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822   25 September 2003   

Last week, confronted by Blair’s rejection of a “leftwing” government, I asked Which way is Left?  This week, with Andrew Rawnsley countering with the assertion that Blair will simply “keep straight on”, the same question looms – Which way is straight on? 

First, and sadly foremost, the Government is clearly determined not to let its social authoritarian mask slip.   The Government continues to present to the electorate an authoritarian carapace – “tough on crime and on the causes of crime” with which Blair started to “steal Tory clothes” in the mid-Nineties.  Blair clearly regards this is as a key to the retention of the popular vote – both within Labour ranks and beyond.  

This is all a nasty brand of populist politics.   It is a shallow, vindictive and authoritarian approach, which panders to the worst in human nature and makes it more difficult to address the underlying injustices and miseries which give rise to social disorder.  It may attract Tory voters, and please the populist Labour vote, but it turns off potential LibDem swing-voters, and gives the LibDems the opportunity of taking up more sympathetic, decent, positions. 

I find it all profoundly distasteful, and I believe the strategy to be misconceived – but it has seemingly served Labour well, and will not be abandoned.  I simply continue to register a dissenting voice.  

B.  Reduce centralised management, dirigisme – create systems which have greater powers of self-regulation, while continuing to achieve appropriate public objectives.  I do see, running through Labour policies on health and education, a desire to disperse the incubus of centralised power, not least because it creates a political graveyard for those politicians who seek to wield it. 

C.  Reduce both the actual and the perceived “tax burden” which the ordinary taxpayer is called upon to bear – seek to create for society a network of institutional structures in which “the public realm” is perceived to be relatively small and relatively benign. 

Now: at a high level of abstraction, these two strategies might be said to have underlain “Thatcherism”.  But the parallel soon peters out.  The problem with the Iron Lady was that her chosen instrument was “privatisation” – the outright transfer of State functions and responsibilities to the private-profit sector.  And the expansion of the corporate sector in the last thirty years has owed a great deal to that doctrine, both in the UK and more widely. 

Neither Brown nor Blair is in my view pursuing a “Thatcherite” solution, in the literal sense of trying to displace the State by private-profit institutions.  But they are nevertheless seeking to deconstruct the remaining monoliths of State administration, and to create more dispersed systems of public and local agencies, better able to survive on a self-regulating basis within a broad “Highway Code State”, without central managerial diktat.  That is what “the new localism” will be all about.  

Their difficulty is that the necessary institutional infrastructure simply does not exist, within our societies – new formats must be devised, invented, tried and tested.  The 410-or-so surviving elected local Councils are, by and large, ill-suited to the model Blair/Brown envisage: Charles Clarke is already musing in public about passing grants “direct to schools”, by-passing local education authorities.  Foundation hospitals (which as institutions have many serious flaws) are nevertheless inspired by the same model: local public agencies capable of adjusting managerially to their own operating environment, without intervening centralised managerial diktat, a new genre of self-regulating public agencies and companies with enhanced democratic content.  Even David Blunkett is planning the creation of new local police agencies, by-passing local councils. 

Brown’s strategy for reducing the full-frontal effect of "taxation" is infinitely subtle.   Even his tax credits presuppose, for the most part, the presence of a “working adult”, thus balancing the benefit paid-out with the value of the parallel employment – Brown is nothing if not subtle.  And he maintains certain key universal benefits which have proved their worth, like Child Allowance – even creating a new one of his own, the Baby Bond, as well as Sixth Form Allowances.  The perceived tax pill must not be allowed to get bigger, and extra sweetening should where possible be added. 

I suspect that these three propositions would exhaust the common ground between the Cabinet.  Sadly for Labour, they are all important propositions of process, without any great value content.   And I am sure that Andrew Rawnsley is right: in these three respects, Blair will simply “carry straight on” – and I would support him, at least on “B” and “C”.

• For the truth is that for Labour, pragmatism is never enough.

823  29 September 2003  

Entirely imaginary, of course.  But I do long for the opportunity to engage in a sensible discussion about "New Labour" strategy, with much of which I agree - I am no partisan of the "Old Left" - I am certainly not a revolutionary socialist, like so many who have penetrated the Labour Party since the "collapse of communism".   Indeed, the moderation and gradualness of the Fabians suits me well - I do not come to politics through the trade union movement - I am acutely aware both of the strengths of the corporate sector and of its crippling weaknesses - but for people like me, there is no opportunity to engage in any dialogues about the future direction of the Labour Party.   This then, is how the conversation would, I think, go ...

TB: It was vital, Roger, that we made the break we did with the past of the Labour Party.  By the time I became Leader, the Party had become unelectable, weakened by its long period out of office - shock tactics were essential, if the necessary changes were to be made.  There was an outdated nostalgia for a larger public sector, for high-taxation strategies, and an unquestioning faith in the effectiveness of the trade unions as the shock-troops of the Labour movement.  We had to rattle those foundations, and get the Party to think again.

RWE:  I agree with that.  That is why I align broadly with "New Labour", even though I have always disliked the soapsuds parallel.  I was present at the Blackpool Party Conference when you slipped in, right at the end of your speech (was it 1995?) the announcement that the Party Constitution would be reviewed, and Clause 4 reconsidered.  It was indeed a shock, and I can understand why you did it - "management by change" is a perfectly legitimate technique.  But the fact is that you went too far, in your drive to neutralise the "old forces" of the Party and its Conference.  You threw the baby out with the bathwater, and eliminated "the Party in the country" from all parliamentary deliberations - that is why there is now such despair and demoralisation within the Party - you govern as if you do not need a Party at all!  Your unilateral appointment of a "Party Chairman" - effectively as a Cabinet Minister, though paid by the Party - represented a brutal rejection of your ordinary Party supporters.

TB:  We do need the active support of Party members, throughout the country.  And we did try to create a new link with our Policy Forums and the whole Party into Power programme.  But I accept that these new processes have been of limited value, and now arouse great scepticism.  Labour had to have a form of organisation which could speak with one voice, in countering the Tory press, as well as the growing international media - which largely have a corporate, rightwing bias.  I knew we would not regain power if our message was constantly being weakened by internal division.

RWE:  I hope you will recognise, Tony, that the whole Mandelson obsession with news management and symbolic external unity has weakened the authority of politicians - of all parties - and diminished the political realm.  I understand fully the need for Cabinet and ministerial unity - if I were PM, I think I would be as tough as you on that.  But you took it too far - Labour must create more space for political debate and diversity, if we are to engage the interests and enthusiasm of the young.  Politics is now conducted exclusively by professional, salaried career politicians like yourself - I recognise that - but this very professionalisation causes problems of alienation and public cynicism.  We must find a new balance of power and influence between the political salariat and the rest of us - both within the Party and among the wider electorate.

TB:  There is obviously truth in that, as current opinion polls demonstrate. But the pressure of the media is awesome, and every little inconsistency is ruthlessly exploited - particularly by a Tory Press, attacking a Labour Government.  But the essence of politics remains our policies, and I have no intention of departing from the principles of radical reform and modernisation upon which we are embarked.   Throughout the worlds of crime and crime prevention, education and health, we must reduce the impact of centralisation, and give wider discretions to those who are actually running the show.

RWE:  Can we take a closer look at these "modernising principles"?   Because I can see only three overriding principles which distinguish Labour's tenure of office.  The first is a distinctive form of social authoritarianism, which has characterised both Jack Straw and David Blunkett at the Home Office. This was a wholly new populist element in Labour politics - it had featured neither in the 1960s nor 1970s, as part of the Labour policy portfolio.  We seem simply to have adopted the narrow authoritarianism of the Tories, in a bid to win electoral support.

TB: That's unfair, Roger.  Circumstances have changed beyond recognition since the 1970s, certainly the 1960s when Roy Jenkins was at the Labour Home Office.  In my view, the last quarter-century has indeed seen social disintegration on a scale not experienced before, and Government has a major role to play in countering its disruptive effects.  And that requires both carrot-and-stick.  As a human rights activist yourself, I can understand your resistance to this new dimension of politics - but you are the one who is "out of step"!  On hooliganism, immigration, burglary, street-crime, generic social disorder - it is vital that we use both carrot and stick to contain the disruption caused to the lives of ordinary people.  This is not "authoritarianism" in any pejorative sense: it is the necessary feature of decisive action.

RWE:  We shall have to agree to differ.  I consider that, by meeting fire with fire, Labour is storing up greater difficulties by way of social disruption, and that the time has come to abandon many of the sticks, particularly punitive Police actions and the use of imprisonment. The respectful use of carrots, and therapy, would in the long run achieve better results.  Labour, by its espousal of authoritarian methods, is making our society a nastier place to live in.  But let me highlight the second guiding principle - and it is one which I share.  I suppose it could be called managerial minimalism - that "the State" should become less dominant, less dirigiste and that Labour should create more dispersed systems of management capable of self regulation. 

TB:  Here we certainly do agree.  My objective is not to reduce the scope of "public service" or the "public realm".  We are emphatically not seeking the "privatisation" of the Thatcher years - we are seeking to develop alternative means of organising public services.  That is what Network Rail was about - that is what PFI is about - that is what Foundation Hospitals will be about.  This approach holds good for our schools and universities, our hospitals and local health services, local policing - and I am sure the same principles can be applied elsewhere.

TB: Give us a chance!  We are now turning to this subject, and it will be one of our great future themes - even if the Network Rail "public company" constitute a fragile corporate creation - incidentally, in that case we hold all the important purse-strings anyway, so I am less concerned about the constitutional niceties.

RWE: Let me make just one final point on this.  The political salariat faces a real problem of credibility on this one.  Why are you embarking on this "new localism" strategy at all?  Cynics would say that the professional politicians simply want to avoid the personal, career risks of running these services "from the centre" - and I have no doubt that there is some truth in that.  But that motivation is not enough.  These reforms will only be successful if they are seen to constitute a genuine extension of participatory democracy - a democratic revolution, first and foremost.  And nothing that I have yet seen suggests that these democratic perceptions have been given due weight by the Cabinet.  All the indications are that power is to be devolved to new quango-like local agencies, with no new democratic legitimacy.

RWE:  I am quite prepared to do that, and to lend my public support to the Labour Party in the meantime.  I have been a Party member now for 40 years, without a break, and I do not intend to quit now.  But by way of a "Third Principle", I want you to address "tax minimisation".  In my observation of your Government, this dimension of public policy has been given very high priority indeed - perhaps too high.  My impression is that you (that is, Gordon and yourself) know perfectly well that public expenditure will have to rise, as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product - but that you are doing everything possible to avoid admitting it.  This is the sector in which you get clobbered by the Tories for "stealth taxes".

TB: Getting clobbered by Duncan Smith is the least of my worries!  Denis Healey's verdict on Geoffrey Howe comes to mind - though being "savaged by a dead sheep" would be stimulating, compared with an attack from IDS.  But let me deal with your suggestion that we are governing merely to minimise "taxation". 

Two things are true. 

First: that many sectors of our society call for massive investment - our public health infrastructure, our railways, our roads - as well as our schools and our hospitals.  Even pensions and welfare benefits are likely to prove more, rather than less, demanding, given current demographic trends.  At 41%, UK public expenditure is low - compared with France, German and Italy, and that partly explains why our economy is performing better than theirs.  I do not dismiss the possibility that in the longer-term, that 41% may have to edge upwards, although it must never be allowed to approximate to to Continental European levels. Any increase will happen, however, only if the British public are convinced that they are getting value for money from present levels of investment, and that additional public investment would be worthwhile.  To lay the ground for any such change would be a political challenge of the highest order.

Second: Our systems are changing, for the provision of "public goods".  More and more public services are offered "for sale" to those who need them - for example, leisure facilities, car-parking, subsidised bus services, toll-bridge charges.  That also shades over into education and health, where private purchase is growing in importance.  Gradually, public services are coming to funded partly by general taxation and partly from user-charges.  This co-funding is of great importance, because it has the potential to reduce the natural resentment which many of our fellow-citizens feel about having to "pay tax".  In every society, Government must find ways of funding public services in ways which do not stir up public discontent - think of what happened when Margaret Thatcher got this wrong, with the Poll Tax.  So it is true: we are doing everything possible to ensure that public spending is not perceived to generate an unfair tax burden. 

RWE:  I go along with that reasoning.  But that leads me my final point.  It is that your Government has become a merely political calculating machine - you appear to the rest of us as a political salariat determined to hold onto power, governing as a privileged oligarchy, with no time for "Party" or friends or colleagues.  You have abandoned any pretence of political idealism - your concept of "fairness" is vapid and ineffective. 

You have made no concessions to the idealism of your supporters, and those who put you into power.  You have garotted their Party.  You have done nothing to tackle the twin fears of ordinary people - poverty in unemployment, and poverty in old age.  You have become sycophantically close to "business" - you are lax in tolerating the awful wrongs committed by the corporate sector, and the systematic abuse of company law by its leaders.  And by subordinating your own judgment to that of George Bush, you have abandoned the UK position as an independent player on the foreign policy front - it will take the country many years from this gross subordination.

TB:  That's absurd, Roger - and you know it.  I accept that many people did not agree with my decision on Iraq - although the Commons, remember, did give me its backing.  There is no question of any loss of foreign-policy independence: I can understand the UK dislike of George Bush, because he is - his style, his manner - very un-English!  But in an increasingly uncertain world, it is for the USA to take the principal responsibility for international law and order - there is no alternative.  On the question of Labour Party relationships, I accept that they have gone wrong and must be re-visited.  As for the corporate sector, we shall be embarking, before the next Election, on the most radical reform of company law that the UK will ever have seen - that work is continuing. 

But your central charge is a "want of socialist principle" in tackling unemployment and state pensions.  That is simply not true.  We have kept unemployment down to unheard-of low levels, at a time when our EU partners have suffered high unemployment: Labour has delivered, to those most acutely threatened by unemployment, even in increasingly turbulent global market conditions.  And on pensions - by paying supplementary state benefits to the poorest pensioners, we have dramatically transformed pensioner poverty.  As for the reintroduction of higher State pensions, that is quite simply unaffordable - just look at the way in which France, German and Italy are being dragged down by their high "pensions promises" - we are determined not to go down the same road.

RWE:  Again, Tony, we must agree to differ.  Elementary socialism demands that we find ways of helping our fellow-citizens through unemployment, whatever its statistical incidence.  It also demands that future generations should not be crippled by worries of impoverishment in their old age.  Indeed, unless we resolve this problem of "anticipatory anxiety" (which is crippling the Japanese) we will never get our consumer economies working smoothly again. I hope that we shall get the chance to address these issues at some other time. 

• In the meantime, I have my ticket already for your Bournemouth speech on Tuesday 30 September - I'll be there!

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