As Tony Blair begins to leave the stage that he has commanded for the last ten years, I am reproducing here an edited version of an article I penned for Renewal just before the last election. I am doing so because I think the piece stands up to the passage of time and because the fact that it does two years into Blair's third term is indicative of how the left-wing intelligentsia have played their shameful part in the premature departure of an exceptional leader, to the detriment of the Labour Party and the country at large.
The "high-minded" high-brows of the left have always been quick to accuse others of betraying "this great movement of ours". I have to say that some of us regard their remorseless attacks on Blair in his latter years as the greatest betrayal of all (not to mention those Cabinet and ex-Cabinet colleagues who failed to stand up for him when it really mattered). So here is the article that articulated these concerns over two years ago.
"To make the case for Tony Blair at this political juncture is to risk banishment from left-leaning intellectual circles. Those who do are dismissed as being hopelessly naive, or unprincipled careerists bent on securing a place in the Blair establishment. Pro-Blair arguments rarely make the pages of leading radical journals and when they do there is invariably a sting in the tail linked to the totemic leftist issues such as the Iraq war or civil liberties, if only to provide reassurance that the writer has not taken complete leave of his senses.
To attack Blair, on the other hand, is to demonstrate your credibility as a deep-thinking political commentator, notwithstanding that logical argument and fairness seem to be largely ignored in the process. This is usually done by putting the worst possible interpretation on whatever Blair is saying or doing, with little regard to context or objective analysis.
Thus is Blair:
— accused of being in thrall to Big Business if he makes the slightest concession to the business point of view – however strong the arguments might be for doing so
— criticised for not raising even more revenue for the public services despite the growing evidence that the limits of taxation are being reached in a debt-ridden consumer society where the perception is that there are more exciting things to do with your money
— reprimanded for the time it is taking to deliver on public services, with scant account being taken of Blair’s election promise to impose a two-year freeze on public spending in the interest of economic stability (such promises only seem to be sacrosanct when Blair’s critics approves if them!) and of the time it takes for extra resources to work their way through the system
— lambasted for bringing politics into disrepute without any regard being given to the political cynicism created by a malign media.
Thus is the induction of some private funding and choice into education and the health services portrayed as a betrayal of everything the left stands for as if socialism was simply about unadulterated state funding, or the old Ford approach writ large – where you could have a car of any colour as long as it was black.
Thus we have the Iraq war depicted as ‘Blair’s war’ regardless of the fact that the Americans would have invaded Iraq anyway – and perhaps with even worse consequences – without Blair’s restraining influence.
Finally, and most damaging to Blair’s reputation, there is the charge that he took us to war on the basis of a lie – no matter how many times it is argued that the actual casus belli was not Saddam’s alleged possession of WMD per se but his serial non-compliance with UN Resolutions requiring him to demonstrate (not merely assert) that he did not have these weapons.
But all such considerations are swept aside by the compulsion of Blair’s critics to present everything that Blair doesthrough a glass darkly – appropriate perhaps to bar room discussion but not, I submit, to serious debate.
So how should those who still believe in left ideals, but who recognise the constraints on realising them in a world dominated by business interests and realpolitik, relate to Tony Blair’s leadership?
First, we should give credit where credit is due. There is a huge success story to be told - from Sure start to vastly improved pensions for the poorest in our community, from the introduction of a rising minimum wage to massive investment in health and education services.
Second, we should accept the positive elements of Blair’s essentially pragmatic approach. What is wrong with a philosophy of what works best, irrespective of which part of the political spectrum the idea is coming from? Socialism was never about taxing the rich per se or nationalisation per se but about building a better society. You cannot do that with what does not work, however much you might wish it to be otherwise. So why not give more attention to rigorous research findings when we try to put our ideals into practice? If the results fit the ideology of the left (e.g. that comprehensive education produces a more cohesive society without detriment to academic standards) all well and good; if the results do not fit (e.g. that Foundation Hospitals provide a better and more democratic service), so be it. What is wrong, too, with recognising the central role of consumerism in peoples’ lives and the importance that is now attached to personal spending and personal choice compared to the more collectivist ethos of former days? Recognising this as a fact of life in a capitalist society does not mean we necessarily approve of it. It means we have to be more canny about nudging people in the right direction as we see it – and appreciating that the achievement of a truly social democratic society will be quite a slow process where many pre-conditions will have to be met, such as a more rounded school curriculum and curbs on working time and advertising, before we can begin to change course in a decisive manner. We can just about see the start of this under the Blair regime, but given the need to keep everyone on board, not least the wealth-creators in a highly competitive business society, we should not be too impatient about the rate of progress.
Third, we should continue to put forward radical policies based on socialist values but adapted in the Blair way to chime with how people actually live their lives in this frenetic twenty-first-century turbo-capitalist society of ours. More emphasis on the well-being agenda would be a good start in this respect.
Fourth, we should try to move towards a more balanced view on Blair’s part in the Iraq war. We may well still conclude that this was a mistaken venture, but we should at least consider the possibility that Blair’s motives for doing what he did were not ignoble and that in the end there may have been a fine choice to be made between the lesser of the evils.
As to the future, it could be that Blair and any Blairite successor could be so beholden to the business community as to rule out any significant advance under their leadership. At this point, but only at this point, let battle commence."
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