Reply #18: for something that doesn't mean anything, there's a lot of talk about it [View All]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Labour_Party#New_Labour
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Following John Smith's death in 1994, the leadership of the party was won by Tony Blair. Blair began to reconstruct the party's policies. His first move was to revise Clause IV of the party constitution, which had been adopted in 1918 and committed the party to 'the common ownership of the means of production' (widely interpreted in the past as a policy of nationalisation). A special conference of the party approved the change in March 1995. The key phrase of the new clause IV is:

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each one of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect."

Blair characterized his political philosophy as being the Third Way though critics pointed to the lack of any concise statement of its meaning, and the term later fell from use. Labour's economic policy sought to balance the laissez-faire capitalism of the Thatcherite era with measures that would lessen or reverse their negative impact on society. The party itself was rebranded new Labour for the purpose of election campaigning, which critics on the left charged was a separate party.
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new Labour because Britain deserves better
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/lab97.htm

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http://www.newlabour.me.uk/