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When New Labour came to power in 1997, the party's manifesto had little to say about rural policy, beyond a proposal to allow a free vote to ban hunting with dogs and a commitment to establish a right to roam—essentially ‘old Labour’ and symbolic issues. However, in its early years the Blair government became drawn more heavily into rural policy reform and increasingly came to see rural issues as a territory on which its grand project of national renewal and modernisation could be played out. This article reviews the rise and fall of rural policy under New Labour, and charts how the aftermath of the 2001 foot and mouth disease crisis eventually saw rural issues marginalised within government. It shows how the Blair governments’ strange and unexpected excursion into reforming rural and agricultural policy provides a case study of the rise and fall of modernisation more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a curious disjunction between the Labour Government's international actions and its domestic policy. Although Tony Blair did much to promote the climate change agenda on the international stage, domestically, with carbon emissions rising again, the Government will fail to meet its target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. This article examines the weaknesses in the Labour Government's domestic record and assesses the significance of the recent transformation of climate change politics. Several obstacles to the design and delivery of more effective policies are identified, which can be categorised as either problems of ‘environmental politics’ or ‘environmental governance’. It is argued that the recent politicisation of climate change has overcome some of these obstacles - albeit temporarily - but whether the pressure for further policy measures can be sustained, with a long-term impact on environmental governance, remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Blair governments deployed several public service reform strategies. Although many have been effective, they have had limited traction at the ‘hard end’ of disadvantage: entrenched deprivation remains a stubborn feature of the social landscape. Reforms have had limited impact on this deprivation because they expect users to behave either as eager recipients or as informed consumers. But disadvantaged groups rarely emulate the active middle class; instead, they are distrustful of public institutions—even hostile. We need a different reform strategy that does not presuppose these behaviours and which generates new ideas. This ‘venture state’ approach would go beyond commissioning and invest in services that demonstrate the greatest social returns with disadvantaged groups. Like the eponymous capitalist, it would identify a portfolio of high-impact providers that can be scaled or sustained; and it would provide the resources required to do so. Rather than seeking to target its own services with ever greater precision, the venture state would focus on structuring innovation in those services most important for the hard end of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]