TONY BLAIR will puzzle historians. When a future William Hague or Roy Jenkins writes his biography — as they did on Pitt, Gladstone and Churchill — their verdict is bound to be mixed. An historically significant prime minister certainly: by next January, Mr Blair will have served longer in Downing Street than anyone apart from Margaret Thatcher over the past century. But he has not yet transformed the political landscape, as Asquith nearly a century ago, Attlee in the late 1940s and Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s unquestionably did.
Mr Blair has enjoyed an enviably strong economic and political position, bolstered by two landslide election victories, but so many early hopes have been disappointed. The Iraq war is obviously the shadow over his premiership, but disillusionment started earlier, and is much deeper. There is a widespread sense of achievement not matching rhetoric, of a wasted opportunity. Mr Blair is, and is likely to remain, “the unfulfilled Prime Minister”. This does not mean he has been a failure: far from it. His achievements are real and more, say, than Bill Clinton managed in his eight years in the White House.
But, for all his Panglossian optimism, and his often selfdeluding ability to make the best of whatever circumstances he faces, Mr Blair is nervous and unsure about his legacy. Revealingly, a new Populus poll for The Times shows the public evenly divided about whether he is a great/good prime minister or an average/bad one. Only 6 per cent say great. Mr Blair has become fascinated by political history: not that he knew much when he became Labour leader in 1994. Under the tutelage of the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, he read biographies and sought to measure himself against Labour leaders and prime ministers of the past. He wants the progressive centre to dominate the 21st century in the same way that the Tories dominated much of the last century. During the last general election, he talked a number of times about achieving a settlement comparable with the post-1945 one that set up the NHS, greatly expanded the welfare state and nationalised the coal and rail industries and other utilities. There seemed to be an undercurrent of nervousness and doubt.
Admittedly, the economy has been strong, until recently, and poverty has been cut, but these are mainly Gordon Brown’s work. Some public services, health and, to some extent, education, have shown improvements but these are not yet irreversible. Mr Blair’s hopes of reconciling voters to Europe has been dashed. Britain remains the awkward partner, outside the euro.
Mr Blair admitted recently that much of his first term was wasted, and that his Government got into its stride only during its second term. Hence, Mr Blair’s tone of urgency now. He realises that he has two years, three at most, to secure his place in history. That is why we will have a series of White Papers this autumn, pushing through further reforms of public services.
But why has not Mr Blair achieved more? He has had many of the qualities of successful, long-serving political leaders. He has been adaptable, flexible, personally resilient, persuasive, and focused on the big issues. Yet he has lacked instinctive and natural loyalties within his own political party and has faced a long-term, and debilitating, personal rivalry with Mr Brown.
The Iraq war, the main question over his judgment and performance, is only part of the answer. Most of the flaws were apparent well before then. One answer is that, for all his talk of modernisation and radicalism, Mr Blair did not want to do more. Unlike the postwar Labour Government in 1945, or Mrs Thatcher in 1979, when Mr Blair took office in May 1997, there were not great demands for far-reaching changes in policy. Voters were fed up with the Tories after 18 years, but they did not want a wholesale reversal of the Thatcher-Major approach. Mr Blair, like Mr Clinton in America, operated in a world changed by the 1980s.
New Labour was created out of failure, and fear of failure. Mr Blair’s dominant motive, both before and after his victory in 1997, has been to avoid anything associated with the failures of the 1980s. For all his talk of modernisation, he has been obsessed with the past. The avoidance of error has often been as important as putting forward positive policies. This meant that his priority was winning, an electoral rather than a governing strategy.
The aim was to occupy the centre ground and to erect a big tent, to attract as wide a range of supporters as possible. That was linked to the triangulation approach, defining new Labour as distinct from the Conservatives and old Labour. But, over the long term, that not only alienated Labour supporters but also discouraged bold policy thinking and made the Government reluctant to confront powerful interests.
New Labour deliberately chose not to overturn the work of its predecessors, except in largely superficial ways that it later reversed. It has not nationalised or privatised, or changed the balance of industrial relations. Rather, in many areas, Mr Blair and Mr Brown have taken forward the Thatcherite settlement, improving it in places, such as making the Bank of England responsible for setting interest rates, and remedying flaws, such as the funding of public services. Over time, these changes have taken the inheritance in a new, recognisably social democratic direction, with higher spending and more redistribution, which would not have occurred under the Tories.
Moreover, Mr Blair and his senior ministers were the most inexperienced new government since Ramsay MacDonald’s first administration in 1924. One of Mr Blair’s more historically minded advisers suggested that the Cabinet was the least experienced since Rockingham’s two short-lived ministries in the second half of the 18th century, not a point he apparently made to the Prime Minister for fear of confusion with Lord Rockingham’s Eleven, a rock band of Blair’s youth.
The Blair Government took time to get a grip on the levers of power, and was unsure about how to translate “Tony wants” into changes on the ground. Only two years into power he complained about scars on his back from trying to reform the public sector. The Government changed direction after 2000, both raising spending, extending consumer choice and involving the private sector more. The initial phase of over-promising, of spin, fuelled public scepticism, so that when evidence eventually appeared of falling waiting lists and rising performance in schools, many voters were not persuaded.
Mr Blair wants to copy Winston Churchill’s view that the best way to influence history is to write it — or, in his case, at least to define the terms by which historians will judge you. During the election, he talked of creating “a settlement that your political opponents have to come to an accommodation with. We want to create a situation where the great postwar settlement for welfare, for public services is renewed and modernised, more personalised services”. This is an elastic definition of success, allowing him to declare victory when he wants.
One of his former senior advisers reckons we will know if there is a new settlement in four or five years. The test will be if there is widespread support for primarily taxpayer-funded core services (even with more private funding of university education and child and elderly care). If the Tories accept that, as they largely accepted the 1945-51 changes, then there will be a new settlement.
Another measure may be the number of middle-class people who remain within the state sector rather than go private. There has been no shift in London secondary schools, but speedier treatment for non-urgent medical conditions is already squeezing private health insurance.
Mr Blair has defined his legacy in terms of acceptance by the Tories. But for many zealous Blairites, the aim of entrenching changes now and making them irreversible is less to do with the Tories than with a possible different approach under Gordon Brown. Any changes in policy under Mr Brown would probably be at the margin: the number of privately run schools and medical centres funded by the taxpayer. But there could be a bigger shift in style and language in a more traditional Labour direction. The Brownite shadow is the real spur to activity.
At Labour’s manifesto launch in April, Mr Blair said he was confident that, under its new leader, “it would continue to be the modern progressive new Labour Party of the past ten years that the British people can support with confidence”. These words were an expression of hope rather than a certain forecast. Any Blairite settlement is still in doubt. His legacy remains bitterly contested. The historians are waiting to pounce.
- The Unfulfilled Prime Minister by Peter Riddell is published by Politico’s on October 10. Available from Books First at £13.99 inc p&p. Call 0870 1608080 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
