New Labour’s policy approach therefore offers an important point of comparison for
any country whose response to the pressures of financialization is to adopt a tax-andspend
policy which implies the need to exert control over demands on the welfare
system. The continuing electoral popularity of a redistributive welfare state meant that
it was difficult for the Blair Government to openly condemn welfare spending for being
generically too expensive, even if it had wanted to do so. Instead, it chose two policies to
persuade people to consider their relationship to the welfare state from a new perspective,
each of which was conditioned by the internalization of the macroeconomic conditions
associated with sustainable public finances.