In the four years since he left Downing Street, Tony Blair has remained largely silent about the domestic political scene which he dominated for over a decade.
Last summer, his memoirs confirmed the oft-reported tensions between the former prime minister and his then chancellor, and revealed his frustrations at the Brown government’s alleged departure from the New Labour agenda after he left No 10.
But the updated paperback edition of those memoirs, published last month, offers little insight into his thoughts on the path Labour has trodden since its general election defeat and the subsequent leadership election. Ed Miliband’s election – and his decision to declare New Labour ‘dead’ – goes unmentioned.
How, then, does Blair find balancing his own forthright opinions about the continuing relevance of New Labour with his desire, as a former leader, to show loyalty to his party and its new leader? ‘Difficult,’ he admits. ‘It’s difficult in circumstances where there are bits of the party that say we want nothing to do with New Labour and obviously I feel strongly and passionately about New Labour.’ But, he adds, ‘I have given my full backing to Ed … I remain absolutely and totally committed to the Labour party and a Labour victory. It is just I believe that New Labour is the best chance of securing that and also the best thing for the country.’
Blair is, however, blunt in his assessment that attempts to dismiss Labour’s record are flawed: ‘If we stick up for what the Labour government did, we’d be in a stronger position.’
But he draws a distinction between defending Labour’s record and defending the status quo. He cautions against the ‘natural inclination of the party to say “we created the state … we created its institutions, we should be … defending the way public services are”. The truth is it is very easy for people to slip back into their comfort zone. It is where they feel most comfortable and feeling most comfortable is good – or it is easy at least.’
This position may be a comfortable one, believes Blair, but it is also a losing one: ‘The natural instinct often – particularly if trade unions come along and say you are undermining your principles by imposing these changes – … is to defend the status quo. And that is why I always say the danger for any progressive party is it ends up as a small ‘c’ conservative party. And the moment it does that it has lost.’
Blair does not believe, however, that the next election is unwinnable for Labour. But he warns that the current plight of centre-left parties in Europe indicates that when faced with a choice between ‘traditional right’ and ‘traditional left’, the voters deliver a ‘traditional verdict’ and the right wins. Labour thus has a choice, believes its former leader, as he recalls an interview given by the Tory former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine to Marxism Today magazine in the late 1980s. ‘Can the Labour party win?’ Heseltine was asked after its third defeat. His response: ‘Labour will win again when it wants to.’ ‘I reflected on that,’ says Blair, ‘and thought it is true. What the Labour party can do now is conform to an historical trend or buck it. Either is open to us. The historical trend … is [we] lose power to [the] Tory party … and end up adopting the bizarre conclusion that [voters] went Tory because we weren’t leftwing enough and then [we] lose again and again.’
Weighing into the current debate about Labour’s political strategy, Blair makes clear his scepticism about the notion that the party can win by attracting the votes of former Liberal Democrats: ‘You have a simple choice now, you can go after the disaffected Liberal Democrats, who in a sense are criticising the coalition from a traditional left perspective and you can go and chase that vote – but you won’t win aspirant middle England people back on that basis.’
But, Blair argues, Labour also needs to understand what drives these ‘hard working families’: ‘It doesn’t just mean people who work hard. It is about people who feel that if they work hard it is not wrong to succeed by working hard. They don’t regard success as something they shouldn’t aspire to.’
The former prime minister also provides his own take on how Labour appeals to the ‘squeezed middle’ voters that Miliband has put at the centre of his political strategy: ‘This tax and spending area, we have got to be really careful on. It is a very traditional area for us to get wrong. When we talk about a “squeezed middle” – which is a correct concept actually, I think it’s a good way of expressing how people are – tax makes up an important part of their concern.’
While endorsing the ‘squeezed middle’ focus, Blair urges his party to develop a more sophisticated approach to how it opposes the coalition. ‘You can make a critique of this government, but the critique that will work with the public is one that really corresponds with where you would be if you were governing the country today. That then brings people to you. Now that is difficult to do – very difficult for an opposition party because it requires a subtlety, a sophistication and a nuance that can be at odds with “let’s go hammer the bastards” and the 1980s-style rhetoric about cuts. My view is that doesn’t work for people any more than it did in the 1980s.’
Blair is, of course, intensely aware of the manner in which the coalition has not only attempted to claim a continuity with the public service reform agenda that he initiated, but to don some of the mantle of New Labour by appointing the likes of Alan Milburn, John Hutton and Frank Field to advisory positions. The government was also quick to seize on Blair’s apparent endorsement of its deficit reduction strategy last summer.
On the deficit, the former prime minister is keen that his words not be misinterpreted. ‘There are two aspects of this, one of which is very much about the choices and priorities but the other is almost a managerial argument about … how far do you go, how fast can you go without damaging your growth.’ On the pace of deficit reduction, he backs Alistair Darling’s plan to halve the deficit in four years and attacks George Osborne: ‘a very sensible government … would be keeping their options open at the moment.’
Is Blair, though, flattered or irritated by the coalition’s attempts to invoke his name at every turn? ‘The Tories say they are “the heir to Blair” but they are not,’ he says. However, he warns Labour that it will pay a political price if its opposition to the Tories appears too driven by partisanship or ideology. ‘The public today … don’t distrust values or ideals, but they … distrust ideological means of implementing them. The biggest threat to any political party is when people think ideology is getting in the way of reaching your purpose.’
This distrust, believes Blair, is a reflection of the fact that there is now ‘a far bigger parameter around policy that will sometimes cross traditional party lines’. But, he continues, ‘none of that means you stop being a progressive’. Citing the example of education, the former prime minister argues: ‘Some of the reforms the present government are doing are a continuation of what we did. But they will never put the disadvantaged and the poorest first in the way we would. And that is always going to be the case … They are Tories. Not a big shocker. On the other hand … within a quite broad set of parameters you will have a debate … about free schools, for example, where you may use similar policy means to those on the opposite side of the political fence.’
Labour should, therefore, not be afraid of coalition claims to be continuing its agenda where this is the case. ‘Oppositions start to win when they have the confidence to get up and say “you’re doing what we thought you should do so that’s fine, now let’s go on to the following thing”. That’s what discombobulates a governing party.’
Blair cautions that, in responding to the government’s health and education reforms, it is ‘the subtlety of how we approach that is what is so important … You can make them really hurt on it, but you have got to be in a position where … if they say they will continue what you did, [you] work out [in] what sense that’s true and take credit for it and [where it] is untrue [you] hammer them.’
Such a strategy, believes the former prime minister, is ‘not very difficult’. It is also preferable to the alternative: ‘If what you say is “oh my God they are claiming they are doing some of the things we did” and then says that’s an insult, it seems weird.’ It’s vintage Blair: a jocular remark to advance a serious point. But it is also one that Labour ignores at its peril. The former prime minister remains the only Labour leader never to have lost an election to the Tories. In his former adversaries, it has borne a grudging respect. From the party he once led, Blair is simply seeking a hearing.
Additional reporting: Matthew Faulding and Richard Angell
but how do people ‘succeed ‘ without battering others? who and who’s army calls time?
I think the defining focus by Tony Blair towards finding the right policy remedy in addressing the unfortunate encouraging as this has been a ridiculous area of contention with the higher levels of the Party where Labour values have been disregarded and party identification lacking in the very place it should be strongest, Westminster. In addition his reference to the importance in challenging the Tories over lack of any substantive economic Growth again reasonable and of value. Where the problems arise are where we have lingering areas of economic stagnation which Labour was either unable or unwilling to address and that has been the experience of most people over the past thirty years. The strength has always been the welcome increases in funding that went into Health and Education but there were very strong weaknesses in permitting people to act when they were experiencing service delivery failure that Central Government were either ignorant or genuinly uninformed about. The key to the balancing act for Labour between the Left and the Center (not the intolerant unconstructive right) must be on determining objectively whether or not public/private provision is best as experienced by the service user as the primary focus. Once a process is determined or a settlement agreed compromise can be reached. Come on some services are far to sensitive and essential to be trusted with the additional burdon of an every more demanding economy of scale demanded from it. Some private provision can genuinly offer better to the recipient than the public sector service that predated it with the service user being the consumer and choosing (as Milburn highlights) where to place their money, which only works when genuine competition exists and there are no “fixes”. Both public and private provision deman objectivity and input from those paying into the system whether that be publically via taxation or privately. I think Tony blair is spot on that Governments need to keep their options open, I was advising this on the local authority I was elected to, because during difficult times when we have to make awful decisions maintaining the highest possible communication with the community is essential so that priority decisions can be made that focus on the public need and keep us on their side as we value their input. The ability by Central Government to contol local authority funding hampers this process so we have limited ability to control business rates etc though the Tories are looking into this it is an area we needed to get right and we did not. Central Government had too much power and too much control, local authorities too little and people placed further away from the results of democracy and the decision making process. As a consequence the implimentation of policy on the ground was not tested sufficently enough for the arguments between private/public to be determined accurately add to that the usual vested interests and you end up with a stubborn Government spoon feeding policy and fiscal control to you for what has become a political dogma, dogmatic in its inability to be open and flexible enough to win the case for the Third Way political idea. For the whole process to work communication is the key, are the guys changing my bins doing a better job than the Council employed people who did it before them? Can I get better healthcare via BUPA than via the NHS with a chronic condition (no you can’t by the way lol), am i paying less tax than i would be if xxxx plc run this service than a Governmnet Agency? Service quality, tax burdon and private cost, and when one fails the cost to the user goes up in any case as they have to find their own means to dealing with the issue and so the cost of living burdon adds up to those people who will punish us at election time. And they did……and they attached the “New” Labour branding to it. Additionally any dogmatic views that ignored service provision quality and reasonable efficiency simply added to the problems. So we need to re-think a great deal in ensuring the electorate can be won over, this is a massive opportunity not just for us but for the Center Left to reclaim a great deal of ground. The experience of the voter along with the need to strengthen democracies in poor economic circumstances should merely be common sense but we will need disciple, transparency, moderation and a move towards empowering the citizen in either and any sector, employee or employer or anyone else.
Best PM ever. I miss him !
Tony Blair is a Conservative, this has become even clearer by his behavior since leaving office. He’s so much more comfortable in the company of Conservatives than Labour people.
Sorry to go on but this area is of incredible importance to me hacing fought in the Battle of Barking which summarised many of the problems and dilemmas faced by the Labour Party across the country that many unwise practitioners of political theory are attempting to understand at a distance. New Labours strength then was in it’s reliance on consensus and compromise, its weakness the same as any other philosophy or belief in history, it became restricted and narrow. The “nuanced” approach Tony Blair advocates does not marry up with the public mood today as there is a desire by the public whose trust in them has declined. We truly have to define ourselves and so far nobody, not Glasman, not Ed Milliband, not David Milliband has advocated a recipe that is as open and flexible than the idea of New Labour. Blue Labour is unnecessarily devisive and lends credibility to the arguments associated with political distrust, vested interests and indirectly gives the voter a reason to defer to the default Conservative Position. Tony Blair is no doubt correct that we have to be much more subtle in creating a workable narrative because of the regrowth and public distrust that needs to be acheived and overcome respectively. Glasman of course is really talking about Representational Democracy and if he kept his views centered upon this idea he would find that he could build an idea base in and around the needs of people in varied locations after identifying the common political denominators that we all share as values. What is therefore applicable to Barking and Dagenham is not necessarily applicable to Westminster clearly, but there are core beliefs that Labour has clumsily blundered around at the moment (on what would seem to be on a general public moan and gossip rather than the underlying public concern for the present and the future). There are many ideologies or dogmatic assumptions and agendas in politics and New Labour is because of its reliance on achieving a pragmatic approach is very seriously impaired by it. Add to that the public distrust that politicians are all the same we have to do a little more than play a game of cat and mouse around very similar policy positions. To the public it simply looks as though we are competing on cashing in on Government contracts with the same tawdry agendas which of course harmed our Party terribly due to the moral expectation the public had of Labour in defining it and distinguishing from the Tories who are still paying for their mistakes. I am not saying Tony Blair is wrong I am saying that we need to do more than he advocates as we do need a line drawn in the ground to seperate us from the events that occured across the political spectrum over the past two years and if anything take the best ideas of pragmatism and openness that New Labour provided and empower the citizen and make them judge over whether or not a service provided is best as far as can be pragmatically achieved. Local Governmnet needs to be able to respond to the specific local requirments and political priorities of the residents the relationship has to be stronger than ever and we also need a broader church of membership that is not in any way dogmatic or directed towards one group or another, because the moment we sit a political direction or agenda behind it you kill New labour and the ideas centered upon it and around it far quicker than the advocates of the Left can. Increasing membership is critical for pragmatism and building up local support to find those energetic champions our Party needs to reinstate our local strength for campaigns and policy. New Labour has been proclaimed dead, some have accepted it some are desperatly blinding themselves to their own failures with shallow rhetoric. The public no longer turust the branding, they have seen quite enough re-branding techniques. Of course the idea behind this brand was very potent and powerful but it was not defeated by the Left, ot the public, it was defeated by the very people who forgot its underlying principles. Of reasonable consensus and compromise. Not narrow inclusion into select groups that most public would not identify with and whose priorities have proven to be far from interesting, radical or even moral in many cases. The weakening of Local Authority powers and the specific tagged grant method of controlling how they spend their money by Central Government. The gap that occured between the public and politicos as seats were take for granted on the basis of strange almost cult-like “friendships” and family nepotism which might be fine in some professions but has never been and will never be acceptable in a party that relied on opnness to succeed and an agenda to overcome past political failures with a modernising agenda. It all reeks of past political malaise, assumption and error, the results are no longer skewed towards the public interest they are geared towards the politicians personal clan and the ideas are flushed away along with any pretence of defeating the Conservatives and the whole idea of defeating dogma and narrow political State is always right, private is always right flawed fallacies. There is a huge gap now between what politicians and the people today as a consequence of my last statement, they do not trust public, they do not trust private because MPs have proven themselves to be in Parliament to advocate whatever pays them most as self-advocates. They are looking for an alterantive and it requires two key ingredients, transparency and serious political modernisation using local champions and the technology to be consistent on universal values and aims but respectfiul of the local uniqure characteristics and needs, but also an inclusive open attitude and a relearning of the best traits (from the public point of view) associated with New Labour. We have to be simply “Labour” at the moment. We have to be a quantifiable entity that will not change its stripes after a first term. Blue Labour as a brand should have binned the moment it was conceived in tter ignorance and defiance of the public distrust. We have to be fleet of foot in challenging the Tories and understanding when to riposte and when to lunge for the kill on issues as Tony Blair states reinstating our priority towards those who need our support. We also need a new narrative and so far what we are hearing is weird and out of touch as though dreamed up in a celler far away from the light of day.
We should all be proud of how he and others transformed our party from losers to winners. 3 consequtive election victories is proof enough.
is it the winning that matters ? or the taking apart.
I don’t agree with everything he’s saying, but neither does it make sense to dismiss him entirely; we don’t have to remain New Labour to learn from New Labour. Where evidence-led policy drove progress New Labour was strong, and ideology can inspire our ideas, but it must be through evidence that we ensure our ideas will actually benefit people; if we don’t test our ideas against evidence then we risk becoming a left-wing version of the Tories and thereby failing those we most need to help.