The death throes of Britain’s ruling party suggest several possible culprits

“WE MEET in a spirit of hope,” the new leader of the Labour Party told its annual conference. “For the first time in a generation”, he declaimed, “it is the right wing that appears lost and disillusioned.” The speech ended with an incantation: “New Labour! New Britain! New Labour! New Britain!”

That was Tony Blair, in 1994. It was a speech that announced the birth of New Labour—the flexible social-democratic movement that dominated British politics until very recently. Next week, at this year’s party conference, Gordon Brown—Mr Blair’s successor as Labour leader and prime minister—will also give a speech, conceivably his last big address in those offices. This one may come to be regarded as New Labour’s elegy. ...