Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy
David Marquand
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 512pp, £25.00
New Labour, especially under Tony Blair, has never had much time for history. In so far as it has allowed the party to escape from the shackles of the past (as over the revision of Clause IV), this has been a strength. On the other hand, it has sometimes been in danger of ignoring crucial historical trends and perspectives which, if intelligently analysed, can help make better sense of the present.
This is one reason why David Marquand’s new book, a brilliant survey of British democratic politics since 1918, should be on the reading list of all politicians, especially Labour ones. It is scholarly yet highly accessible, provocative while also being, on the whole, well balanced. Above all, it is a delight to read.
Marquand has for a number of years been a highly perceptive political commentator, one of the few genuine ‘public’ intellectuals of our times. He has already written some exceptional books, including a masterly biography of Ramsay MacDonald and two outstanding polemics, The Unprincipled Society and Decline of the Public. His lastest work, which is enriched by a lifetime’s experience, is arguably his best.
In The Strange Career of British Democracy he explores a number of issues – the disputed identity of Britain and the British as empire faded, the tension between democracy and capitalism, the interplay between political, cultural and social change, and what he describes as ‘the subtle, often ambiguous relationship between individual character and experience, and political action and belief’. More controversially, he provides an overarching explanatory framework to the story of British democratic politics.
Marquand highlights four types of democratic tradition which he calls, respectively, ‘whig imperialist’, ‘Tory nationalist’, ‘democratic collectivist’ and ‘democratic republican’.
Whig imperialism was a tradition of gradual progress, timely accommodation and balance between freedom and order. By contrast, Tory nationalism was a pessimistic creed seeing life in Hobbesian terms as ‘nasty, brutish and short’. What was needed was a strong state to ensure order and to protect the country against foreigners.
There were two main traditions on the left. The first was ‘democratic collectivism’ which looked forward to a future of emancipation, justice and rationality. The state was the agent of social transformation, guided by science, reason and impartial technocrats. The good society was to be brought to the people.
The second was ‘democratic republicanism’ whose supporters were ‘The Troublemakers’ (to use the title of one of AJP Taylor’s books) of British democracy. Its tradition went back to the Levellers in the 17th century and the Paineites in the 18th and was based on ideas of democratic rights, participation and local democracy.
Marquand argues that Whig imperialism dominated the two decades before 1945 and also the Tory years of the 1950s. Democratic collectivism, associated with the Labour party, was its main challenger. Both ran into the sands in the dramatic period of the 1970s which gave Tory nationalism in the guise of Thatcherism and then New Labour (which he finds difficult to define) its turn. Marquand hints that democratic republicanism is waiting in the wings.
How convincing is Marquand’s framework? It is certainly a stimulating and highly novel way of looking at democratic politics which makes a refreshing change from the old left/right divisions. The author himself warns that his typology should not be taken too far and that his ‘traditions’ are not only in a constant state of flux but also often overlapped. For example, Tony Blair finds himself placed by the author in all traditions at once: ‘With part of his mind, he was a decentralist democratic republican, with another part a centralist democratic collectivist. In some ways he was an unusual kind of Whig imperialist, in others an equally unusual Tory nationalist.’
It is the sharp distinction that he makes between the two traditions on the left that I find least persuasive. His ‘democratic collectivism’ draws too heavily on the Webbs, while other figures such as R H Tawney and Michael Young, who were influential inside the Labour party, are either ignored or allocated to ‘democratic republicanism’. In real politics, the two traditions are often seen intermingling in the same manifesto or even cabinet minister.
This criticism does not detract from my admiration for the sharpness of Marquand’s portraits or the honesty of his judgement. Interestingly, his most surprising discoveries have been on the political right. He writes about Edward Heath: ‘I used to admire [his] clumsy, rather grouchy honesty when I sat on the benches opposite him in Parliament. I now see him as a nearly-great and wholly tragic figure whose downfall testified to his virtues rather than his faults.’ He is very good on the statecraft of Stanley Baldwin who he sees as the key figure in the interwar period, while Harold Macmillan emerges ‘as the nearest thing to a great prime minister in the postwar years’.
He is severe on the Labour party. He admits to being disappointed by the postwar Labour government (with the exception of Ernest Bevin and Stafford Cripps), while Blair is heavily criticised in the closing stages of the book. Indeed, if it were not for his continuing belief in Gordon Brown, social democracy would be for Marquand ‘The God that failed’.