Tony Blair’s A Journey is now the fastest-selling autobiography ever, up there in the bestselling league with Dan Brown and JK Rowling. The British Legion, and the people it serves, will benefit from Blair’s generous endowment for many years to come. The publishers were worried Mandelson’s memoir would spoil sales – they needn’t have worried. Mandelson may be a Prince, but there’s only one King.
I got my copy an hour after it hit the bookshops, in Waterstone’s in Eastbourne. I was the first person to buy one. There was no queue. Have I read it? Well, yes and no. I’ve read the parts that the media thought interesting: the descriptions of the corrosive relationship with Gordon Brown (whom Blair blames squarely for personally organising the ‘curry house coup’ which brought him down), the weird ‘premonition’ that John Smith would die and Blair would become leader, the political development of the Labour government, and the Iraq war, the admission of drinking too much booze (gin and tonic, for heaven’s sake).
I’ve read the sections about issues or events where I had a walk-on, non-speaking role: the rewriting of Clause IV, the election campaigns, and the health service reforms. Progress gets an almighty telling off on pages 620-621 for going all soft at the moment of transition from Blair to Brown. Naughty Progress.
I’ve looked in the index for people I know and like, and read what Blair thinks about them. You have to feel a little sorry for Phil Collins, Blair’s speechwriter, who appears in the index, but not on the page – a victim of some last-minute edit, no doubt.
I’m afraid the section on Northern Ireland is a pleasure that still awaits.
The prose style is a curious combination of religiosity and the kind of slack vernacular that I would tell my son off for using. The religiosity comes from both the Biblical language which appears throughout, and from the confidence of the political assertions. The lapses into slang are at times hilarious (‘wet our knickers’, ‘wuss’). Running throughout the book, though, is a political analysis and conviction which bears closer examination. The book is selling in huge numbers because of its breathless pace and readability. But for progressives, it is worth reading for the politics.
‘Blairite’ is one of those lazy terms which has no meaning. It can be used to denote anyone who worked closely with Tony Blair himself, which meant most of the cabinet, ministers and advisers. ‘Blairites’ just meant a supporter of Tony Blair. In 1996 I was interviewed on BBC Newsnight, and described on air as a ‘Blairite’. Later, my mum asked me how the play was coming on. What play? Oh, on the TV they called you a ‘playwright’. For critics, it can be used as a term of abuse. It has peppered the leadership contest. Many political leaders have attracted a following of -ites: Bevan, Gaitskell, Kinnock, Thatcher, Brown. Few can claim an -ism. There are Brownites, but there isn’t a Brownism. The personal clique is not bound by a common philosophy, just tribalism and self-interest.
So is there a Blairism? The book contains enough material to suggest a canon of political belief which adds up to a coherent weltanschauung. A belief in the innate worth of human beings; liberal democracy as the best way to organise states; the understanding of globalisation as the dominant feature of our age, and the necessity for political and economic institutions and cultures to adapt to it; the responsibility of democracies to intervene into failed and rogue states which threaten their own people or regions; the limits of the central state as a tool of social progress or economic prosperity. The disregard for tradition, where it drags back progress and advancement. These themes transcend Blair’s individual policy foibles, such as his contempt for the freedom of information act or the ‘ban’ on fox-hunting.
It’s not helpful to credit an individual with an entire political creed. It fuses the political with the personal, and allows the first to be discredited by the second. We can leave that to the Marxists. Blairism for me stands today for what it stood for in the early-1990s – a laudable attempt to apply democratic socialist values to a fast-changing society and economy, with the vital insight that policies are a tool, not an end in themselves. Historically, this is called revisionism. It can be traced back to Eduard Bernstein attempts to revise Marx, via Evan Durbin in the 1940s, Crosland in the 1950s and 1960s, and Kinnock in the 1980s. Revisionism is a political method and approach which allows Labour to be truly the party of modernisation – always anticipating the next issue or cause, not held down under the weight of outdated policies. In the future, it may get dubbed ‘Milibandism’, although I hope we can avoid such ugliness. But it remains the best and only methodology which guarantees Labour’s continuing relevance, and capacity to change society.
The new leader should read the book, not just the bits where they get a mention, and recognise an important truth: modernisation is the only game in town. Labour is either the party of modernisation, or it will become a party of protest and opposition. Winning or whinging – that’s the choice on the next stage of our journey.
Paul Richards is author of Tony Blair: In His Own Words. His latest book Labour’s Revival is published at the end of this month.
Why do democracies have any particular right,let alone duty, to attack any state some crass Pecksniff (eg Blair) thinks obstructs the right of the AngloAmericans to rule the world? Plainly, the two great rogue states are the US and the UK, because they have invaded without provocation several states which pose no illegitimate threat to any other state. Frequently to help Israeli settlers to grab at least the entire West Bank etc .
David M is most Blairite candidate. In the interests of world peace, any other candidate is preferable.
Nice analysis Paul. My wish for the new leader is that they never come close to an “ist” or “ism” but instead just…lead the team. Fergusonites didn’t win the title. Gatesism isn’t the name for the movement that changed personal computing. What is needed is vision and values displayed by the team at the top, with a leader giving beat perfect expositions of how the fairer, better Britain in a democratic, peaceful world can demonstrate the sad reductive thinking of the coalition.
Yes, Progress does get a ticking off in A Journey (but also some praise which Paul Richards omits to mention). He also does not tell us that Blair says that he and Progress were outgunned by Compass when it came to organising during the transition. This may be true but both Blair and Richards also fail to mention that in the main public forum for the contest – The Guardian – Compass had a free hand. Polly Toynbee is an advocate (and, like her employer, a summerrtime soldier, loving Blair and hating him; loving Brown and hating him). But more seriously, John Harris, a Guardian columnist, has written at least two uncritical features about Compass while failing to mention that he is an activist with them, and only last week lambasted Blair, in true Compass fashion, without making his affiliation clear.
On a final point, may be Tony Blair should have shown some realism in his criticism of Progress – afterall, if he admits that he could not stop Brown becoming his successor, why should be believe that Progress (or for that matter, anyone else) could?
Tom Headland
I’m a bit puzzled by what “modernisation” means. I can only think it means obedience to authority…
The revision of Clause IV saw Blair attempt a “Third Way” in terms of achieving social change. Sadly, the new creed made no mention of co-operative enterprise – and so the chance of defining democratic socialism in terms of free association was missed. Rather than developing the concept of a “stakeholder society” into a policy agenda that would challenge the entrenched power of the City, corporate elites, and the centralised bureaucracy of the Biritish state, “modernisation” became the acceptance or enthusiasm for capital accumulation, regardless of the risks – and this meant that Labour’s values were compromised.
In terms of political economy, this acceptance of what the financial elite were getting up to worked for a decade – economic growth centred in the City and the South East meant tax revenues for redistribution across the UK. It also meant that there was not the same kind of hostility towards the Labour Party from big business. But by implementing policies favoured by elites – deregulation, the open-door to migration from an enlarged EU – and by getting caught up in the expenses system, the parliamentary party seemed to grow distant from the coalition of interests that brought victory in ’97.
That the 2010 General Election did not result in a meltdown of Labour representation is a testament to the wise decision to respond to avert financial meltdown and of the campaigning efforts of Labour members and supporters across the UK.
“A belief in the innate worth of human beings, particular as targets for laser guided ordnance…” This is complete faff. Who believes themselves to be against the innate worth of human beings, apart from neo-nazis or religious extremists perhaps? Obscure schools of jurisprudence, like legal positivists? This can be claimed by anyone, so it can’t really play a part in defining anyone. Obviously I’m Blairoscpetic, but I would suggest 10 harder defining features. 10 is a good number. 1) An acceptance or welcoming of the need to win middle class votes, now accepted accords the whole Labour Party (though in varying terms); 2) Contrary to your claim, an antipathy to Labour’s traditions whether actually progressive or not, based chiefly on electoral realism but also some funny bits of his own (often rightist) dogma (something everyone has in measures); 3) A passion for the private sector as a tool for allegedly improving public services (but little passion for the public sector improving the market)… meaning a general passion for ‘more private sector’. General opposition to the Beveridge style welfare state and public services introduced in Attlee’s reforms. 4) A belief in a cast Iron relationship with the United States; 5) Financial liberalism, social liberalism in largely personal matters such as LGBT equality, authoritarianism in social matters involving the wider community such as stop and search, detention without trial, or ‘on the spot fines’. 6) Professional politics, but with what Blair saw as a necessary flipside… opposition to internal democracy or pluralism and a preference for political favourites over the collegiate style of, say, Attlee. 7) Disdain for a wider theory to politics (not so strong with Brown, this) to allow for full flexibility… once again, there is a flipside, e.g. liberalisms and authoritarianisms that look uncomfortable with each other, u-turns such as tuition fees. 8) Pro-Europeanism on the market side, Euroscepticism on the social side; 9) Investment in public services; 10) A bit of a cult of personality. — It seems to me quite simple that a Blairite is someone who considers themselves or is considered (perhaps disputably sometimes) by others as a ‘follower’ of Tony Blair or his ideas. Paul, you’ve just written a list of Tony Blair’s ideas. Don’t you consider yourself Blairite if you follow them, especially how they were specifically implemented as policies and against the context? Or perhaps your support happens to coincide with Tony Blair’s quite randomly, which is also fair enough. But I suspect you were lead by the leader? I consider myself broadly Bevanite, and the man has been dead 50 years. The policies he held influence me a little, but more the principles he applied to how he made decisions. Reading his biography, that of Jennie Lee, and from other sources, I have never come across someone whose instincts and ethical/political priorities are so similar to my own inclinations, for hundreds of reasons. Seeing as that’s true, I don’t really have a problem being identified as what I am? If Blairites are sure of themselves, their politics, and their popularity (surely key to New Labour thought), they should stand up and be counted, and take a bit of pride in who they are. If they don’t consider themselves Blairite, I can only suggest that they avoid considering themselves Blairite and call it that.
What utter nonsense to write “Labour is either the party of modernisation or protest” and then waffle on about “whinging”! Ok maybe Blairite is an inconvenient description but it fits with those who just want to tinker at the edges and enjoy, too easily and conspicuously, the fruits of an immoral and unjust system. We have an honourable tradition of protest in this country and arguably the greatest “progress” has been achieved in this manner. Not lying back and having your tummy tickled by the “great & the greedy”