Blair and his Legacy

Blair’s Recent Problems and the Question of his Legacy

Tony Blair entered Downing St in triumph eight years ago, buoyed up by enormous goodwill but with expectations of the same order. He won his second term but with such a palpable lack of public enthusiasm that more people failed to vote than those who voted Labour. By June 2003 Jackie Ashley, in The Guardian was writing of those around Westminster who sensed ‘the stench of decay’. She managed to dismiss the idea as absurd at that time but criticized Blair for neglecting his public sector core vote. He went on to win another victory in May 2005 but in its wake the press could only talk of its half hearted nature and the inevitability of Blair standing down soon, or better still, immediately.

A short period of uneventful government soon stilled such demands and during the summer he received the benefit of some good fortune. Firstly France and Holland rejected the draft new EU constitution in referendums. This removed the need for Blair to risk such stormy waters himself and to a degree removed this contentious topic- temporarily at least- from the political agenda. Secondly, Britain won the right to stage the 20012 Olympics from the French and Blair, who had flown to Malaysia to lobby on London’s behalf, picked up some of the credit. Suddenly, Blair’s ratings began to climb again and articles appeared suggesting he might stay on as PM beyond the next election. The still parlous state of the Conservative Party made this seem at least possible. But then problems began to mount.

Blair-Brown relationship
Blair had already announced he would stand down before the next election but the Brown camp wanted to know when. At the 2005 conference Blair then more or less declared he would need up to three years to achieve his domestic reform agenda and not hand over to Brown after 18 months as the Chancellor’s supporters insisted should be the case. Then the problems began to mount, much of them originating in Blair’s reform agenda which many elements in his party were not prepared to accept. The last date he can postpone the election until is May 2010 but most people assume he will stand aside to allow his impatient and ever critical Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to take over the reins and have a chance to establish himself before pitching for that fourth term.

A Lame Duck Prime Minister?
Having stated he will stand down some time before the next election, Blair has, in one sense, made himself a lame duck leader. Power is already shifting across to the man who actually lives in Number 10 but who is not yet the Premier. Inevitably Cabinet colleagues are in two minds about this. Those who are clearly Blairite, like Tessa Jowell, must be wondering if she will survive the transition while those who do not get on too well with the brooding Chancellor e.g. Charles Clarke, might hope Tony strings out his departure until the very last moment.

Writing on 25th September 200, Andrew Rawnsley’s Observer article was headed ‘In Office but not in Power?’. He quoted a Blairite minister as saying of Blair’s power: ‘it’s beginning to dribble away from Tony’. Rawnsley’s in his 30th October article, revealed that Blair was warned by advisers that his ‘retirement’ strategy was ‘the most idiotic idea he had ever come up with’ but he had gone ahead anyway. ‘If you look powerless, you soon are’ said the columnist, detecting the first signs of a ‘free for all’ of challenges to the PM’s declining authority. David Aaronovitch in the Times, George Jones and Ferdinand Mount in the Telegraph, not to mention David Cracknell in the Sunday Times all followed a similar line.

Those who have consistently opposed the New Labour project-especially the unions who still wield clout in conference votes- have been busily preparing themselves to advance their opposition and with Blair’s majority only 66 and not over a hundred as it was for the eight years before the last election. Yet a poll published 27th September, showed only 13% of Labour supporters wanted him to leave office at that time. Even a majority of Conservative and Lib Dem supporters wanted him to stay until at least 2006. Moreover only 28% of Labour voters wished him to stand down within the next two years. It seemed clear from that poll that the majority of his supporters wanted him to hang on as long as possible before the next election. A surprising 17% of respondents did not want him to stand down at all.

Unpopular but still preferred
It has to be said though that, while Blair managed such encouraging results in this poll, others showed him to be deeply unpopular and distrusted. Blair seems to have an uncanny ability- maybe a little like Bill Clinton-to reflect negative and positive ratings at the same time. Throughout the May election Blair’s ratings were not great but that did not stop him winning the election. Maybe voters have negative feelings for him but find they still think-given that most politicians are generally not trusted and are disliked- he is still best qualified to lead the country. Maybe a likeable ‘confidence trickster’ suits the office better than we have considered hitherto. On the other hand Blair still scores highly on toughness and sticking to his principles.

Blunkett Blow
Maybe the furore which struck Blair in early November originated with the dragged out demise of David Blunkett, finally impaled on his own failure to consult regarding ministers seeking employment in the private sector after leaving office. Blair’s decision to bring Blunkett back into the Cabinet, so soon after his ruined relationship with Kimberley Quinn was probably a mistake. These unhappy yet eagerly devoured scandalous events were still well in the public mind and an extended drama on television dealing with these events received wide publicity. The new scandal seemed to find a purchase on the old and made the Work and Pensions secretary seem a doomed man some time before he either decided to go or was asked to by the PM. Losing a man to whom he had shown such loyalty-a man with much credibility with the traditional Labour voter- reduced Blair’s standing and authority.

Smoking Ban Split in Cabinet
The desire of Blairite Patricia Hewitt to introduce a complete smoking ban was well known and, it was assumed her plans had the support of Blair. However, when it was discussed Hewitt found she could not overcome the opposition of colleagues, especially that of her predecessor, John Reid, whose manifesto plan to ban smoking only in pubs which sold food, won through in the end. This Cabinet disturbance merely added to the gathering feeling that Blair, according to Gaby Hinsliff, in the Observer, 30th October was ‘beginning to resemble Major in his dying days,’ adding: ‘A Cabinet that once rubber stamped ‘what Tony wants’ is now throwing its weight around’. Future disputes about plans for changes in the NHS and Education-where John Prescott was said to be furiously opposed to a covert form of selection- were also known to be causing waves at the highest level and by the first week of November the sound of knives being sharpened became almost audible. The whole series of events suggested a Prime Minister who was ‘Losing his Grip’ a phrase which the Observer article headlined.

Sir Chistopher Meyer’s Memoirs
These recollections of the circumstances leading to the invasion of Iraq by the former ambassador to Washington caused something of a media feeding frenzy, not so much for the key diplomatic revelations but for his very undiplomatic descriptions of New Labour’s principals. Meyer’s first instruction from Jonathan Powell a few months after the 1997 election was to ‘get up the arse of the White House and stay there’; reflecting Blair’s keen desire to bond with Clinton. This proved no difficulty as Blair steadfastly stood by the philandering president during his Lewinsky travails.

The same desire to placate and ingratiate was present when Bush made his unwelcome appearance in the White House. Blair and his entourage were slow to adjust to the change said Meyer, but good personal chemistry between the two men seemed to bridge the ideological gap between a rightwing Republican and a Labour Prime Minister. Clinton had advised Blair to ‘Hug them close’ and the advice was certainly taken. Meyer has huge respect for Bush’s ability as a politician: needing no notes to be on top of a complex subject; ‘smart as a whip’. Blair’s instant, unqualified support following 9/11was much appreciated in Washington and more widely in USA. Blair was invited to attend Bush’s speech to Congress- a huge honour. Meyer recalls Blair being spoken to forcefully by Alastair Campbell on a plane flight, sitting ‘meekly in his seat like schoolboy under instruction.’

On the period before the Iraq invasion Meyer was very critical of Blair. He insisted however that there was no prior decision to invade- that decision was left until shortly before the real thing. But Meyer unfavourably contrasted Blair- a ‘vision’ politician- with the attention to detail Thatcher or Major would have brought to bear on the negotiations. He suggested, in effect that Blair surrendered British interests in his slavish desire to please Bush. Without cavil he embraced ‘regime change’ in Iraq, on the grounds that Saddam should be neutralized before he too became a threat like al Quaida. Blair’s support was given unconditionally- a blank cheque- something diplomats deplore and avoid. Meyer also saw a sign of weakness that Blair relied in office on the same motley band of unelected advisers who had helped him win power. As for New Labour ministers, Meyer had nice things to say about Mowlam, Gordon Brown, Mandelson, Dewar, Cook, Short and Beckett. But Jack Straw, he skewered with the line that he was ‘to be more liked than admired’; Prescott arrived in Washington ‘like a mastiff with its hackles up’ who talked in important meetings of the ‘Balklands War and Kosova’; Geoff Hoon was so nervous in Rumsfeld’s presence it was ‘like trying to get pandas to mate’; and during a long speech by Chris Smith, Hilary Clinton fell asleep. He memorably described those less able ministers as ‘pygmies’ attracting a stream of invective from Prescott, Straw and Hoon plus calls for him to stand down from his post as chair of the Press Complaints Commission . Blair merely dismissed the book with contempt, insisting the ambassador never had much input into decisions anyway. Meyer, it seemed, had written his memoirs partly to recover financing an expensive divorce and out of a feeling of resentment that the Foreign Office had not paid for a second opinion on the acute heart condition which caused his early retirement-hence his liberal lacings of ‘tittle-tattle’. The fuss caused by his memoirs was damaging to Blair as it reinforced other evidence of his governing style: e.g. his over-reliance on unelected aides; his obsession with presentation. But the fuss was confined, for the most part, to the broadsheet press. This was not the case with the crucial terms of the Terror Bill.

90 Day Detention Issue
This key clause of the Terror Bill had its origin in the advice tendered to Blair by police after the 7th July London bombings. The rationale was that police needed the extra time to assemble evidence to prosecute suspects detained in connection with terror attacks. Armed with this argument Blair sought to force the measure through parliament. However, the police should advise on and not write the law, said critics pointing out that such a power would make Britain’s civil liberties laws more draconian than any in Europe and that the vast majority of those detained under existing law as terror suspects, had been found to be innocent and released without charge. 90 days would in effect be a term of six months imprisonment (allowing for the reductions which good behaviour usually confers). Blair seemed to be on the point of a compromise but finally decided to ignore the warnings and pressed ahead, even summoning Gordon Brown home from a visit to Israel to exert his influence and to vote. But on 8th November this part of the bill was defeated by 31 votes, a major rebellion by Labour MPs, not helped by the Conservatives as some suggested might happen. The ICM poll in the Guardian 12th November showed most voters thought he should have compromised on a period of more than the 28 days with which he ended up. Much has been written about Blair enduring ‘weeks from hell’ in the past but the second week of November was as close to his worst ever week as makes no difference.

Since then he has suffered further reverses over the EU budget where his determination not to surrender the British budget rebate won by Thatcher in the eighties unless the EU reformed its antediluvian and unfair Common Agricultural Policy was frustrated by a united front of Jacques Chirac and his supporters. Now Blair has to look to the future and wonder if he can salvage anything to add to his ‘Legacy Achievements’- about which he seems to be obsessively concerned- before he hands over the wheel to the impatient Gordon Brown.

What Will Be Blair’s Legacy?
This is a question which one has no problem answering regarding earlier Prime Ministers. Churchill saved western civilization from Nazism; Attlee created the welfare state; Heath took us into Europe; Thatcher transformed the economy. What has Blair done during his nearly nine years in power?

1. Constitutional Changes
Blair’s government invented assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland plus a parliament in Scotland and an elected mayor and area council for London.. It abolished hereditary peers and introduced the Human Rights Act.

2. Economy
Blair’s government, though essentially it was Gordon Brown, has maintained an inherited healthy economy. But unlike so many other previous governments Blair’s managed to keep the tiller steady, surviving all the storms of fluctuating oil prices, the rise and fall of the Asian tigers and the impact of 9-11 plus several local wars in various parts of the world. Growth has been sustained at 2.7% per year; inflation-the bane of the 70s and 80s has never risen above 2.5%, thanks to Brown’s decision to put an independent Bank of England in charge of interest rates; unemployment is below 6%; 1.5 million new jobs have been created; and interest rates have been kept to a record lows throughout. Hundreds of thousands of people have become wealthier- buying their own homes and taking holidays abroad. Blair has presided over a period of considerable prosperity- probably the basis of his election victories in 2001 and 2005.

3. Social Justice
Blair has quite a legacy to boast under this heading too. The Minimum Wage, which the Conservatives sought to brand as a destroyer of jobs, has not hampered economic growth but has improved the position of nearly 2 million low paid workers. In 1997 4.4 million children lived in poverty in that their families lived on half the average income. By 2005 this figure had fallen to 3.3 million. Pensioner poverty has also been slashed from 40% to 17% during the period. In addition Sure Start has followed Scandinavian research that the most formative part of a child’s life occurs before school age- some 1000 such centres will eventually be established. Economic inequality did not decrease during Labour’s period in power so far but neither did it allow the gap to widen, despite the inegatlitarian forces generated by globalization.

4.Public Services
NHS
In 1999 Robert Winston described Britain’s health service as ‘worse than Poland’s’. Since then spending has increased from 6.8% p.a. to the EU average of 8%. By next year the figure will be £100bn per annum. Numbers of doctors and nurses have rocketed, waiting times have tumbled and new hospitals have been built. Substantial advances but critics pointed out that current measures of productivity showed minimal advances: all that extra money and it seemed mostly to have gone on paying staff salaries. Some private enterprise involvement -like contracting out certain operations to foreign medical companies- had helped improve efficiency but disputes have festered within Labour counsels as to whether health should be ‘invaded’ by the profit motive.

Education
Here again spending rose from £38bn in 1997 to an estimated £78bn by 2008: a 4.4 % increase p.a. compared with the 1.8% of the Conservative years. Extra numbers of teachers have been trained and employed and new kinds of specialist schools introduced -‘City Academies’ being the most controversial- in an attempt to replace failing schools. Huge improvements have taken place in the buildings of schools also but much criticism has been directed at the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which has entailed a system of privately built schools and hospitals and their leasing back to the government at a rate which some say have been a license to the companies involved to print money.

Transport
Nobody dares to suggest that transport has improved, except marginally in some respects as too many people have spent too long waiting in delayed trains or congested traffic. The government promised to reduce the hold exerted by cars on cities but the only politician with the courage to act in this area has been Ken Livingstone with his congestion charge- generally considered to be a success.

Crime
Much dispute centres over crime figures but the British Crime Survey shows a 40% drop since 1997. However, most people do not believe them and insist crime has been increasing. Some categories like violent crime appear to have increased and the recent liberalization of alcohol regulations seems to some, to be irrational way of proceeding.

Public Perceptions of Public Services
It could be that a fair number of people have been satisfied with their own experiences of a service yet believe the national scene to be generally a poor one. Polls show that Labour voters are more likely to discern improvements but the overall figures are still disappointing for a man looking for a legacy to characterize his time in office. In September 2005 respondents to an ICM poll reckoned public services had: improved-35%; not improved, 62% with 3% don’t know.

Northern Ireland
Here Blair has shown immense patience and skill in conciliation, drawing the two sides together in a commitment which has brought the province closer to peace than at any time for three decades. Only 4 people died in 2004. The Good Friday Agreement is already a substantial legacy, even though its full implementation has not yet been achieved.

Tony Blair According to his Biographer

Anthony Seldon has written an excellent biography of the MP for Sedgefield-Blair, free Press, 2005- and in the final part draws his conclusions together. Amongst his conclusions are:
1. Not being an ideological politician Blair has been heavily influenced by close friends, many of whom he parted from later ‘often in difficult circumstances’. He lists the Australian priest Peter Thompson whom he met at Oxford who opened his eyes to the world and almost influenced him to choose the church. Derry Irvine acted as mentor in the world of the Bar and helped him with contacts in the Labour Party. Cherie Booth channeled his energies and ambitions to become a Labour politician. Then came Peter Mandelson and Alasatair Campbell with their occult understanding of the modern media. Also important were childhood friend Anji Hunter and political secretary Sally Morgan. Seldon also writes: ‘The greatest influence on the content and style of his premiership however was Margaret Thatcher, whose importance has been little acknowledged.’
2. Seldon suggests Blair has also been the product of some major events in his life. Despite his outward confidence Blair has suffered inner doubts and it has not been until the last two years that he has acquired full confidence in his abilities. Before than he was very worried about failure- a worry that bred caution- and concerned his premiership might not ‘achieve enduring change’. At school and university he was feckless rather than driven like other young would-be PMs . His father’s stroke and the death of his mother seemed to have sobering effects on the embryonic young man but, as so often, it was his chance nomination for Beaconsfield in a by-election which allowed the virus of politics to enter his system. From there good fortune enabled him to be nominated at a late stage for the safe seat of Sedgefield. Once in power he gathered strength from his successes: the 97 election, his Diana speech, the Good Friday Agreement and then Kosovo. He came to believe he could handle any crisis and influence the future conduct of world politics. ‘This confidence in his own judgment and that of his team led directly to his decisions to follow American policy over Iraq after 2002.’
3. No clear idea of what he wanted to do with power. He took a long time to settle into the job of PM and it was not until way into his second term that he began to acquire his own agenda. Apart from a commitment to a sense of ‘community’ he at first had only vague ideas about ‘making a difference’. Consolidating Labour in power after 1997 came second to establishing his own way forward but once in for his second term his emergent ideas of ‘diversity and choice in the public services and incentives in place of uniform provision’ was hijacked by events, especially 9-11 and its consequences. Critics complained that these late arriving ideas were in fact reheated ideas originating with Thatcher and Major.
4. Preferred to take decisions within a tight knit informal group. This has more often included advisers drawn in from elsewhere than the Parliamentary Labour Party. His personal coterie in opposition moved en bloc into Downing St and continued to guide his path as PM. Senior officials were over ruled by unelected aides- Seldon says he has ruled via ‘denocracy’. Yet none of these people had any experience of running large organizations and it was not until the second term that he began to form structures to make things happen. ‘There is too much central control’ complained former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler, ‘and not enough of what I would describe as reasoned deliberation which brings in all the arguments.’ Seldon blames Blair for eschewing consultative government-he paid a price over the 90 detention issue- and for appointing wrongly as in the case of Estelle Morris, sadly not up to the challenge at Education.
5. Blair the historian. Roy Jenkins noted Blair’s absence of a sound historical perspective. His belief that Britain is a conservative country, occasionally tolerating radical governments, led him to ‘hug the centre ground’. From this he feared not being close to the USA in case the Conservatives outflanked him.
6. Blair the barrister-actor. ‘He can talk himself out of almost any position, however unfavourable… the problem is he has been too often successful in convincing others as well as himself of a course of action without standing back and seriously considering the alternatives.’ But the actor is close to the surface especially when he speaks his own words, impromptu and from the heart. However his effective projection of ‘good ness and plausibility’ backfired when he was exposed as wrong, as over WMD in Iraq. ‘Disillusion and cynicism’ then set in.
7. Blair the conciliator. Blair has found it hard to stand up to powerful figures- Clinton, Thatcher, Murdoch, Bush, all of whom he has been anxious not to offend. On the domestic front Brown is the person with whom he has had the problems. But his skills at conciliating have been shown to excellent effect in Northern Ireland.
8. Blair’s physical health. Blair has been hospitalized twice in October 2003 and 2004 with heart problems. But he trains regularly and, compared with predecessors has looked relatively energetic and not prone to tiredness. He is careful to sleep well and take regular holidays. He has shown remarkable resilience in bouncing back from adversity; even the fiercest personal attacks seem not to get to him.
9. Blair’s religious convictions. Blair seems to have a Manichean view of the world: a struggle between good and evil. He has a very strong moral sense and commitment to improve the lot of others but this can be problematic when clashing with the moral views of others as he tends to become intransigent, convinced he is right.
10. Luck. He found a safe seat when others have sought in vain; John Smith died just when the Blair star was rising; he became leader just when the public were sick and fed up with the Tories; he has faced remarkably feeble oppositions; and the economy has remained buoyant even during adverse conditions.

Future Struggles
While pursuing his Holy Grail of legacy achievements, Blair faces a desperate struggle to impose his plan for the public services. Education proposals to allow schools to opt out of local authority control is hotly opposed by his backbenchers; Health plans to give GPs control over their budgets sounds like old Tory ‘fund holding’ which they might use to buy private sector services; Benefit reform in the Invalidity area is also controversial as is the Turner report on Pensions; Defence plans to renew Trident carries the certainty of leftwing dissent. Maybe Blair will have to settle for a more modest set of achievements but even they will have to compete for attention with his not inconsiderable list of failures.

Max Hastings on Blair’s Legacy, Guardian, 5th December
Hastings argues, in a piece which bears quotation, that seeking a legacy for which the British people will be grateful is naïve as voters seldom feel gratitude. Indeed, he says leaders are more remembered for their failures than their successes: Suez - Eden, Profumo - Macmillan, Callaghan, - ‘winter of discontent’.

‘Blair has ‘articulated objectives that most reasonable can share- enterprise, compassion, better health and schooling- but neither he nor his Cabinet have learnt how to get things done. They have failed to master the art of translating aspiration into achievement through effective administration. In a just world Blair might gain credit for the fact that most people have been pretty content for most of his time in office. He has presided over a period of prosperity which in a decade or two we shall look back on as fortunate. Galling though it must be to him, Blair’s legacy will be Iraq. Whether or no coalition forces swiftly depart, the saga will drag on for years, poisoning western relations with the Islamic world. Much more bloodshed is to come.
No amount of massage can disguise the fact that this was a war of choice, not necessity….Posterity will be no more impressed by Blair’s professed honourable intentions than they were by Eden in Egypt, half a century ago. He is a man of vastly more substance than John Major. He possesses genuine star quality. Yet the hubris bred by his extraordinary public stature induced him to commit a folly more damaging to the national interest than any act of Major’s
Blair is left today struggling, with increasingly clumsy haste to create achievements that will outlast his tenancy of Downing St. Yet events in Baghdad negate them all and are beyond his control. The Blair legacy is sealed and witnessed beyond amendment or codicil, and a tragically ugly one it is.’

Bill Jones 6th December, 2005