New Labour, politicisation and depoliticisation: The delivery agenda in public services 1997–2007

There is a considerable scholarly literature that interrogates why politicians are transferring powers to non-elected experts and limiting their policy discretion through ‘external rules’. While New Labour adopted a model of depoliticised state management in reforming UK public services, equally prominent was the politicised approach more usually associated with the Westminster model. This article’s core argument is that any shift towards depoliticisation is countered by structural trends reinforcing a politicised model of state management in British governance. In the Westminster system, political actors are rarely prepared to forego governing capacity, recognising the limitations of ‘blame avoidance’. Governing in the British polity necessitates elements of both politicisation and depoliticisation, evidenced by the hybrid statecraft of Blair and New Labour. Our analytical focus should be explaining relative changes over time, rather than positing a linear shift from politicised to depoliticised state management. Moreover, it is necessary to conceptualise the governing pathologies and unintended consequences that arise from the dual processes of politicisation and depoliticisation in the British state.