What's in a name? New Labour's citizen-consumers and the remaking of public services

The reform of public services in the UK has been driven - in part - by a conception of citizens as consumers of public services, a conception that has been articulated in narratives about the wider social transition to a consumer culture. This paper explores the political and policy discourses of New Labour's citizen-consumer. We examine some of the conditions, condensation and consequences of this hyphenated identification in the context of New Labour's political and governmental project. We draw on a recent research project that examined the shift towards a consumerist orientation in public services, using material from this project to explore popular understandings of identifications and relationships with one particular public service: health care. 1 We end by considering some of the political and analytical implications of such everyday understandings and the forms of reasoning that they involve.