THERE IS NO question about it, no question at all. As you get older, no matter how hard you try, you get more cynical. Take Scooby-Doo, for example.
The other day I watched Scooby with my two young children. It was a classic edition from before Scrappy-Doo came along and spoilt everything. My boys watched open-mouthed with surprise as it became apparent that the vampires chasing Shaggy were not real, and that kindly old Mr Jones from the library was behind the whole thing. Not me. Right from the beginning I thought those vampires looked a bit fishy and I was on to that librarian.
Then there is the home page of Friends Reunited on which they claim to have “14 million old friends listed”. Excuse me, but I bet they aren’t all old friends. Some of them may be after my money.
And what about that picture of John Prescott playing croquet during office hours? I think it was a set-up to reassure us that he wasn’t busy running the country.
There’s no question about it, as you get older you get more cynical. So, when the Prime Minister sacks the Home Secretary because of the gross incompetence of his department, and the new Home Secretary, John Reid, admits that after nine years in power the Home Office is “not fit for purpose”, others may be impressed at their frankness. I think — “gross incompetence”, mmmm, good cover story, but what are they trying to hide?
To understand what I’m on about, you have first to understand this — the centrality to new Labour of being thought tough on crime and immigration. In his book Behind the Oval Office Bill Clinton’s chief strategist, Dick Morris, outlines the centre-left plan to beach conservatives. You neutralise the handful of popular issues on which the Right has an advantage, by positioning yourself as equally tough. This leaves only traditional left issues (public service provision, green issues and so on) to fight over, putting the Right at a huge disadvantage.
Morris lists the management of the economy, crime, immigration and defence as the Right’s popular issues. Tony Blair has always seen it as vital that the Conservatives not be allowed the ability to distinguish themselves in any of these areas, unless they were prepared to make themselves look extreme.
Thus the crisis at the Home Office doesn’t just damage the Government on an important issue, it threatens a central plank of what makes new Labour new.
This explains the alacrity with which the Government has been prepared to accept the charge of gross incompetence. In fact, so enthusiastic are they about being seen as incompetent, they’ve even begun making the charge themselves. The Home Secretary cancelled an important speech in order to rush to the House of Commons so that he could make the accusation in person.
You see, it is far better for new Labour that the administration of government policy is seen as a slapstick comedy of errors than for anyone to question the policy itself. Better still would be if they could blame maladministration on civil servants, rather than shouldering it themselves. But that is not essential. It is preferable to be seen as a clueless bunch of buffoons than it is to be seen as repeating an old Labour failing — not being tough enough on crime and immigration.
Yet the truth about what is happening at the Home Office is exactly that. The crisis on crime and immigration has not been caused by officials making bizarre decisions and losing some dangerous criminals because they were too busy lunching at the Athenaeum: it has been caused by officials making the only decisions they could make, given new Labour policy.
The first, and most important, policy error was to fail to build an adequate number of new prisons. It has been obvious from Day One of Mr Blair’s tenure in Downing Street that a tough crime policy could not work without a greater number of prison places. Schemes to house dangerous criminals in open prisons may have looked merely incompetent. But the idea that they were simply bungles is quite wrong. They were instead a rational but desperate last resort, forced on officials by a failure of political leadership. Read any story about useless civil servants letting criminals off scot free and you will find, at the bottom of it, an intelligent able person trying to cope with prison overcrowding.
The next policy error was to concentrate on asylum policy while ignoring illegal immigration — as if they were not manifestations of the same problem. Even now, when pressed on illegal immigration and the failure to deport foreign criminals, Mr Blair replies that he has succeeded in reducing the numbers claiming asylum. He does not explain that a large part of the reason for this fall has been the steady removal of incentives for illegal immigrants to claim asylum status. Failure to track down illegals and those who should be deported has not been incompetent — it has been deliberate policy.
The final policy error has been to introduce so many initiatives, often poorly thought through, that it would overload and test even the most efficient official to implement them. To give one tiny example — the Government responded to the revelation that we were failing to deport foreign criminals by announcing new measures adding to the number of people who need to be found and deported.
At every stage, the aim has been to manage headlines rather than to manage crime and immigration. The important thing has not been to be tough on crime but to be seen to be tough on it, not to control immigration but to control media coverage of immigration.
Dressing up as buffoons is a disguise as transparent as the vampires on Scooby-Doo. Blame it instead on kindly old Mr Blair from the library.
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk
