Download or read book John Major Tony Blair and a Conflict of Leadership written by Michael Foley and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the evolution of leadership in the Labour Party, from Harold Wilson to Tony Blair and looks at the New Labour project from a leadership perspective.

Download or read book Tony Blair written by Philip Stephens and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first ten years as Labour party leader, Tony Blair's image has changed from that of a wide-eyed innocent abroad in the political jungle to - some would say - a warmongering opportunist obsessed with his place in history and showing a barely disguised disdain both for his party and for Parliament.

Download or read book The Political Leadership of Prime Minister John Major written by Thomas McMeeking and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-11 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to re-examine John Major’s leadership using techniques developed through Presidential Studies: namely using Fred Greenstein’s seminal study of Presidential Leadership, The Presidential Difference, and its six criteria for leadership (public communicator, organisational capacity, political skill, public policy vision, cognitive style, and, finally, emotional intelligence). It is through Greenstein’s model that a fresh look can be taken at not only Major’s time in office, but equally the man himself, which proves to be just as revealing. Major’s tenure has often been characterised as being weak and incompetent, as he presided over a sleaze-ridden and divided party on the issue of Europe. With almost a quarter of a century having passed since Major left office, it looks to be an appropriate moment to re-assess his premiership and important role in the recent seismic events surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum and its outcome.

Download or read book The British Presidency written by Michael Foley and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Premiership of Tony Blair has not only reaffirmed previous trends towards leader-centered parties and governments, it has provided a decisive change in the development of a British presidency. The strategies and techniques designed to secure and expand Blair’s public outreach, together with the priority attached to the prime minister’s personal pledges and individual vision have propelled the office into new dimensions of independence. Michael Foley argues that the ascendancy of Blair is not an aberration, but rather a culmination of trends that have established vigorous leadership as a key criterion of political evaluation and governing competence. This edition is completely up-to-date, including the first convincing analysis of Tony Blair's leadership style.

Download or read book Leadership and Uncertainty Management in Politics written by François Vergniolle De Chantal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a range of international case studies from the USA, UK, France, Germany and Italy, this text assesses the conditions necessary for effective leadership and emphasizes the part played by uncertainty and division amongst followers.

Download or read book Poor Leadership and Bad Governance written by Ludger Helms and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Leaders are not always heroes. Bad public leadership is a big problem. If we are serious about holding our public leaders to account, then we need to know why they were bad, and why we supported them. Ludger Helms and his distinguished team tackle these difficult questions with sympathy, not cynicism. Their careful and insightful analysis alerts us to the dangers of venal and poorly performing leaders.' – R.A.W. Rhodes, University of Southampton, UK 'Leadership and the lack of it is a central but underexplored issue in the study of contemporary politics. Ludger Helms is to be congratulated for bringing together a group of leading scholars to examine the relationship between leadership and governance.' – William E. Paterson OBE, Aston Centre for Europe, UK In leadership research there is a long tradition of focusing attention on the great and successful leaders and, more recently, on issues of good governance. This study breaks new ground by looking systematically into the manifestations and causes of poor leadership and bad governance in some of the world's most powerful democracies. Focusing on the presidents and prime ministers of the G8 – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan – it explores the complex relationship between weak and ineffective leadership, undemocratic leadership techniques, and bad policies from a broad comparative perspective. What makes leaders weak or bad in different contexts? What are the consequences of their actions and behaviour? And has there been any learning from negative experience? These questions are at the centre of this fascinating joint inquiry that involves a team of truly distinguished leadership scholars. This book will prove invaluable for scholars and students of leadership, political science, contemporary history, and related academic disciplines. Readers with a general interest in public affairs and political history will also find plenty to interest them.

Download or read book Britain s Flirtation with the Socialist Imaginary written by Chris Wilkes and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-09 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1945, Winston Churchill, fresh from winning World War Two for Britain, called an election. Within days, he was thrown out, and a completely new form of government took hold. What followed was a revolutionary period in British history, in which centuries of tradition were questioned. Socialism appeared to be waiting in the wings. This book traces the origins of this transformation in the long history of British democracy. It examines the ideas and actions which began in the 1930s that enabled this revolution and the new society that emerged beyond its origins and into the 21st Century. The problems that this revolution sought to solve remain to this day, as the British government in 2024 wrestles with strikes, social disorder, and massive economic headwinds. Understanding the history of the present dilemmas is essential if we are to grapple successfully with the enduring problems Britain still faces to this day.

Download or read book Political Leadership written by Michael Foley and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-11-14 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its recognized significance in social life, leadership is a notoriously elusive subject that generates a host of different points of explanatory focus. This is particularly so in the field of political leadership, which has been afflicted by an enduring split between the biographical idiosyncrasies of individual leaders and the specialist contributions from an array of social science disciplines. This new study is designed to establish an improved balance between this often myopic and confusing bifurcation of approaches. It engages with an expansive range of empirical, theoretical, and interpretive research into the issue of leadership but does so in a way that ensures that the political character of the subject is kept securely in the foreground. The project is therefore designed to maintain a clear emphasis upon leaders embedded in their political contexts and viscerally connected to high level issues of political location and status, political power and legitimacy, and political functions and contingencies. The book has a cumulative design that moves from an in-depth analysis of the basic components of political leadership to an examination of a series of key dimensions relating to leadership activity and development—namely the themes of representation, communication, marketing, business practice, and the issue of women leaders. It goes on to survey the developmental properties of the international sphere before concluding with a substantive review of the changing landscapes of contemporary leadership activity and the different ways that we come to terms with the theme of political leadership in an increasingly complex world.

Download or read book Blair s Britain 1997 2007 written by Anthony Seldon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-20 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tony Blair has dominated British political life for more than a decade. Like Margaret Thatcher before him, he has changed the terms of political debate and provoked as much condemnation as admiration. At the end of his era in power, this book presents a wide-ranging overview of the achievements and failures of the Blair governments. Bringing together Britain's most eminent academics and commentators on British politics and society, it examines the effect of the Prime Minister and his administration on the machinery of government, economic and social policy and foreign relations. Combining serious scholarship with clarity and accessibility, this book represents the authoritative verdict on the impact of the Blair years on British politics and society.

Download or read book Leaders of the Opposition written by T. Heppell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Heppell brings together a renowned group of contributors to consider the role of the Leader of the Opposition in British Politics. The book argues that the neglect of opposition studies needs to be addressed, especially given the increasing importance attached to the performance the Leader of the Opposition in the British political system.

Download or read book New Labour at the Centre written by Andrew Hindmoor and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking as its starting-point Anthony Downs' seminal work, An Economic Theory of Democracy, this book draws upon insights generated within economics, political psychology, and the study of rhetoric to examine the way in which New Labour achieved and maintained its electoral hegemony from 1994. Journalists and politicians routinely attribute New Labour's electoral success to its occupation of the 'centre-ground'. This book is interested in the question of how New Labour moved to the right and towards the centre. The obvious answer to this question is that New Labour moved by changing its policies. Against this, the book contends that changes in policy cannot in themselves constitute a complete explanation of changes in spatial position. They cannot do so because there is no pre-given and fixed relationship between policies and position such that the rejection of one policy and the adoption of another moves a party from one position to another. Policies are not immutably left-wing, right-wing, or centrist and so, given that the position a party is thought to occupy is a function of the policies to which it is committed, parties are not immutably left-wing, right-wing, or centrist either. The relationship between policy and position and thereby between parties and position is constructed and is in part constructed by parties themselves. New Labour did not simply move to the centre. It had to persuade the media, voters, and other parties that it had moved to the centre. New Labour achieved and maintained its electoral hegemony not simply by changing one set of policies for another. It achieved and maintained its hegemony by successfully constructing its policies as centrist.

Download or read book The Blair Supremacy written by Lewis Minkin and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 856 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lewis Minkin has immense experience of the Labour Party and has acted as adviser to two major internal reviews of the internal party organisation. As the author of two widely acclaimed and original studies on the Labour Party, The Labour Party Conference and The Contentious Alliance, he possesses an unrivalled grasp of the subtleties and nuances of Labour’s internal relationships. The Blair Supremacy is groundbreaking in its investigation of the processes, methods, character and politics of party management, during a period when Blair strengthened his own position as he and his allies and managers drove the party through a ferment of new developments under the name ‘New Labour’. For this book Minkin has been able to draw on a wealth of sources unavailable to other scholars. What is uncovered here is revealing and at times startling. It includes an extensive covert internal organisation, a culture which facilitated manipulation and what can be described as a rolling coup. These developments are rigorously and critically examined with a strong focus on three fundamental questions: How were these changes achieved? Was it, as it was often represented, a complete supremacy? Why did it end so badly with Blair being forced, in effect, to step down? The study challenges many misconceptions and sheds new light on the Blair legacy and on the intense controversies surrounding him. It also adds greatly to our understanding of some acute contemporary problems in British political life.

Download or read book Prime Ministers in Power written by M. Bennister and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of prime ministerial leadership in Britain and Australia. Tony Blair and John Howard were election winning leaders in two similar countries. They succeeded in dominating politics for over 10 years, but both fell dramatically from office. This book asks how these prime ministers established such predominant positions.

Download or read book Thatcher and Thatcherism written by Eric J. Evans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised, expanded and updated fourth edition of Thatcher and Thatcherism examines the origins and impact of ‘Thatcherism’ both as a cultural construct and an economic creed from the 1970s to the formation of a coalition government in 2010. New to this edition is an extended exploration of Thatcher’s impact outside of the UK, as well as an examination of the assessments published following her death in 2013, providing students with a greater understanding of the legacy of Thatcherism within the modern political landscape. Focusing on the career of Margaret Thatcher, Eric J. Evans questions both the originality and the ideological coherence of what came to be called ‘Thatcherism’ and considers to what extent it met, or failed to meet, its main objectives. Key topics discussed within the book include: Privatisation policies and the attack on trade union power and influence; How Thatcher changed and controlled the late twentieth-century Conservative Party; The legacy of the Falklands War; Thatcher’s relations with Europe – East and West; Thatcher’s approach to the professional ethic; The influence of Thatcherism on succeeding governments: Major and ‘New Labour’; Neo-liberalism and its influence on, and under, Thatcher. With comprehensive suggestions for further reading and explanation of the economic, social and historical context of Britain in the late 1970s and 1980s, Thatcher and Thatcherism is an invaluable guide to the complexities and paradoxes of Britain from the late 1970s to the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Download or read book The British Constitution written by Anthony King and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latter part of the nineteenth century Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. Anthony King argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that major constitutional changes have taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the new constitution is a mess, but one that we can make the best of. The British Constitution is neither a reference book nor a textbook. Like Bagehot's classic, it is written with wit and mordant humour-by someone who is a journalist and political commentator as well as a distinguished academic. The author maintains that, while the new British constitution is a mess, there is no going back now. 'As always', he says, 'nostalgia is a good companion but a bad guide.' Far from shying away from the thorniest issues facing the British polity today, the author grapples with them head on. He offers a trenchant analysis of the increasingly divergent relationship between England, Scotland and Wales in the light of devolution and a devastating critique of an all-elected House of Lords, whose benches, the author fears, risk being adorned by 'a miscellaneous assemblage of party hacks, political careerists, clapped-out retired or defeated MPs, has-beens, never-were's and never-could-possibly-be's'. The book is a Bagehot for the twenty-first century - the product of a lifetime's reflection on British politics and essential reading for anyone interested in how the British system has changed and how it is likely to change in future.

Download or read book John Major An Unsuccessful Prime Minister written by Kevin Hickson and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This year marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the most momentous general elections this country has ever seen. John Major's defeat in 1997 ended a record eighteen years of Tory government, prompting accusations of failure and ignominy. A controversial leader, Major oversaw numerous crises in international and domestic policy. Between 1990 and 1997, he presided over Britain's participations in the Gulf War, the start of the Northern Ireland peace process, the Maastricht Treaty negotiations and, famously, Black Wednesday and Britain's exit from the ERM. Towards the end, Major's government was split over Europe and ridden with allegations of sleaze. Widely criticised by the media and politicians from all parties, Major went on to be crushed by Tony Blair and New Labour in the 1997 general election. An Unsuccessful Prime Minister? is the first wide-ranging appraisal of John Major's government in nearly two decades. This book reconsiders the role of John Major as Prime Minister and the policy achievements of his government. Major's government faced many more constraints and left behind a more enduring legacy than his critics allowed at the time or since.

Download or read book Choosing the Labour Leader written by Timothy Heppell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-30 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The change in the method of selecting the Labour Party leader, from an elite parliamentary ballot to a mass participatory Electoral College, which occurred in 1981 was ideologically motivated. However, the strategy of the Left to enhance the accountability of the incumbent party leader to the wider Labour movement, and the Left's chances of securing an ideological succession in the party leadership failed. Drawing together debates on the method of party leadership selection and the ideological positioning of leadership candidates, this book examines each leadership election since 1963 as a means of charting the decline of the left within the Labour Party. Given the bypassing of the Electoral College to appoint Gordon Brown in 2007, and the debates surrounding his authority and legitimacy as Labour Party leader thereafter, this book offers a comprehensive and timely examination of Labour Party leadership elections from Wilson to Brown which will be invaluable for scholars of British Politics and the history of the Labour Party.