The Project was billed as a drama about spin over substance and cynicism over principle, and it was. The spin revealed was that of the BBC in attempting to persuade us that their political drama was an ‘insider view’ of New Labour, and the cynicism was that of the programme-makers, who went out of their way to undermine public faith in politics.
The Project failed on two levels: first, it was riddled with factual inaccuracies about New Labour’s history and culture, despite the much-spun ‘research’ that the programme-makers claimed to have undertaken over three years. The second, far more unforgivable, failure was that it was poor dramatically. The Project simply wasn’t very good.
The mistakes came thick and fast: Manchester University students’ union taking part in direct action? I don’t think so. Labour staffers going through bins and chatting up a Tory cabinet minister’s mistress? Never happened. A central character being interviewed for a Labour press office job in 1992, stating that unilateral nuclear disarmament must be dropped? The policy had gone in 1989. An anti-nuclear poster on the wall in Walworth Road in 1992? No way.
A Labour government whip assaulting a black woman Labour MP? Ludicrous. Labour apparatchiks wandering into Downing Street on 1 May 1997 while the Tories were still packing? Impossible. And so it went on: mistake after mistake. This might have been allowable if the dramatists had presented it as a satire of political life. But they claimed it was an accurate portrayal, which meant their inaccuracies were disingenuous at best.
The real shame of The Project is not merely that it was a bit rubbish. It was the missed opportunity. The creation of New Labour, the move towards government, the excitement of the by-elections, the strong sense of fellowship amongst Labour’s activists – none of this was captured by the programme. The period from 1992 to 1997 and beyond into the first Labour term was incredibly exciting and energising. It was a time of great change and challenge. For those of us who were there throughout, it was the most invigorating time of our lives. A great political drama – David Hare’s The Absence of War – explains the phenomenon of young people, without a war to fight, going into politics to make their mark.
The real young men and women who were New Labour’s standard bearers were not the bitter, cynical characters seen in The Project. We were committed and hard-working, driven by values and willing to act on them. We wanted a national minimum wage, a ban on handguns, lots more money for schools and hospitals, devolution to Scotland, Wales and London, unions back at GCHQ, more police, and an end to the Tories’ complacency and sleaze. So we did something about it. We fought for modernisation inside the party, we voted for Tony Blair as leader, we reformed Clause IV, we leafleted and blitzed and debated, we got the country behind us, and in 1997 and 2001 we proved that modernisation works.
The best political drama on television comes from the USA – The West Wing, about a fictional Democrat White House staffed by intelligent, motivated aides and led by Nobel prize-winning President Jed Bartlett. What Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, does, is show that politics is about hope, and that, in amongst all the deals and compromise, good can come from government.
Britain has never produced a political fiction based on that premise. Jim Hacker in Yes Minister was a bumbling idiot surrounded by scheming officials; Alan B’stard in the New Statesman and Francis Urquart in House of Cards were driven only by greed and self-promotion. Harry Perkins, the leftwing Labour PM in A Very British Coup, is destroyed by establishment plots. There has never been a British Jed Bartlett.
When the first part of The Project was screened at 9.00pm it had attracted 3.8 million viewers. By the end it had slumped to 2.3 million. Nearly two million people had voted with their remote controls. This ratings flop proves that people are sick of cynicism and spin – they want hope and aspiration. There is a great political drama to be made about New Labour. We are still waiting.