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Roger Warren Evans
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item0029B 592, 593 592 6 January 2003
Democratic Policing David
Blunkett will argue,
I know, that his nastiness is tactical - that he is only being so awful,
so nasty, because he knows that ordinary voters are equally
awful and nasty, and they must be appeased - if they are not to swing right.
That is his strategy. I reject it, and I believe it will be
counter-productive. There will always be even better
right-wingers than David Blunkett in the Tory Party itself. But the
fact is that there is now so little room
to the right of Labour
that the Tories might be
tempted to play their libertarian, individualist, local sovereignty cards -
all of which come in a range of attractive Tory colours.
Bold
new solutions will
be needed, if the many requirements of maintaining I sense an outflanking movement from the Tories, perhaps to be led by the excellent Oliver Letwin, whom I greatly admire. That would decimate relations between Labour and the LibDems, swing many LidDem voters to the "right", which would be in the Tory interest. And in its present parlous authoritarian phase, Labour would be in no position to retaliate.... Does any of this ring a bell with you? Drop me a line
593 6 January 2003 Let's admit it. My new Welsh hero Rowan Williams did get it wrong, in his initial political critique. His perception of an emerging "market state" misses the point, and David Blunkett was entitled to take a pop at him. But it was nevertheless unwise of the Home Secretary to do so. Because David Blunkett's defence itself, written for the right-wing Spectator, was itself disingenuous.
I agree that
Rowan Williams was wrong to suggest that politics had For example, Governments are now expected, by the voting "consumerate", to assure to them continuous and adequate supplies of goods and services. From Edwina Currie (and her egg-interview) to the petrol-blockades which unsettled the Blair Government, it is clear that Governments cannot contract out of these expectations. Governments have indeed become the guarantors of last resort of "consumer supplies", including transport and public utility services. But that is not the same as a "market state". A market state (if the term means anything at all), suggests a system in which market outcomes determine the level and quality of state service provision - and Blunkett is right to reject any such implication. True, in this new guarantor role, Governments need closer associations with, and better understanding of, the trading sectors than ever before - and in that respect, the Blair Government has a number of shortcomings. Most Ministers lack any deep understanding of business processes, they display undue deference to commercial success and power, and are too susceptible to business lobbying. But it remains a primal function of the state is to act to counter market outcomes (for example, a research paper is published this week which advises the Government to retake executive control of the electricity supply process, in order to diminish the systemic risk of the unsatisfactory "market" system devised by the Tories, which has led to catastrophic supply failures in California and elsewhere). With the rail network, the Government has not accepted the market outcome, which would certainly have resulted in many rail closures well before now. And the fact that private contractors are employed to build and run HM Prisons is not a market operation - it is simply a matter of public service subcontracting. These doe not constitute of evidence of a "market state". So Blunkett was entitled to bristle... Equally, Blunkett is wrong to attempt a defence of the Government on the ground that it is really driven by political principle. For it is clearly not. This Labour Government has become a successful, opportunist, populist government, whose members are now clearly dedicated to the task of getting re-elected - above all else. Its philosophical carapace is remarkably fragile, and Blunkett has only exposed that fragility. It would have been better to say nothing, and get on with the job. The fragility of the Government's doctrinal defences is becoming painfully apparent. While the Government's drives in education and health have a strong egalitarian flavour (which of course I applaud and support) they are also deeply flawed by doctrines of personal choice, which is merely political code for "pleasing the middle-classes", the floating voters of Middle England. The Archbishop would have been on stronger ground if he had highlighted the misjudgement made by New Labour in adopting, from "market ideology", the half-baked doctrine of freedom of choice. Even in its corporate sector origins, it is a concept of little substance, used tactically to support business expansion when other interests are encountered. It was a battering ram of the 1980s expansion of the big supermarkets, in which I played a personal part. In health and education it has no substantive relevance - these are not, properly understood, "consumer systems" at all. I am delighted to say that the Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan has shown a clear understanding of these fallacious arguments, in resisting their deployment in Wales, in the field of health and education reform. I suspect that it will fall to the Welsh to bring the philosophical content back into Labour Party politics. But this particular spat is an ideological mess. Perhaps we have lost the gift of proper political debate. I hope not. What do you think? Drop me a line
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