Tony Blair’s final speech to Labour’s annual conference offered more than just the promised ‘road map’ for a fourth term. It was, in fact, a litany of much-needed reminders: of the country Labour inherited in 1997 and how a changed Labour succeeded in transforming it, and why, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, we need to continue to make change our friend, not our enemy. As Labour goes about the process of choosing a new leader over the next year, the speech offers a number of lessons which the party would be wise not to forget.
First, while another of Clinton’s old adages – that progressives must treat every day in power as if it were their first – is indeed true, the future debate about renewal should take place within the context of Labour’s record in government so far. This is not Year Zero. Indeed, the prime minister’s address offered a convincing reminder of just how far Labour has gone towards closing that famous ‘progressive deficit’ – the legacy of rightwing hegemony for much of the 20th century – which Labour inherited in 1997.
If some think that the prime minister’s departure should signal a total break with the Blair era, they are mistaken. They are also in danger of repeating the massive blunder committed by Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 US presidential election when instead of running on the highly success record of the administration of which he had been a part, he ran away from it.
David Cameron is attempting to ape the progressive agenda which now shapes the nation’s politics for one simple reason: he knows its popular appeal. And, as man whose public relations talents are beyond reproach, we should trust the Tory leader’s judgement on this one. Labour thus cedes this ground to him at its peril.
Second, none of the achievements of the past decade would have been possible if Labour had not had the courage to change. As the prime minister reminded delegates in his speech, the party recovered its electability only when it abandoned ‘the ridiculous, self-imposed dilemma between principle and power’ and broke the false dichotomy between individual prosperity and a caring society posited by the Tories. As Blair argued, ‘the USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled.’ The party’s road back to power began, moreover, when it remembered that while values may be enduring, the policies to fulfil them must adapt to changing times.
Those who doubt the harsh judgement which the voters mete out to parties which fail to heed this lesson should not only recall how the British people treated the ossification of the Tory party in the 1990s. Internationally, too, there are powerful examples. Consider, for instance, the American Democrats: struggling this month to pull off even the narrowest of victories against one of the most unpopular Congresses of all time, controlled by a party whose president now scores the lowest approval ratings measured in modern American political history. Or, closer to home, look at the French Socialists: at best running neck-and-neck in their bid to regain the Elysee Palace next year, despite Jacques Chirac’s pitiful 12 years in office. Against a weak opposition, sometimes even the most hopeless of governments can’t manage to lose elections.
The final lesson, and the most important message of Blair’s speech, was that the challenges facing the country in 2007 are very different from those of 1997. As the prime minister noted, they have morphed from the ‘essentially British’ to the ‘essentially global’: the rise of China and India, global terrorism, immigration, the environment and the need for energy security. And while globalisation offers huge opportunities – new jobs, advances in science and technology, cheap goods and travel – it also threatens huge insecurity. The task for progressives, as Blair rightly contended, is to offer a response to globalisation which blends openness and security.
Adapting to change also means, of course, acknowledging that investment in public services must be matched by reforms which recognise, as the prime minister suggested, that people ‘want power in their own hands’. The ‘empowerment’ agenda to meet that desire is outlined by James Purnell in this issue (see page 12) and in the pamphlet, New Labour, New Challenges, published this month by Progress. It was also powerfully advocated by Alan Milburn in his speech on the future of New Labour last month (which you can read at progressonline.org.uk).
Blair’s address finished with a simple line: ‘It’s your choice. This is my advice. Take it or leave it.’ The Labour party would be close to insane not to take it.