The failure of John Smith’s ‘Shadow Budget’ to deliver a Labour victory in the 1992 general election has taken on a mythical status in narratives around the development of New Labour. This article sets the episode in a larger context by examining the development of Labour’s fiscal policies in opposition after 1979, in the face of rising inequality, public-sector austerity, and regressive tax reforms. It traces how successive election defeats drove a process of political learning, which came to revolve around the effort to reassure floating voters that a Labour government could control tax, spending and borrowing. The 1992 defeat seemed to demonstrate the difficulty of winning support for redistribution in the face of ‘tax bombshell’ attacks, and so paved the way for the more cautious and incremental fiscal politics of Gordon Brown and New Labour.

中文翻译：

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“工党过得更好”？财政政策、选举战略和约翰史密斯影子预算之路，1979-92

约翰史密斯的“影子预算”未能在 1992 年大选中赢得工党的胜利，这在围绕新工党发展的叙述中呈现出神话般的地位。本文通过考察 1979 年之后工党在反对党财政政策的发展，在不平等加剧、公共部门紧缩和累退税制改革的情况下，将这一事件置于更大的背景下。它追溯了连续的选举失败如何推动政治学习的过程，该过程围绕着向浮动选民保证工党政府可以控制税收、支出和借贷的努力展开。1992 年的失败似乎表明，面对“税收重磅炸弹”的攻击，赢得再分配支持的难度很大，因此为戈登·布朗和新工党采取更加谨慎和渐进的财政政治铺平了道路。