更加谨慎和渐进的财政政治铺平了道路。
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期刊介绍: Since 1923, Historical Research has been a leading mainstream British historical journal. Its articles cover a wide geographical and temporal span: from the early middle ages to the twentieth century. It encourages the submission of articles from a broad variety of approaches, including social, political, urban, intellectual and cultural history.
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