So, was it really Tony Blair’s “Black Wednesday”? Were the tragi-comic events of last week, which left half the cabinet making grovelling apologies for various forms of misconduct, really as serious as the events of Black Wednesday 1992 which destroyed the credibility of the Conservatives under John Major?
Well, not surprisingly, Labour ministers are keen to reject any such comparisons. Bedroom antics, ministerial barracking and even the failure to deport serious criminals are not, they say, as politically damaging as the ejection of the pound from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, when interest rates rose to 15%.. Britain in 1992 was in the depths of recession, with real unemployment at nearly three million and millions of people facing repossession after the collapse in house prices. Anyway, back then, Labour were far ahead of the governing Tories in the opinion polls. David Cameron isn’t.
All this is true. However, I think the comparison with the Major years is actually quite instructive, if you change the dates. What people forget is that John Major was re-elected in 1992, against all the odds and to the dismay of Labour, who thought their day had finally come. It was the years after that, 1993-5 that really destroyed the Conservatives as the most effective political party in British electoral history.
My own recollection of the early nineties in Westminster, where I watched the disintegration of the Tories at close hand, is that there were remarkable similarities to what is happening to Labour today. That sense of drift, of draining authority, of nothing working. Once the spell of government is broken - that mysterious quality of legitimacy - ministers lose the plot and things just go wrong. It was the toxic combination of ridicule and incompetence that did for Major, and it is doing much the same for Blair.
Tony Blair and John Major are very different political operators but in both cases the rot started at the top, with a collapse of confidence in the PM of the day. The difference is that the roots of Tony Blair’s crisis of legitimacy are not economic, but military. Blair’s Black Wednesday was March 2003, when he allowed Britain to be dragged into the Iraq morass in pursuit of illusory weapons of mass destruction. That was Blair’s equivalent of the ERM. His credibility never recovered. Many believe he actively lied about WMD to bounce Britain into an illegal war led by his Republican friend, George W. Bush.
The problems Labour is experiencing now are the backdraft from that initial monumental failure of leadership. The “huge issue of trust” which the PM’s former press spokesman, Alastair Campbell, identified in his diary as the legacy of Iraq has rotted the fibres of this administration, and undermined its moral legitimacy to govern.
Look at the parallels. Back in the mid nineties, John Major’s government became a joke - ministers stopped trying, civil servants sat on their hands and the voters lost respect for a government mired in sleaze. Not just sexual peccadilloes - the torrent of ministerial resignations that followed Major’s ill-judged ‘back to basics’ speech in 1993- but the general collapsed moral standing of the party. Tories like Neil Hamilton and Michael Mates were caught in compromising relationships with businessmen like Mohammed al Fayed and Azil Nadir. John Major condemned what he himself called the “hiring fair” of Tory MPs who were selling their services to outside private interests.
Tony Blair's sleaze problem is, if anything, worse than John Major’s - at least Major tried to do something about it, setting up the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life which held remarkable public hearings throughout 94 and 95. Tony Blair promised to be “cleaner than clean”, yet he seems unable to recognise the mud on his own boots.
Cash-for-peerages, cash-for-access, cash-for-honours. The police are investigating the funding of city academies, and nearly fourteen million pounds of secret loans to Labour made by wealthy businessmen some of whom were nominated for seats in the House of Lords. The PM insists he’s done nothing wrong, even though he has promised to change the law so that he cannot do it again.
As Major lost control of his party in parliament, the Tory backbenches were riven with divisions over Europe and the Maastricht Treaty. It led to late night rebellions and lost divisions, rather like Tony Blair’s defeats over 90 day detention and education. At one point Major described his own eurosceptic backbenchers as “bastards”. Blair regards them, according to the former spin-doctor Lance Price as "f---ing bastards".
Now, Labour MPs are talking openly about it being time for Tony Blair to go, that he has lost the moral right to lead. Many are highly critical of the assault on civil liberties - compulsory identity cards, detention without trial, “glorification of terrorism; ever more draconian anti-terrorism legislation - which can even be used against 82 year old hecklers at a Labour conference. Walter Wolfgang’s ejection from the Labour conference is surely one of the enduring images of the fall of Tony Blair.
As was the case ten years ago, nothing seems to work in the Labour government: dangerous prisoners go undeported, the health reforms go awry, the Deputy Prime Minister is caught using official residences to conduct illicit sexual affairs. Administrative failures crowd the agenda: the tax credit fiasco, the pensions crisis, the child support agency meltdown, the city academy mess.
The government becomes faintly ridiculous, a soap opera. Tessa Jowell’s husband apparently taking cash from Berlusconi; David Blunkett’s “love child” and Kimberly Fortier; Cherie Blair’s #7,000 hairdressing bill, Prescott’s shirt buttons, the cannabis found in Dr John Reid's home.
Ministers come and go with alarming regularity. Tony Blair’s New Labour allies have been the main casualties: Mandelson, Milburn, Byers, Blunkett etc all had to resign over scandal and failure. Patricia Hewitt clings on at health, despite having lost the confidence of much of the NHS; Charles Clarke is likely to go sooner or later over the prisoner release affair; Ruth Kelly, another prime ministerial favourite, nearly lost her job over the paedophile register and is still faced with problems getting the Labour backbench to accept the English education reforms.
So, what is to be done? Could the Tories have avoided political oblivion a decade ago? Well, it’s fantasy politics of course, but if the charismatic Michael Heseltine - who brought down Thatcher - had been installed as Tory leader, it is possible that the Conservatives could have recovered in time to win the 1997 general election. Heseltine possessed the authority and the ‘magic’ to turn things around, to give a new sense of purpose, make civil servants toe the line and put ministers on their mettle. He could have ridden the upswing in the economy, drawn a line under Thatcherism, and begun the modernisation of the Tories that is only being conducted today.
For all the chaos, John Major actually achieved a degree of unacknowledged success in those years. The economy turned round rather rapidly under the second Major government; his national lottery was controversial but certainly raised a lot of cash for environmental improvements; and the Downing St Declaration of 1994 was the beginning of the end of the civil war in Northern Ireland. By 1996 the overall impression was of a government which had simply lost the plot and a leader who could no longer command respect. Some Tories hoped that the charismatic Michael Heseltine might take over and save them. But his attempt to topple Thatcher in 1990 had divided the party and undermined "Tarzan's" appeal.
Labour today faces the same dilemma. Do they stick with a busted leader, or change horses and perhaps stay the course? Gordon Brown, aka ‘the last man standing’, could rebuild the government’s credibility. As things stand, disaster looms, not just in the English local elections but the next general election, where Labour is likely to lose its majority, or worse. Time is running out. History could be about to repeat itself.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Tony Blair is innocent of this ridiculous sale of honours charge
I hope if I’m arrested for a criminal offence Labour MPs, like Jon Cruddas, will be popping up on the BBC to praise my integrity. A noble act of friendship toward his best mate Des Smith, and in no way an attempt to influence Scotland Yard, whose officers had just arrested Mr Smith, under the 1925 sale of peerages act.
Mr Smith, adviser to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) had admitted telling a journalist that if they put up a large sum of money for City Academies there would be a “a certainty” of a peerage or a knighthood in it. I’m sure that the police will discover that this was the result of stress brought on by the demands of his work.
It is a surely a disgrace that a man of Mr Smith’s integrity should be treated this way by the constabulary, clearly working under direct orders from Gordon Brown. I mean, how can we expect people to offer themselves for public service if they are going to be pilloried and arrested merely for offering honours for money?
Not that Mr Smith ever intended to do that during his brief moment of madness. Whatever it was he did was motivated by his passion for improving the lot of the educationally deprived. It had absolutely nothing to do with the cash for peerages scandal which is, anyway, a fiction of the Brownite press designed to damage the PM.
Anyway, no one in government has ever heard of Mr Smith. He was a frequent visitor to Number Ten and advised Tony Blair personally on schools policy, but you can’t remember every Tom, Des or Harry who comes to the PM with offers of millions of pounds. The anonymous Mr Smith worked for Lord Levy, who is President of the SSAT and also Tony Blair’s fund raiser and private banker, but there is no evidence that Lord Cashpoint ever set eyes on his employee.
And let there be no snide talk about “following the money” for I’m sure they never discussed how the PM was going to raise cash for academies from rich donors. It’s just not on for cynical individuals to now go running round putting two and two together and making four all over the place. We all know that two and two make whatever the Prime Minister wants it to make. Indeed, in this case it made just under fourteen million, which is a very respectable sum, given by responsible people to Lord Cashpoint’s fund for the educationally disadvantaged, c/o 10 Downing St. London.
The Prime Minister certainly wouldn’t have talked to either Mr Smith or Lord Levy about awarding honours to benefactors. It is also pure coincidence that, according to the independent Power Commission, every plutocrat who has donated more than a million pounds to the Labour Party has received either a knighthood or a seat in the Lords. Well, what of it? Come on then, let’s hear the latest conspiracy theory. Nyah, nyah, nyah, hearditalbefore.
There may appear to have been conflicts of interest, but these things are very much in the eye of the beholder. The property developer Sir David Garrard, for example, sponsored a City Academy, and also gave Labour a secret loan of £2.3m. But these donations were in no way connected, even though they were both solicited by Lord Levy, directly and through his agent Mr Smith. It is pure coincidence that Sir David later appeared on the PM’s nominations list for peerages.
It is a matter of record that Mr Smith’s boss, Lord Levy, had been advising wealthy philanthropists that it would be kind of them to give secret loans of millions of pounds to the Prime Minister so that their names wouldn’t have to be disclosed. But this was simply for their own good, since publicity can be highly bothersome and intrusive. Whereas, giving donations to City Academies is the kind of thing that it is highly appropriate to publicise since it shows just how philanthropic and public spirited the businessman really is. And how suitable for a place in the House of Lords because of “services to education”.
The Prime Minister has already said the system of secret loans is to be scrapped in future, so that surely confirms the system is working as it should. Otherwise he would hardly be scrapping it would he? Tony Blair has demonstrated his honesty and integrity in the clearest way possible: as soon as he was found out he took action to change the law so he would never do it again. What more can you expect of a Prime Minister than that?
Really, it sometimes makes you despair for the future of democracy the way that people impugn the good names of politicians without a shred of evidence of any wrong doing - except of course the evidence that led to the arrest of Des Smith. And even if Mr Smith is guilty, he was definitely not obeying orders.
Never let it be said that in Britain you can buy your way into the House of Lords, and we never will say it because it has never needed to be said. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind fraud squad officer. And where does it say in the 1925 act that you can’t give a nod to a chap that his cash could come in very handy and would make the Prime Minister very happy indeed? A happy Prime Minister is surely a good Prime Minister.
And, when it comes down to it, why shouldn’t rich men be given seats in the House of Lords? They have become rich through their hard work running philanthropic bodies like expensive restaurants, property development companies, commercial old peoples’ homes, and through nurturing cultural icons like Bad Manners and Alvin Stardust. Aren’t these precisely the kind of figures we want our young people to aspire to?
We don’t want the House of Lords populated by the same old judges, scientists, university vice chancellors and former ministers. Boring, boring, boring! We need to bring the House of Lords into the 21st Century, by showing that money talks - in politics as in business, and that it speaks in a language that the government can understand. What better way to ‘put something back’ for society than to place an anonymous million or two into Tony Blair’s private Labour fund?
You know, it’s not that long ago that Labour was the kind of organisation that wouldn’t have wanted a million pounds from Bernie Ecclestone, let alone two. It believed a mass political party should be financed by the fund-raising efforts of ordinary members, by trades union subscriptions and party membership dues. How hopelessly out of date. Indeed, how offensive to Britain’s wealth community to exclude them in this way from the centres of power.
No one surely wants to go back to the bad old days when rich people had to hide their heads in shame. So let’s stop this witch hunt now, and let Tony and his friends get on with the job, whatever it is.
Mr Smith, adviser to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) had admitted telling a journalist that if they put up a large sum of money for City Academies there would be a “a certainty” of a peerage or a knighthood in it. I’m sure that the police will discover that this was the result of stress brought on by the demands of his work.
It is a surely a disgrace that a man of Mr Smith’s integrity should be treated this way by the constabulary, clearly working under direct orders from Gordon Brown. I mean, how can we expect people to offer themselves for public service if they are going to be pilloried and arrested merely for offering honours for money?
Not that Mr Smith ever intended to do that during his brief moment of madness. Whatever it was he did was motivated by his passion for improving the lot of the educationally deprived. It had absolutely nothing to do with the cash for peerages scandal which is, anyway, a fiction of the Brownite press designed to damage the PM.
Anyway, no one in government has ever heard of Mr Smith. He was a frequent visitor to Number Ten and advised Tony Blair personally on schools policy, but you can’t remember every Tom, Des or Harry who comes to the PM with offers of millions of pounds. The anonymous Mr Smith worked for Lord Levy, who is President of the SSAT and also Tony Blair’s fund raiser and private banker, but there is no evidence that Lord Cashpoint ever set eyes on his employee.
And let there be no snide talk about “following the money” for I’m sure they never discussed how the PM was going to raise cash for academies from rich donors. It’s just not on for cynical individuals to now go running round putting two and two together and making four all over the place. We all know that two and two make whatever the Prime Minister wants it to make. Indeed, in this case it made just under fourteen million, which is a very respectable sum, given by responsible people to Lord Cashpoint’s fund for the educationally disadvantaged, c/o 10 Downing St. London.
The Prime Minister certainly wouldn’t have talked to either Mr Smith or Lord Levy about awarding honours to benefactors. It is also pure coincidence that, according to the independent Power Commission, every plutocrat who has donated more than a million pounds to the Labour Party has received either a knighthood or a seat in the Lords. Well, what of it? Come on then, let’s hear the latest conspiracy theory. Nyah, nyah, nyah, hearditalbefore.
There may appear to have been conflicts of interest, but these things are very much in the eye of the beholder. The property developer Sir David Garrard, for example, sponsored a City Academy, and also gave Labour a secret loan of £2.3m. But these donations were in no way connected, even though they were both solicited by Lord Levy, directly and through his agent Mr Smith. It is pure coincidence that Sir David later appeared on the PM’s nominations list for peerages.
It is a matter of record that Mr Smith’s boss, Lord Levy, had been advising wealthy philanthropists that it would be kind of them to give secret loans of millions of pounds to the Prime Minister so that their names wouldn’t have to be disclosed. But this was simply for their own good, since publicity can be highly bothersome and intrusive. Whereas, giving donations to City Academies is the kind of thing that it is highly appropriate to publicise since it shows just how philanthropic and public spirited the businessman really is. And how suitable for a place in the House of Lords because of “services to education”.
The Prime Minister has already said the system of secret loans is to be scrapped in future, so that surely confirms the system is working as it should. Otherwise he would hardly be scrapping it would he? Tony Blair has demonstrated his honesty and integrity in the clearest way possible: as soon as he was found out he took action to change the law so he would never do it again. What more can you expect of a Prime Minister than that?
Really, it sometimes makes you despair for the future of democracy the way that people impugn the good names of politicians without a shred of evidence of any wrong doing - except of course the evidence that led to the arrest of Des Smith. And even if Mr Smith is guilty, he was definitely not obeying orders.
Never let it be said that in Britain you can buy your way into the House of Lords, and we never will say it because it has never needed to be said. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind fraud squad officer. And where does it say in the 1925 act that you can’t give a nod to a chap that his cash could come in very handy and would make the Prime Minister very happy indeed? A happy Prime Minister is surely a good Prime Minister.
And, when it comes down to it, why shouldn’t rich men be given seats in the House of Lords? They have become rich through their hard work running philanthropic bodies like expensive restaurants, property development companies, commercial old peoples’ homes, and through nurturing cultural icons like Bad Manners and Alvin Stardust. Aren’t these precisely the kind of figures we want our young people to aspire to?
We don’t want the House of Lords populated by the same old judges, scientists, university vice chancellors and former ministers. Boring, boring, boring! We need to bring the House of Lords into the 21st Century, by showing that money talks - in politics as in business, and that it speaks in a language that the government can understand. What better way to ‘put something back’ for society than to place an anonymous million or two into Tony Blair’s private Labour fund?
You know, it’s not that long ago that Labour was the kind of organisation that wouldn’t have wanted a million pounds from Bernie Ecclestone, let alone two. It believed a mass political party should be financed by the fund-raising efforts of ordinary members, by trades union subscriptions and party membership dues. How hopelessly out of date. Indeed, how offensive to Britain’s wealth community to exclude them in this way from the centres of power.
No one surely wants to go back to the bad old days when rich people had to hide their heads in shame. So let’s stop this witch hunt now, and let Tony and his friends get on with the job, whatever it is.
Smoking ban shows it's time to look again at drug laws
And then - nothing happened. It’s three weeks since the smoking ban hit Scotland’s pubs, clubs and cafes. We were warned of mass civil disobedience. It was an offence against civil liberties, said critics, and Scots would defend their freedoms against the nanny state. The result would be chaos.
Well, surprise surprise - the overwhelming majority of Scots have abided by the ban; there’s been not a hint of violence; and newspapers have reported soaring bar sales since the legislation came into effect. Suddenly, city pubs are pleasant places to meet, and eat, and your clothes don’t have to be dry-cleaned the next morning.
If ever there were a candidate for Private Eye's “The Nation’s Press: An Apology”, this must surely be it. Though I have to say, as a supporter of the smoking ban, that even I am amazed that it has gone off so smoothly. When you think how deeply ingrained is Scotland’s drink culture, and how belligerently those loud-mouthed defenders of personal liberty threatened defiance, it is scarcely believable that there was no trouble. Not a single arrest.
It’s a tribute to the Scottish Executive of course for having had the bottle to promote this legislation - though of course they’ll get little credit for that. By definition everything Jack McConnell does is either sleazy or dumb, so expect no plaudits for the First Minister. People are already saying that, well, what was all the fuss about?.
Well, fuss there certainly was. It took guts for McConnell to put his name to this anti-smoking legislation, which could easily have gone wrong. Look at England. Half the Scottish media has been on smoke watch for the last three weeks looking for evidence of the civil unrest, however trivial, that they forecast.
For some it will be confirmation that people have become powerless before the all-controlling nanny state, determined to regulate our lives. But for me it is confirmation that Scotland remains a law-abiding country - in the best sense of the word. We accept and support restrictions on our freedom provided they have been the result of evidence, debate and proper democratic process. It’s what the Scottish parliament is there for.
But the smoking ban is a reminder also of the fragility of the law. You realise that laws don’t work on their own, or because the police are there to enforce them; they only work when the people accept them and effectively enforce the law themselves. The reason the smoking ban worked was that hundreds of thousands of people in pubs and clubs quietly made sure that those minded to break the law did not do so.
But what of the other poisonous and addictive substances that are so much a part of modern social intercourse? The laws on drugs are not being enforced by the same public who make the smoking ban a success. Quite the reverse: for people under the age of forty, there is almost universal transgression of the laws on drugs. Everyone either breaks the law themselves by taking illegal drugs like cannabis or ecstacy, or knows someone who is breaking the law and does nothing about it. And we are talking, quite literally, of millions of acts of illegality. So, how do we square that?
Officers in the Strathclyde Police Federation caused a massive row last week by suggesting there should be a debate on the legalisation of drugs - and not just soft drugs, but class A substances like heroin. They were accused of defeatism, of irresponsibility, of being soft on drug barons. But we are asking the police to enforce laws which we - the public - reject. It is OUR hypocrisy, and the Strathclyde police officers are right to call time.
The war cannot be won. The only way to deal with this problem is to cut it off at source. Either people agree to stop abusing drugs, or else, after a proper national debate, we are going to have to look at alternatives.
Now, I have argued for legalisation of cannabis in the past. I have always hated it myself because it turns me into a zombie, but I could never see any reason for it being illegal. Though recent evidence of the harmful effects of dope, on the functioning of the brain as well as on behaviour, certainly made me think.
As for hard drugs, it would have been irresponsible for any newspaper column to argue crack cocaine and heroin - some of the most addictive substances ever synthesised - should be made freely available. However, something has to be done. Scotland now has 51,000 addicts where we had only a handful in the 1960s, before the government outlawed the prescription of heroin to addicts. Methadone is no solution.
For the reality is that the present regime is only benefiting the criminals. The pushers exploit public tolerance to promote a vicious and predatory expansion of their trade. Just as prohibition benefited organised crime in the 1920s, so prohibition is creating a global criminal infrastructure which is becoming a political force. The drugs industry is is now worth £300bn a year worldwide -equivalent to the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. The British and American army defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in a matter of days - but they haven’t been able to defeat the poppy growers.
But perhaps the smoking ban shows a way forward. It accepted the right of individuals to take a dangerous drug - nicotine is just as addictive as heroin - but only within a responsible social context and with strict rules which protect the health of others. Perhaps we could start exploring ways to modernise the drugs laws, allowing people to use drugs in the privacy of their own homes, provided the state regulated their to protect vulnerable young people and those who become addicted.
It is a scary thought - the state licensing the sale of cannabis, ecstacy, cocaine. But at present we have the worst of both worlds. We have uncontrolled mass consumption of narcotics and we have laws that are openly flouted by a criminal industry which is free to devop its trade in the most pernicious way. The Scottish Parliament has made history with the smoking ban; perhaps it should turn its attention now to Scotland’s second biggest drugs problem.
Well, surprise surprise - the overwhelming majority of Scots have abided by the ban; there’s been not a hint of violence; and newspapers have reported soaring bar sales since the legislation came into effect. Suddenly, city pubs are pleasant places to meet, and eat, and your clothes don’t have to be dry-cleaned the next morning.
If ever there were a candidate for Private Eye's “The Nation’s Press: An Apology”, this must surely be it. Though I have to say, as a supporter of the smoking ban, that even I am amazed that it has gone off so smoothly. When you think how deeply ingrained is Scotland’s drink culture, and how belligerently those loud-mouthed defenders of personal liberty threatened defiance, it is scarcely believable that there was no trouble. Not a single arrest.
It’s a tribute to the Scottish Executive of course for having had the bottle to promote this legislation - though of course they’ll get little credit for that. By definition everything Jack McConnell does is either sleazy or dumb, so expect no plaudits for the First Minister. People are already saying that, well, what was all the fuss about?.
Well, fuss there certainly was. It took guts for McConnell to put his name to this anti-smoking legislation, which could easily have gone wrong. Look at England. Half the Scottish media has been on smoke watch for the last three weeks looking for evidence of the civil unrest, however trivial, that they forecast.
For some it will be confirmation that people have become powerless before the all-controlling nanny state, determined to regulate our lives. But for me it is confirmation that Scotland remains a law-abiding country - in the best sense of the word. We accept and support restrictions on our freedom provided they have been the result of evidence, debate and proper democratic process. It’s what the Scottish parliament is there for.
But the smoking ban is a reminder also of the fragility of the law. You realise that laws don’t work on their own, or because the police are there to enforce them; they only work when the people accept them and effectively enforce the law themselves. The reason the smoking ban worked was that hundreds of thousands of people in pubs and clubs quietly made sure that those minded to break the law did not do so.
But what of the other poisonous and addictive substances that are so much a part of modern social intercourse? The laws on drugs are not being enforced by the same public who make the smoking ban a success. Quite the reverse: for people under the age of forty, there is almost universal transgression of the laws on drugs. Everyone either breaks the law themselves by taking illegal drugs like cannabis or ecstacy, or knows someone who is breaking the law and does nothing about it. And we are talking, quite literally, of millions of acts of illegality. So, how do we square that?
Officers in the Strathclyde Police Federation caused a massive row last week by suggesting there should be a debate on the legalisation of drugs - and not just soft drugs, but class A substances like heroin. They were accused of defeatism, of irresponsibility, of being soft on drug barons. But we are asking the police to enforce laws which we - the public - reject. It is OUR hypocrisy, and the Strathclyde police officers are right to call time.
The war cannot be won. The only way to deal with this problem is to cut it off at source. Either people agree to stop abusing drugs, or else, after a proper national debate, we are going to have to look at alternatives.
Now, I have argued for legalisation of cannabis in the past. I have always hated it myself because it turns me into a zombie, but I could never see any reason for it being illegal. Though recent evidence of the harmful effects of dope, on the functioning of the brain as well as on behaviour, certainly made me think.
As for hard drugs, it would have been irresponsible for any newspaper column to argue crack cocaine and heroin - some of the most addictive substances ever synthesised - should be made freely available. However, something has to be done. Scotland now has 51,000 addicts where we had only a handful in the 1960s, before the government outlawed the prescription of heroin to addicts. Methadone is no solution.
For the reality is that the present regime is only benefiting the criminals. The pushers exploit public tolerance to promote a vicious and predatory expansion of their trade. Just as prohibition benefited organised crime in the 1920s, so prohibition is creating a global criminal infrastructure which is becoming a political force. The drugs industry is is now worth £300bn a year worldwide -equivalent to the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. The British and American army defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in a matter of days - but they haven’t been able to defeat the poppy growers.
But perhaps the smoking ban shows a way forward. It accepted the right of individuals to take a dangerous drug - nicotine is just as addictive as heroin - but only within a responsible social context and with strict rules which protect the health of others. Perhaps we could start exploring ways to modernise the drugs laws, allowing people to use drugs in the privacy of their own homes, provided the state regulated their to protect vulnerable young people and those who become addicted.
It is a scary thought - the state licensing the sale of cannabis, ecstacy, cocaine. But at present we have the worst of both worlds. We have uncontrolled mass consumption of narcotics and we have laws that are openly flouted by a criminal industry which is free to devop its trade in the most pernicious way. The Scottish Parliament has made history with the smoking ban; perhaps it should turn its attention now to Scotland’s second biggest drugs problem.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Could Berlusconi Bring Down the Curtain on Tony Blair
First lesson: don’t insult the electorate. Silvio Berlusconi’s fate was surely sealed when he called voters “dickheads” - at least those that didn’t agree with his tax cuts - at the height of the Italian election campaign.
Mind you, that was relatively mild from the former Prime Minister of Italy. Earlier in the campaign he’d called opposition supporters “coglioni” - literally “testicles”. Well, it seems that enough of them had the balls to get rid of their Prime Minister - the latest in a long line of right wing clowns going back to Mussolini.
And yes, Berlusconi had a soft spot for Il Duce, insisting, against all evidence, that the Italian dictator had never killed anyone. Don Silvio compared himself to Napoleon and Jesus Christ and said he was the most dynamic leader in the world. So dynamic in fact that ninety separate court actions have been taken against him, ranging from bribing judges to tax evasion.
He is widely believed to have inherited the Mafia support previously enjoyed by the corrupt Christian Democrats. The irony is not lost on anyone in Italy that Berlusconi met his Waterloo on the same day that the ‘capo di tutti capo’ of the Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, was finally arrested, appropriately in the Sicilian town of Corleone. The Godfather will be questioned very closely by state prosecutors eager to learn about his business contacts and certain real estate investments near Milan which involved Mr Berlusconi in a previous life.
So, the surprise isn’t that Silvio Berlusconi has finally been defeated - by the slimmest of possible electoral margins - but that he has been around so long. Berlusconi’s has been the longest lasting government in post-war Italian history - five years.
And it is Silvio’s second stint at the helm. He first came to power in 1994 only to resign nine months later over corruption allegations. You have to ask: how could anyone have trusted such a man to lead the country? Maybe Berlusconi’s right about the Italian voters’ brains being in their underpants.
But it wasn’t just the voters who were captivated. Tony Blair had an almost instant rapport with the billionaire media magnate, who owns half the Italian TV and controls the other half through his government appointments. Two years ago, the two PMs couldn’t get enough of each other. Tony and Cherie naturally spent their holidays at Silvio’s flashy Sardinian holiday villa, where the perma-tanned premier appeared with a dashing pirate bandana on his head.
Blair and Berlusconi bonded in the great enterprise that was the Iraq war. Silvio even sent troops which, in accord with Italian military tradition, didn’t get too close to the action. Though the Americans managed to kill an Italian secret agent in March 2005, while he was helping the release of a hostage. But I digress...
Blair seemed to see in Berlusconi a reflection of his own attempts to “modernise” politics and marginalise the Left. They were both intensely pro-American, and keen to be regarded as leaders of a “new Europe”, as the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, liked to describe those Eastern European and Mediterranean countries that supported the Iraq invasion.
However, one senses that there was more to this political love affair than support for George W. Bush’s military adventures. Blair and his followers have an almost mystical regard for businessmen, media moguls, billionaires of all kinds. Look how the Blairite minister Tessa Jowell’s husband ended up accepting a “gift” of 350,000 from the “B people” for allegedly failing to reveal evidence of Berlusconi’s corruption.
Mr Mills would be wise to start packing his bags because the Italian prosecutors will be all over him now that Berlusconi is no longer in office. The crime of which Mills is charged carries a seven year jail sentence.
Indeed, as the magistrates rake through the ashes of the Berlusconi years one suspects that other people in British public life might also have cause to look to their suitcases. Certainly, the document shredders are going to be red hot in Westminster and the City of London this weekend as evidence of Silvio’s network of influence is erased.
Of course, Tony Blair would never have been so stupid as to accept money from any political leader - holidays are of course another matter. His crime is more one of political naiveté. By worshipping at the altar of cash, under the guidance of high priests like Berlusconi, Labour politicians like Tony Blair completely lost their sense of propriety and social values.
I mean, how could a Labour Party leader associate with a right wing populist who had neo-fascists in his governing coalition? Berlusconi’s flashy, opulent, tasteless life-style should have been anathema to any Left wing British politician, however “modern”. It was a terrible reflection on the Prime Minister’s judgement.
Berlusconi was - is - one of the shadiest characters in modern European politics. He survived numerous prosecutions only because they lapsed under new statutes of limitation which Berlusconi introduced into Italian law. He accuses anyone who disagrees with him of being communists. And what’s worse, he’s been a rotten manager of the Italian economy, which has gone into reverse under his stewardship.
Berlusconi corrupted the entire Italian media by placing his relatives in charge of TV stations and newspapers; by sacking television journalists who criticised him; by using his own authority to marginalise and demonise competitors - political or business. His party, Forza Italia, was not a political party in the real sense, but an advertising campaign, financed by Berlusconi and promoted through the newspapers and television stations and even football clubs that he controlled.
So, why did people vote for him? Well, in some ways it was like putting a charismatic businessman like Sir Alan Sugar in charge of Britain. Or Richard Branson or any of the new business celebrity elite, who we are all supposed to admire as moral individuals. Berlusconi was elected by a cynical electorate which believed the modern myth that businessmen are better at running things than politicians simply because they have made lots of money.
But this is surely a compelling reason why self-made businessmen, however uncorrupt, should be excluded from high political office, which demands altogether different skills. Running a country is not like running a business; the bottom line is very different for a start. It involves reconciling competing interests, not mastering them.
Once businessmen take over the state, they are inclined to turn it into a means of their further enrichment. It isn’t their fault; it’s what they do. And politicians should steer clear of them. Blair should never have allowed himself to be seen with this man - outside European Union summit photos.
Say what you like about Gordon Brown, but he would rather have been be seen dead than going on holiday with the likes of Berlusconi. The Chancellor, sensibly, uses parliamentary recess to be seen with Nelson Mandela and visiting poor schools in Africa. What better illustration of the difference between Blair and Brown.
Perhaps Berlusconi will bring the final curtain closer for Tony Blair. Perhaps, indeed, the former Italian PM might find a lucrative haven for TB in his media empire. Now there’s a marriage made in heaven.
Mind you, that was relatively mild from the former Prime Minister of Italy. Earlier in the campaign he’d called opposition supporters “coglioni” - literally “testicles”. Well, it seems that enough of them had the balls to get rid of their Prime Minister - the latest in a long line of right wing clowns going back to Mussolini.
And yes, Berlusconi had a soft spot for Il Duce, insisting, against all evidence, that the Italian dictator had never killed anyone. Don Silvio compared himself to Napoleon and Jesus Christ and said he was the most dynamic leader in the world. So dynamic in fact that ninety separate court actions have been taken against him, ranging from bribing judges to tax evasion.
He is widely believed to have inherited the Mafia support previously enjoyed by the corrupt Christian Democrats. The irony is not lost on anyone in Italy that Berlusconi met his Waterloo on the same day that the ‘capo di tutti capo’ of the Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, was finally arrested, appropriately in the Sicilian town of Corleone. The Godfather will be questioned very closely by state prosecutors eager to learn about his business contacts and certain real estate investments near Milan which involved Mr Berlusconi in a previous life.
So, the surprise isn’t that Silvio Berlusconi has finally been defeated - by the slimmest of possible electoral margins - but that he has been around so long. Berlusconi’s has been the longest lasting government in post-war Italian history - five years.
And it is Silvio’s second stint at the helm. He first came to power in 1994 only to resign nine months later over corruption allegations. You have to ask: how could anyone have trusted such a man to lead the country? Maybe Berlusconi’s right about the Italian voters’ brains being in their underpants.
But it wasn’t just the voters who were captivated. Tony Blair had an almost instant rapport with the billionaire media magnate, who owns half the Italian TV and controls the other half through his government appointments. Two years ago, the two PMs couldn’t get enough of each other. Tony and Cherie naturally spent their holidays at Silvio’s flashy Sardinian holiday villa, where the perma-tanned premier appeared with a dashing pirate bandana on his head.
Blair and Berlusconi bonded in the great enterprise that was the Iraq war. Silvio even sent troops which, in accord with Italian military tradition, didn’t get too close to the action. Though the Americans managed to kill an Italian secret agent in March 2005, while he was helping the release of a hostage. But I digress...
Blair seemed to see in Berlusconi a reflection of his own attempts to “modernise” politics and marginalise the Left. They were both intensely pro-American, and keen to be regarded as leaders of a “new Europe”, as the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, liked to describe those Eastern European and Mediterranean countries that supported the Iraq invasion.
However, one senses that there was more to this political love affair than support for George W. Bush’s military adventures. Blair and his followers have an almost mystical regard for businessmen, media moguls, billionaires of all kinds. Look how the Blairite minister Tessa Jowell’s husband ended up accepting a “gift” of 350,000 from the “B people” for allegedly failing to reveal evidence of Berlusconi’s corruption.
Mr Mills would be wise to start packing his bags because the Italian prosecutors will be all over him now that Berlusconi is no longer in office. The crime of which Mills is charged carries a seven year jail sentence.
Indeed, as the magistrates rake through the ashes of the Berlusconi years one suspects that other people in British public life might also have cause to look to their suitcases. Certainly, the document shredders are going to be red hot in Westminster and the City of London this weekend as evidence of Silvio’s network of influence is erased.
Of course, Tony Blair would never have been so stupid as to accept money from any political leader - holidays are of course another matter. His crime is more one of political naiveté. By worshipping at the altar of cash, under the guidance of high priests like Berlusconi, Labour politicians like Tony Blair completely lost their sense of propriety and social values.
I mean, how could a Labour Party leader associate with a right wing populist who had neo-fascists in his governing coalition? Berlusconi’s flashy, opulent, tasteless life-style should have been anathema to any Left wing British politician, however “modern”. It was a terrible reflection on the Prime Minister’s judgement.
Berlusconi was - is - one of the shadiest characters in modern European politics. He survived numerous prosecutions only because they lapsed under new statutes of limitation which Berlusconi introduced into Italian law. He accuses anyone who disagrees with him of being communists. And what’s worse, he’s been a rotten manager of the Italian economy, which has gone into reverse under his stewardship.
Berlusconi corrupted the entire Italian media by placing his relatives in charge of TV stations and newspapers; by sacking television journalists who criticised him; by using his own authority to marginalise and demonise competitors - political or business. His party, Forza Italia, was not a political party in the real sense, but an advertising campaign, financed by Berlusconi and promoted through the newspapers and television stations and even football clubs that he controlled.
So, why did people vote for him? Well, in some ways it was like putting a charismatic businessman like Sir Alan Sugar in charge of Britain. Or Richard Branson or any of the new business celebrity elite, who we are all supposed to admire as moral individuals. Berlusconi was elected by a cynical electorate which believed the modern myth that businessmen are better at running things than politicians simply because they have made lots of money.
But this is surely a compelling reason why self-made businessmen, however uncorrupt, should be excluded from high political office, which demands altogether different skills. Running a country is not like running a business; the bottom line is very different for a start. It involves reconciling competing interests, not mastering them.
Once businessmen take over the state, they are inclined to turn it into a means of their further enrichment. It isn’t their fault; it’s what they do. And politicians should steer clear of them. Blair should never have allowed himself to be seen with this man - outside European Union summit photos.
Say what you like about Gordon Brown, but he would rather have been be seen dead than going on holiday with the likes of Berlusconi. The Chancellor, sensibly, uses parliamentary recess to be seen with Nelson Mandela and visiting poor schools in Africa. What better illustration of the difference between Blair and Brown.
Perhaps Berlusconi will bring the final curtain closer for Tony Blair. Perhaps, indeed, the former Italian PM might find a lucrative haven for TB in his media empire. Now there’s a marriage made in heaven.
State Funding of Parties Must Take Account of Scotland
The cash for coronets affair seems to have brought about a fundamental, indeed historic change in Britain’s attitude towards the funding political parties. Suddenly, everyone wants the state to pay for our politics.
The Tories want a cap on donations of £50,000, applied to individuals, organisations and firms, plus 60p per voter at election time. Labour want the trades unions to continue paying the political levy, and for there to be a limit on spending at elections. Others have suggested that payment should relate to the number of individual small donations from individuals, perhaps with tax relief and match-funding.
All very well. Though it’s perhaps a little unfortunate that the big parties didn’t discover their support for state-funding before they were caught red-handed prostituting themselves to rich donors. It has been a salutary experience, and it seems there is no alternative but to take private cash out of politics.
But has anyone thought this through for Scotland? We have a different political system up here, with a major political party, the SNP, which doesn’t exist in England. We also have separate Scottish elections. Does this mean that Scottish political parties will be paid twice by the state: once for UK elections and again for the Holyrood ballot? Under the Tory plan, it would mean a cash windfall for Scottish politicians.
The SNP might welcome such a change, if only to seek relief from its financial hardship. Bereft of businessmen who want to curry favour with Alex Salmond, the SNP has been in desperate financial straits for years. It was practically bankrupt before the last Scottish elections, all because of an overdraft that was little more than the price of a posh flat in Edinburgh.
By-elections are a mixed blessing for the SNP because they cost a lot of money. The Liberal Democrats reportedly spent #100,000 on the Dunfermline by-election in February, whereas the SNP could only manage around #20,000. It expects to be similarly outspent in Moray later this month. The Tories will want to push the by-election boat out for their candidate, Mary Scanlon.
These costs weigh ever more heavily on political parties today because of the collapse in party membership. The activists who used to do most of the canvassing have long gone, leaving parties hiring banks of telephone canvassers to do the work. In Dunfermline, the Liberal Democrats not only had the most sophisticated canvassing operation, they also enlisted helpers from as far away as Exeter.
With state funding of political parties, there may have to be some kind of financial firewall at the border. You simply can’t have big UK parties like Labour and the Liberal Democrats pouring money and effort into by-elections in Scotland and gaining unfair advantage over parties which have to be sustained by their Scottish membership alone. Mind you - just try and stop them.
The UK Labour Party spent something like £18 million on the last general election. If that funding were to be allocated on a “Barnett”-style formula, that might mean something like £1.8 million in Scotland - a figure the SNP couldn’t possibly compete with. The Tory proposal is to limit the cost of elections to £15 million, but that would also leave Labour with a massive financial advantage in Scotland, out of all proportion to its share of the vote. Or would the SNP be handed hundreds of thousands in public funds to even the financial score?
These are very complex matters which the advocates of state funding have hardly begun to address. At the very least there will have to be some kind of balancing formula applied to party funding Scotland to ensure a level electoral playing field.
But what would happen if the SNP, or any other independence party, were to start building up a massive vote in Scotland? Would the unionist parties in London be content to see the state pay for the dissolution of the United Kingdom?
We have some experience here from elsewhere in Europe where small parties have been in precisely this situation. Afew years ago, the Flemish nationalist party, Vlaams Block, started winning a larger share of the vote. The big Belgian parties tried to cut off its access to state funds on the grounds that the state shouldn’t fund separatism. Vlaams also happened to be a racist party, which helped the case against state funding.
But does the large parties have the right to do this in a democracy? Is it legitimate for the old party oligopoly to decide who is and who is not worthy of state funding? When it comes down to it, the British National Party is a legitimate democratic organisation, which has recently been cleared of charges that it incited racial hatred. It would be very difficult to rule that it should be denied state funds, even though everyone knows that it is a racist organisation.
Of course, the Scottish National Party isn’t in that category. It is a liberal, multicultural and democratic nationalist party which has no place for extremists of any kind. But it isn’t that long ago that a Labour Shadow Secretary, George Robertson, was talking about the “dark side of Scottish nationalism” and comparing the SNP to ethnic extremists in the Balkans. It is quite possible that a future government in Westminster might take a dislike to the SNP’s separatist vision, and choke off its funds.
The prospect of state funding is attractive to parties who see a way out of their financial difficulties. But it could be a devil’s bargain. Ideally, funding should relate, not just to votes, but to the ability of parties to attract members and donations from ordinary people. They shouldn’t get it just because they are there. Otherwise, we might be trading one kind of sleaze for another.
The Tories want a cap on donations of £50,000, applied to individuals, organisations and firms, plus 60p per voter at election time. Labour want the trades unions to continue paying the political levy, and for there to be a limit on spending at elections. Others have suggested that payment should relate to the number of individual small donations from individuals, perhaps with tax relief and match-funding.
All very well. Though it’s perhaps a little unfortunate that the big parties didn’t discover their support for state-funding before they were caught red-handed prostituting themselves to rich donors. It has been a salutary experience, and it seems there is no alternative but to take private cash out of politics.
But has anyone thought this through for Scotland? We have a different political system up here, with a major political party, the SNP, which doesn’t exist in England. We also have separate Scottish elections. Does this mean that Scottish political parties will be paid twice by the state: once for UK elections and again for the Holyrood ballot? Under the Tory plan, it would mean a cash windfall for Scottish politicians.
The SNP might welcome such a change, if only to seek relief from its financial hardship. Bereft of businessmen who want to curry favour with Alex Salmond, the SNP has been in desperate financial straits for years. It was practically bankrupt before the last Scottish elections, all because of an overdraft that was little more than the price of a posh flat in Edinburgh.
By-elections are a mixed blessing for the SNP because they cost a lot of money. The Liberal Democrats reportedly spent #100,000 on the Dunfermline by-election in February, whereas the SNP could only manage around #20,000. It expects to be similarly outspent in Moray later this month. The Tories will want to push the by-election boat out for their candidate, Mary Scanlon.
These costs weigh ever more heavily on political parties today because of the collapse in party membership. The activists who used to do most of the canvassing have long gone, leaving parties hiring banks of telephone canvassers to do the work. In Dunfermline, the Liberal Democrats not only had the most sophisticated canvassing operation, they also enlisted helpers from as far away as Exeter.
With state funding of political parties, there may have to be some kind of financial firewall at the border. You simply can’t have big UK parties like Labour and the Liberal Democrats pouring money and effort into by-elections in Scotland and gaining unfair advantage over parties which have to be sustained by their Scottish membership alone. Mind you - just try and stop them.
The UK Labour Party spent something like £18 million on the last general election. If that funding were to be allocated on a “Barnett”-style formula, that might mean something like £1.8 million in Scotland - a figure the SNP couldn’t possibly compete with. The Tory proposal is to limit the cost of elections to £15 million, but that would also leave Labour with a massive financial advantage in Scotland, out of all proportion to its share of the vote. Or would the SNP be handed hundreds of thousands in public funds to even the financial score?
These are very complex matters which the advocates of state funding have hardly begun to address. At the very least there will have to be some kind of balancing formula applied to party funding Scotland to ensure a level electoral playing field.
But what would happen if the SNP, or any other independence party, were to start building up a massive vote in Scotland? Would the unionist parties in London be content to see the state pay for the dissolution of the United Kingdom?
We have some experience here from elsewhere in Europe where small parties have been in precisely this situation. Afew years ago, the Flemish nationalist party, Vlaams Block, started winning a larger share of the vote. The big Belgian parties tried to cut off its access to state funds on the grounds that the state shouldn’t fund separatism. Vlaams also happened to be a racist party, which helped the case against state funding.
But does the large parties have the right to do this in a democracy? Is it legitimate for the old party oligopoly to decide who is and who is not worthy of state funding? When it comes down to it, the British National Party is a legitimate democratic organisation, which has recently been cleared of charges that it incited racial hatred. It would be very difficult to rule that it should be denied state funds, even though everyone knows that it is a racist organisation.
Of course, the Scottish National Party isn’t in that category. It is a liberal, multicultural and democratic nationalist party which has no place for extremists of any kind. But it isn’t that long ago that a Labour Shadow Secretary, George Robertson, was talking about the “dark side of Scottish nationalism” and comparing the SNP to ethnic extremists in the Balkans. It is quite possible that a future government in Westminster might take a dislike to the SNP’s separatist vision, and choke off its funds.
The prospect of state funding is attractive to parties who see a way out of their financial difficulties. But it could be a devil’s bargain. Ideally, funding should relate, not just to votes, but to the ability of parties to attract members and donations from ordinary people. They shouldn’t get it just because they are there. Otherwise, we might be trading one kind of sleaze for another.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
The New Labour Project Has Just Lost
David Cameron did his best to divert attention from Labour’s loan scandal last week by making a full disclosure of Tory loaners which was somewhat less than full. Some five million pounds worth of cash, much of it from foreigners, remained unaccounted for. This was because the party had paid it back.
Yes, the Tories have spent the last fortnight travelling the globe, desperately stuffing cash back into the pockets of foreign plutocrats so that they wouldn’t have to reveal their identities. It’s a bit like the Kent bank-robbers shoving pound notes through the door of Securitas and saying they’ve done nothing wrong. ‘Straight up guv - it was all on commercial rates’.
The fact that these were loans rather than actual donations doesn’t make them any less objectionable. Some of the loans were used as collateral so that the Tories could develop their Smith Square property. This allowed them to realise huge capital gains, which allowed them to raise yet more loans. It’s an amazing scam. You can make donations to a party without ever having to give them any actual money.
But who could these mystery benefactors be? I mean, what foreign businessman would want to bankroll the Tories - especially on the eve of an election they were almost certain to lose? Doesn’t it betray a want of business sense on the part of the global super-rich that they were prepared to invest in such dud stock? I think we should be told.
Of course, these foreign businessmen knew perfectly well what they were buying: influence. As one Northern business benefactor remarked last week, it was the only way to get London politicians to listen. That said it all. What is so striking from the Tory rich list is how easy it is to buy into the highest levels of British politics if you have a couple of million that you don't mind parking with them for a whlie.. The Electoral Commission demanded that the Tories come clean, one hopes that they will continue to demand transparency until we know just exactly who has been buy into our political system.
Mind you, it hardly came as a surprise to learn that the Conservatives had been soliciting cash from businessmen. I mean, do bears crap in the woods? The Tory loans scandal is an embarrassment, but it is Labour’s involvement in the cash for honours affair that is really shocking. It is supposed to be the party of the people, the party of the dispossessed.
But that Labour Party no longer exists. It has been replaced by a new form of political life - a parasitical anti-party, which lives in and feeds on the decaying flesh of what was the biggest mass political organisation in British history - a federation of millions of trades unionists, socialists societies, co-operatives and intellectuals, which was dedicated to the struggle for workers rights in factories and parliament.
That party is receding into history along with those grainy images of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders thirty five years ago this summer when 15,000 workers took over the yards. Looking through my own archives recently I came across a “Current Account” documentary I made for the BBC in the Eighties about a simultaneous factory occupation of the British Leyland truck plant and the nearby Plessey electronics plant in Bathgate. We somehow got word that the workers at Plessey were planning to seize their means of production, and were able to film inside the factory gates as they literally locked the bosses out. Didn't save the Plessey or BL, but it galvanised Scottish politics. The youngest chairman of the Scottish Labour Party, one George Galloway, visited the plants and delivered rousing speeches about workers control.
Excuse me for indulging in this syndicalist nostalgia. I do so only to point out how that kind of mass participation politics, linked to industrial militancy, is as dead as Soviet Communism. The trades unions are a shadow of their former selves and the Labour Party has largely ceased to exist as a mass membership party. It was the genius of the opportunist coterie around Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, that they saw a way of exploiting the Labour “brand” - which still had rather noble egalitarian and democratic associations - to create an entirely new kind of political entity. One that had no need for mass membership, industrial muscle or radical programmes. Just a single-minded pursuit of political power.
New Labour used focus groups to home in on the aspirations and fears of the small group of marginal swing voters who decide elections and targetted their message accordingly. Labour powered into office in 1997 on the back of public disgust at recessions, house prices and Tory sleaze - sleaze which now seems almost quaint. I mean, accepting a couple of grand for asking a parliamentary question seems pretty small time compared to selling peerages for donations (allegedly).
For this was the one weakness in the Blair project, and turned into its undoing: media politics requires large amounts of cash. In the past, Labour had relied on the trades unions for ninety percent of its funding, and had relied on its mass membership to run elections. The hundreds of thousands of stamp lickers, poster pasters and door knockers who worked for the party at election time for nothing. Blairites had to look elsewhere. They did. In the mid-90s they started approaching “high value” donors - businesses, businessmen, media stars, wealthy individuals, anyone indeed who could pay for a #1,000 a plate dinner, or be seduced by one of Lord Levy’s celebrity dinners.
But the party needed more than just thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. To win the last election, Labour needed fifteen million. So, a discreet bargain was struck: that provided the “high value” donors made a splash in the voluntary sector and flashed their chequebooks at worthy causes, they would also be able to buy into government by giving loans and cash to Tony Blair. Now, this bargain isn’t written down anywhere, and no one will ever admit that it exists. Lord Levy never said, straight up, that if you cough up a hundred large you can get a down payment on peerage. But he didn’t have to; it was obvious.
The independent Power Commission revealed last week that every donor who lent or gave Labour a million pounds has received a peerage or a knighthood. Labour insists there is no connexion between the two, and its just that wealthy philanthropists like to give Tony Blair their money 'cos he's such a straight kind of a guy. Look at all their other activities, they say. Which is precisely what the Lords Appointments Committee finally did, and promptly blocked Tony Blair’s attempt to give businessmen like Chai Patel peerages. He’d been criticised for conditions in his private nursing homes.
Inspector Knacker of the Yard is now investigating the cash for peerages affair, but don’t hold your breath. Like Lord Hutton’s inquiry into Iraq, this will find that no one’s fingerprints are at the scene of the crime. But that doesn’t mean that Labour won’t be punished. This has been a crushing defeat for the Blairites, and they know it. They can’t raise money like this in future and without that they can’t fight elections. No one in the party is going to work for them, so they can’t appeal to the membership.
New Labour is undone; the party’s over. It’s Gordon Brown’s historic obligation to invent a post-New Labour Labour party. The big question now is whether the Blairites will let him.
Yes, the Tories have spent the last fortnight travelling the globe, desperately stuffing cash back into the pockets of foreign plutocrats so that they wouldn’t have to reveal their identities. It’s a bit like the Kent bank-robbers shoving pound notes through the door of Securitas and saying they’ve done nothing wrong. ‘Straight up guv - it was all on commercial rates’.
The fact that these were loans rather than actual donations doesn’t make them any less objectionable. Some of the loans were used as collateral so that the Tories could develop their Smith Square property. This allowed them to realise huge capital gains, which allowed them to raise yet more loans. It’s an amazing scam. You can make donations to a party without ever having to give them any actual money.
But who could these mystery benefactors be? I mean, what foreign businessman would want to bankroll the Tories - especially on the eve of an election they were almost certain to lose? Doesn’t it betray a want of business sense on the part of the global super-rich that they were prepared to invest in such dud stock? I think we should be told.
Of course, these foreign businessmen knew perfectly well what they were buying: influence. As one Northern business benefactor remarked last week, it was the only way to get London politicians to listen. That said it all. What is so striking from the Tory rich list is how easy it is to buy into the highest levels of British politics if you have a couple of million that you don't mind parking with them for a whlie.. The Electoral Commission demanded that the Tories come clean, one hopes that they will continue to demand transparency until we know just exactly who has been buy into our political system.
Mind you, it hardly came as a surprise to learn that the Conservatives had been soliciting cash from businessmen. I mean, do bears crap in the woods? The Tory loans scandal is an embarrassment, but it is Labour’s involvement in the cash for honours affair that is really shocking. It is supposed to be the party of the people, the party of the dispossessed.
But that Labour Party no longer exists. It has been replaced by a new form of political life - a parasitical anti-party, which lives in and feeds on the decaying flesh of what was the biggest mass political organisation in British history - a federation of millions of trades unionists, socialists societies, co-operatives and intellectuals, which was dedicated to the struggle for workers rights in factories and parliament.
That party is receding into history along with those grainy images of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders thirty five years ago this summer when 15,000 workers took over the yards. Looking through my own archives recently I came across a “Current Account” documentary I made for the BBC in the Eighties about a simultaneous factory occupation of the British Leyland truck plant and the nearby Plessey electronics plant in Bathgate. We somehow got word that the workers at Plessey were planning to seize their means of production, and were able to film inside the factory gates as they literally locked the bosses out. Didn't save the Plessey or BL, but it galvanised Scottish politics. The youngest chairman of the Scottish Labour Party, one George Galloway, visited the plants and delivered rousing speeches about workers control.
Excuse me for indulging in this syndicalist nostalgia. I do so only to point out how that kind of mass participation politics, linked to industrial militancy, is as dead as Soviet Communism. The trades unions are a shadow of their former selves and the Labour Party has largely ceased to exist as a mass membership party. It was the genius of the opportunist coterie around Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, that they saw a way of exploiting the Labour “brand” - which still had rather noble egalitarian and democratic associations - to create an entirely new kind of political entity. One that had no need for mass membership, industrial muscle or radical programmes. Just a single-minded pursuit of political power.
New Labour used focus groups to home in on the aspirations and fears of the small group of marginal swing voters who decide elections and targetted their message accordingly. Labour powered into office in 1997 on the back of public disgust at recessions, house prices and Tory sleaze - sleaze which now seems almost quaint. I mean, accepting a couple of grand for asking a parliamentary question seems pretty small time compared to selling peerages for donations (allegedly).
For this was the one weakness in the Blair project, and turned into its undoing: media politics requires large amounts of cash. In the past, Labour had relied on the trades unions for ninety percent of its funding, and had relied on its mass membership to run elections. The hundreds of thousands of stamp lickers, poster pasters and door knockers who worked for the party at election time for nothing. Blairites had to look elsewhere. They did. In the mid-90s they started approaching “high value” donors - businesses, businessmen, media stars, wealthy individuals, anyone indeed who could pay for a #1,000 a plate dinner, or be seduced by one of Lord Levy’s celebrity dinners.
But the party needed more than just thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. To win the last election, Labour needed fifteen million. So, a discreet bargain was struck: that provided the “high value” donors made a splash in the voluntary sector and flashed their chequebooks at worthy causes, they would also be able to buy into government by giving loans and cash to Tony Blair. Now, this bargain isn’t written down anywhere, and no one will ever admit that it exists. Lord Levy never said, straight up, that if you cough up a hundred large you can get a down payment on peerage. But he didn’t have to; it was obvious.
The independent Power Commission revealed last week that every donor who lent or gave Labour a million pounds has received a peerage or a knighthood. Labour insists there is no connexion between the two, and its just that wealthy philanthropists like to give Tony Blair their money 'cos he's such a straight kind of a guy. Look at all their other activities, they say. Which is precisely what the Lords Appointments Committee finally did, and promptly blocked Tony Blair’s attempt to give businessmen like Chai Patel peerages. He’d been criticised for conditions in his private nursing homes.
Inspector Knacker of the Yard is now investigating the cash for peerages affair, but don’t hold your breath. Like Lord Hutton’s inquiry into Iraq, this will find that no one’s fingerprints are at the scene of the crime. But that doesn’t mean that Labour won’t be punished. This has been a crushing defeat for the Blairites, and they know it. They can’t raise money like this in future and without that they can’t fight elections. No one in the party is going to work for them, so they can’t appeal to the membership.
New Labour is undone; the party’s over. It’s Gordon Brown’s historic obligation to invent a post-New Labour Labour party. The big question now is whether the Blairites will let him.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Club Class Coalition - Sir Menzies Campbell and Gordon Brown are already talking about life after Blair
25/3/06
With one year to go to the Scottish elections, the talk at the LibDem gathering in Aviemore was all about the seven year old Liberal-Labour coalition breaking up. Labour MSPs re talking openly about the merits of going it alone, while Nicol Stephen, the Scottish LibDem leader is making nuclear power and council tax potential coalition breakers.
However, it would be a supreme irony if the Scottish Lib-Lab coalition were to break up just as coalition talk is beginning in Westminster. For I can report that, according to very senior Liberal Democrat sources, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown and the new Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, have been holding informal discussions about how to ensure that “progressive forces in British politics” can work together in future. I’m told that the Chancellor has also approached senior Liberal Democrats like Vince Cable and David Laws with the same issue in mind.
Now, in a sense we should hardly be surprised at this. The Chancellor told the Today programme last week that he believes Britain needs radical constitutional reform. However, neither side is in any doubt about what they are really talking about, which is the resumption of the dialogue between Labour and the Liberal Democrats which took place before and after the 1997 general election.
Then, the late Robin Cook and the Liberal Democrat peer, Robert MacLennon, nearly reached agreement on a coalition deal between Tony Blair and the then Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown. Indeed, one Menzies Campbell sat on the very cabinet sub-committee which explored the mechanics of coalition.
Of course, nothing happened. Tony Blair decided he could carry on quite happily on his own and unceremoniously dumped the Liberal Democrats. When Charles Kennedy came along, he insisted on equidistance between Labour and the Tories. So, surely the Liberal Democrats wouldn’t want to get burned again, would they?
Of course they would. A share in the UK government? Sir Menzies Campbell as Deputy Prime Minister to Gordon Brown? TwoJags? You can bet your ballots that the new Liberal Democrat leader would jump at the chance of entering government, provided that it was on the right terms, and that his party would willingly follow him.
The lesson of the Scottish Lib-Lab coalition is that the smaller party can wield a huge influence, and can boost its electoral support. In Holyrood, the Liberal Democrats have won a raft of measures, from free personal care to the borders rail link, and have consistently increased their share of the vote at elections. So, the model is there.
But after the disaster for Labour in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, the Chancellor’s home constituency, surely Gordon Brown would want nothing to do with the Liberal Democrats and their opportunistic ways? Well, he might very well have no choice.
Labour is in a really serious predicatment right now. The loans for peerages row will not go away; the Iraq war piles disaster upon disaster; millionaires are demanding their money back. Gordon Brown’s first general election could be a very difficult one, with a bankrupt and divided party, and a Labour membership which has dwindled to less than 200,000 members. In these circumstances, anything could happen.
Labour only needs to lose 33 seats at the next election - an outcome which Professor John Curtice of Strathclude University has said is likely - and Gordon Brown becomes just another minority leader. If he has to do a deal, he isn’t going to turn to the Tories or the SNP. Brown’s only option, if he wants a workable administration, is to deal with the Liberal Democrats, who should return with around 70 seats.
Menzies Campbell and Brown go back a long way, back to the campaigns for Scottish devolutoin in the 1980s and beyond. They sit in neighbouring Fife constituencies. They meet regularly on the shuttle flights to and from Edinburgh. There is a lot of trust built up, and Sir Menzies has a good grasp of international affairs and excellent contacts. There’s no doubt that Brown would find Campbell a more congenial deputy than John Prescott, who will anyway bow out after the next election. Campbell isn’t a brilliant Commons performer, but he is very good on television, where no one does gravitas better.
But would this club class coalition really fly? Isn’t it too early to talk about general elections when the last one was less than a year ago? Not so. Brown’s game plan is believed to be an early election. Once he takes over from Blair, Brown will likely launch a 100 day blitz, outlining his vision for Britain, and then to go for a snap election to lock out David Cameron. In other words, the next general election could be two years away, or less if Blair is forced out over the loans scandal.
But what would be the terms? Well, there would be many of course, including a reformed house of Lords. But in reality only one issue would matter: electoral reform. The Liberal Democrats would demand proportional representation for the House of Commons, arguing that Scotland has shown that fair voting can work in the British electoral system.
Now, Gordon Brown is on record as opposing PR on the grounds that it leads to weak government. However, he might just be persuaded. The threat of losing office concentrates the mind. Anyway, he admits himself that Britain has had an overdose of strong government. "There is a long-term issue about the decline in trust in politics", said Brown last week, "over many decades and I believe at the heart of this is the relationship between the executive and both the public and the legislative in the House of Commons”. Roughly translated, this means that Tony Blair is too big for his boots, there is an elective dictatorship in British politics that has turned the voters off, and that the powers of Number Ten need to be curbed by restoring parliamentary accountablility.
It was only Tony Blair’s inflated and unrepresentative majority in the Commons which made the Iraq war possible. The PM saw off two of the biggest backbench revolts in a hundred years, purely because of Labour’s 160 seat majority, and was able to take Britain into an illegal war on the basis of faulty intelligence and without a second UN resolution. Had Westminster been elected on the same basis as Holyrood, Iraq would never have happened.
The loans for peerages scam also shows the disadvantages of handing absolute power to the PM. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Tony Blair was able to set up almost a party within a party, with its own millionaire funding, independently of party, cabinet or parliament. If Brown is serious about his plans for constitutional reform he must take PR seriously. Seats in parliamnet must better reflect the way the country votes. When he becomes Prime Minister, Brown will need to demonstrate to the country that Labour has changed, and that Blairism could never happen again. PR is the only way to doing that.
Of course, the Liberal Democrats might decide to try their luck with the Tories for a better deal. After all, David Cameron has said that his new improved Tories are a home from home for Liberals. But I can’t see Sir Menzies being particularly keen on dealing with the Conservatives - the chemistry is wrong. And then ther is the Scottish dimension.
The Tories already have a majority of votes in England. After the next general election, they are likely to have a majority of seats too. The clamour on the Tory benches will be for an end to Scottish meddling in English affairs, so they are unlikely to want a Scottish MP dictating the terms of a coaliton. The Conservatives will demand that Scottish MPs do not vote on bills which only affect England.
The Liberal Democrats support federalism, but not by this particular route. So, it looks like the “two old men of Fife” as David Cameron once sytled them, could be deciding the fate of the country in the departure lounge. The Turnhouse talks have already begin.
With one year to go to the Scottish elections, the talk at the LibDem gathering in Aviemore was all about the seven year old Liberal-Labour coalition breaking up. Labour MSPs re talking openly about the merits of going it alone, while Nicol Stephen, the Scottish LibDem leader is making nuclear power and council tax potential coalition breakers.
However, it would be a supreme irony if the Scottish Lib-Lab coalition were to break up just as coalition talk is beginning in Westminster. For I can report that, according to very senior Liberal Democrat sources, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown and the new Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, have been holding informal discussions about how to ensure that “progressive forces in British politics” can work together in future. I’m told that the Chancellor has also approached senior Liberal Democrats like Vince Cable and David Laws with the same issue in mind.
Now, in a sense we should hardly be surprised at this. The Chancellor told the Today programme last week that he believes Britain needs radical constitutional reform. However, neither side is in any doubt about what they are really talking about, which is the resumption of the dialogue between Labour and the Liberal Democrats which took place before and after the 1997 general election.
Then, the late Robin Cook and the Liberal Democrat peer, Robert MacLennon, nearly reached agreement on a coalition deal between Tony Blair and the then Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown. Indeed, one Menzies Campbell sat on the very cabinet sub-committee which explored the mechanics of coalition.
Of course, nothing happened. Tony Blair decided he could carry on quite happily on his own and unceremoniously dumped the Liberal Democrats. When Charles Kennedy came along, he insisted on equidistance between Labour and the Tories. So, surely the Liberal Democrats wouldn’t want to get burned again, would they?
Of course they would. A share in the UK government? Sir Menzies Campbell as Deputy Prime Minister to Gordon Brown? TwoJags? You can bet your ballots that the new Liberal Democrat leader would jump at the chance of entering government, provided that it was on the right terms, and that his party would willingly follow him.
The lesson of the Scottish Lib-Lab coalition is that the smaller party can wield a huge influence, and can boost its electoral support. In Holyrood, the Liberal Democrats have won a raft of measures, from free personal care to the borders rail link, and have consistently increased their share of the vote at elections. So, the model is there.
But after the disaster for Labour in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, the Chancellor’s home constituency, surely Gordon Brown would want nothing to do with the Liberal Democrats and their opportunistic ways? Well, he might very well have no choice.
Labour is in a really serious predicatment right now. The loans for peerages row will not go away; the Iraq war piles disaster upon disaster; millionaires are demanding their money back. Gordon Brown’s first general election could be a very difficult one, with a bankrupt and divided party, and a Labour membership which has dwindled to less than 200,000 members. In these circumstances, anything could happen.
Labour only needs to lose 33 seats at the next election - an outcome which Professor John Curtice of Strathclude University has said is likely - and Gordon Brown becomes just another minority leader. If he has to do a deal, he isn’t going to turn to the Tories or the SNP. Brown’s only option, if he wants a workable administration, is to deal with the Liberal Democrats, who should return with around 70 seats.
Menzies Campbell and Brown go back a long way, back to the campaigns for Scottish devolutoin in the 1980s and beyond. They sit in neighbouring Fife constituencies. They meet regularly on the shuttle flights to and from Edinburgh. There is a lot of trust built up, and Sir Menzies has a good grasp of international affairs and excellent contacts. There’s no doubt that Brown would find Campbell a more congenial deputy than John Prescott, who will anyway bow out after the next election. Campbell isn’t a brilliant Commons performer, but he is very good on television, where no one does gravitas better.
But would this club class coalition really fly? Isn’t it too early to talk about general elections when the last one was less than a year ago? Not so. Brown’s game plan is believed to be an early election. Once he takes over from Blair, Brown will likely launch a 100 day blitz, outlining his vision for Britain, and then to go for a snap election to lock out David Cameron. In other words, the next general election could be two years away, or less if Blair is forced out over the loans scandal.
But what would be the terms? Well, there would be many of course, including a reformed house of Lords. But in reality only one issue would matter: electoral reform. The Liberal Democrats would demand proportional representation for the House of Commons, arguing that Scotland has shown that fair voting can work in the British electoral system.
Now, Gordon Brown is on record as opposing PR on the grounds that it leads to weak government. However, he might just be persuaded. The threat of losing office concentrates the mind. Anyway, he admits himself that Britain has had an overdose of strong government. "There is a long-term issue about the decline in trust in politics", said Brown last week, "over many decades and I believe at the heart of this is the relationship between the executive and both the public and the legislative in the House of Commons”. Roughly translated, this means that Tony Blair is too big for his boots, there is an elective dictatorship in British politics that has turned the voters off, and that the powers of Number Ten need to be curbed by restoring parliamentary accountablility.
It was only Tony Blair’s inflated and unrepresentative majority in the Commons which made the Iraq war possible. The PM saw off two of the biggest backbench revolts in a hundred years, purely because of Labour’s 160 seat majority, and was able to take Britain into an illegal war on the basis of faulty intelligence and without a second UN resolution. Had Westminster been elected on the same basis as Holyrood, Iraq would never have happened.
The loans for peerages scam also shows the disadvantages of handing absolute power to the PM. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Tony Blair was able to set up almost a party within a party, with its own millionaire funding, independently of party, cabinet or parliament. If Brown is serious about his plans for constitutional reform he must take PR seriously. Seats in parliamnet must better reflect the way the country votes. When he becomes Prime Minister, Brown will need to demonstrate to the country that Labour has changed, and that Blairism could never happen again. PR is the only way to doing that.
Of course, the Liberal Democrats might decide to try their luck with the Tories for a better deal. After all, David Cameron has said that his new improved Tories are a home from home for Liberals. But I can’t see Sir Menzies being particularly keen on dealing with the Conservatives - the chemistry is wrong. And then ther is the Scottish dimension.
The Tories already have a majority of votes in England. After the next general election, they are likely to have a majority of seats too. The clamour on the Tory benches will be for an end to Scottish meddling in English affairs, so they are unlikely to want a Scottish MP dictating the terms of a coaliton. The Conservatives will demand that Scottish MPs do not vote on bills which only affect England.
The Liberal Democrats support federalism, but not by this particular route. So, it looks like the “two old men of Fife” as David Cameron once sytled them, could be deciding the fate of the country in the departure lounge. The Turnhouse talks have already begin.
Brown's Tenth Budget
25/3/06
"An analogue Chancellor for a digital age". It was an elegant put-down from David Cameron in last week’s Budget response. Gordon Brown has bored for Britain on information technology in many Budgets past, and this was a web-wise way of suggesting that the Chancellor is yesterday's man.
Gordon Brown knows just how effective those asides can be. He used to get comedy scriptwriters to craft them for him back in the days when he used to savage the Tory Chancellors Ken Clarke and Norman Lamont. Now he’s on the receiving end.
Cameron, in his first big Dispatch Box outing against Brown also called him a “fossil fuel Chancellor”, which wasn’t quite so good. Gordon Brown is no dinosaur. He has evolved, learned to adapt to the Dave age, looks less Neanderthal. It was a much more user-friendly Brown who delivered this year’s Budget . Baby blue tie, measured delivery, self-deprecating jokes about what happens to Chancellors who stay too long. He was enjoying himself which is half the battle.
Brown's annual Budget interview on the Today programme was an easier on the ear too. The Chancellor has learned to slow down, modulate his voice, sound as if he is actually listening to the questions. He used to drone on in a relentless, exasperating monotone. Either Brown has been having voice coaching, or his wife Sarah, a public relations professional, has finally taken him in hand. Possibly both.
The Budget speech itself was inconsequential from an economic point of view, but it was fascinating in what it told us about the next general election, which will be an extended version of Wednesday’s Budget confrontation. With few real issues dividing the parties, the election will more than ever be a clash of personalities - between the old moderniser, Brown, and the new moderniser, Cameron.
Here was Brown exploiting his adversary’s class background but in a subtle, post-modern manner. He didn’t rant at Cameron for going to Eton; instead he proposed that the government should spend as much on every state school pupil as is spent on every private pupil. Clever. Underscores the privileged background of the leader of the opposition, while daring Cameron to disown the idea. Or do the Tories prefer that educational inequality should endure?
And do they want to remain the party of the gas guzzler? Of smoke stack industries unregulated by the climate change levy? A Tory party that lets young lives be ruined by spending cuts?
Brown shamelessly stole Cameron’s clothes on volunteering, competitive sport and support for family life, while promising to privatise anything left in the public sector that can be flogged off. Really, it is amazing that this increasingly neo-conservative Chancellor is still regarded as a figure of the Left.
So, Brown can raise his game too. On this showing, these men are not only evenly matched, they bring out the best in each other. The Gordon and David show will run and run - if it's allowed to run. For the problem for both men is that they are in a state of suspended animation until the Prime Minister creates a vacancy at Number Ten.
Tony Blair had a dreadful press last week. Columnists and cartoonists portrayed him as a has-been, overstaying his welcome, a figure from the past, a ruin. The loans scandal has been of epic proportions - and it is all the Prime Minister’s fault. For once, the buck really does stop somewhere.
The Tories have backed off because they are even more dependent than New Labour on loans from anonymous and probably foreign donors, but that doesn’t mean the loans for peerages affair is unimportant. This has been a defining moment for the PM. Tony Blair will forever be regarded as the ultimate political hypocrite, who promised to be whiter than white and ended prostituting the House of Lords.
Doesn’t matter that it can’t be proven that peerages have been for sale - everyone thinks they have been. One of the millionaire donors, Rod Aldrige of Capita has done the decent thing and resigned, but the author of the loans scandal remains doggedly in office. It doesn’t get much worse.
But while the nation regards Tony Blair as bang to rights, the Prime Minister isn't going quietly, in fact he isn't showing any obvious signs of going at all. Blair’s resilience is legendary; he seems to be able to absorb any amount of punishment, and still bounce back.
Which leaves the three most powerful figures in British politics facing each other in an edgy stand-off. It’s the climax to “A Fistful of Dollars” when the man with no name faces the bounty hunter and the thief in the graveyard. No one knows who is going to shoot first and you can see the frantic calculation in their eyes, as they realise that two of them are going to end in holes in the ground.
The received wisdom is that Tony Blair will blink first, but there is no guarantee of that. No one knows what really goes on behind the Prime Minister’s fixed smile - probably not even Tony Blair. What’s he in it for? What’s his game?
Well, possibly revenge. In the PM’s eyes, everything was going fine until a jumped up trades unionist, Jack Dromey, the party treasurer, fingered him as a crook. The NEC has now seized responsibility for party funding; Labour MPs are calling openly for him to resign. Well, if that’s their attitude, Tony Blair may think, then how can they expect me to do them any favours? I’ll do what’s right for me.
Forget the polls - as of this week the next general election is on a knife edge. If Labour plunges into internecine war, if Tony Blair refuses to budge, if the war continues to go wrong, then Gordon Brown could face defeat at the polls. He faces a far tougher challenger than any Tory leader Tony Blair ever faced. And what's worst of all is that the party he leads is effectively bankrupt and he won't be able to rely on millionaire donors to finance his first general election campaign as leader of the Labour Party
"An analogue Chancellor for a digital age". It was an elegant put-down from David Cameron in last week’s Budget response. Gordon Brown has bored for Britain on information technology in many Budgets past, and this was a web-wise way of suggesting that the Chancellor is yesterday's man.
Gordon Brown knows just how effective those asides can be. He used to get comedy scriptwriters to craft them for him back in the days when he used to savage the Tory Chancellors Ken Clarke and Norman Lamont. Now he’s on the receiving end.
Cameron, in his first big Dispatch Box outing against Brown also called him a “fossil fuel Chancellor”, which wasn’t quite so good. Gordon Brown is no dinosaur. He has evolved, learned to adapt to the Dave age, looks less Neanderthal. It was a much more user-friendly Brown who delivered this year’s Budget . Baby blue tie, measured delivery, self-deprecating jokes about what happens to Chancellors who stay too long. He was enjoying himself which is half the battle.
Brown's annual Budget interview on the Today programme was an easier on the ear too. The Chancellor has learned to slow down, modulate his voice, sound as if he is actually listening to the questions. He used to drone on in a relentless, exasperating monotone. Either Brown has been having voice coaching, or his wife Sarah, a public relations professional, has finally taken him in hand. Possibly both.
The Budget speech itself was inconsequential from an economic point of view, but it was fascinating in what it told us about the next general election, which will be an extended version of Wednesday’s Budget confrontation. With few real issues dividing the parties, the election will more than ever be a clash of personalities - between the old moderniser, Brown, and the new moderniser, Cameron.
Here was Brown exploiting his adversary’s class background but in a subtle, post-modern manner. He didn’t rant at Cameron for going to Eton; instead he proposed that the government should spend as much on every state school pupil as is spent on every private pupil. Clever. Underscores the privileged background of the leader of the opposition, while daring Cameron to disown the idea. Or do the Tories prefer that educational inequality should endure?
And do they want to remain the party of the gas guzzler? Of smoke stack industries unregulated by the climate change levy? A Tory party that lets young lives be ruined by spending cuts?
Brown shamelessly stole Cameron’s clothes on volunteering, competitive sport and support for family life, while promising to privatise anything left in the public sector that can be flogged off. Really, it is amazing that this increasingly neo-conservative Chancellor is still regarded as a figure of the Left.
So, Brown can raise his game too. On this showing, these men are not only evenly matched, they bring out the best in each other. The Gordon and David show will run and run - if it's allowed to run. For the problem for both men is that they are in a state of suspended animation until the Prime Minister creates a vacancy at Number Ten.
Tony Blair had a dreadful press last week. Columnists and cartoonists portrayed him as a has-been, overstaying his welcome, a figure from the past, a ruin. The loans scandal has been of epic proportions - and it is all the Prime Minister’s fault. For once, the buck really does stop somewhere.
The Tories have backed off because they are even more dependent than New Labour on loans from anonymous and probably foreign donors, but that doesn’t mean the loans for peerages affair is unimportant. This has been a defining moment for the PM. Tony Blair will forever be regarded as the ultimate political hypocrite, who promised to be whiter than white and ended prostituting the House of Lords.
Doesn’t matter that it can’t be proven that peerages have been for sale - everyone thinks they have been. One of the millionaire donors, Rod Aldrige of Capita has done the decent thing and resigned, but the author of the loans scandal remains doggedly in office. It doesn’t get much worse.
But while the nation regards Tony Blair as bang to rights, the Prime Minister isn't going quietly, in fact he isn't showing any obvious signs of going at all. Blair’s resilience is legendary; he seems to be able to absorb any amount of punishment, and still bounce back.
Which leaves the three most powerful figures in British politics facing each other in an edgy stand-off. It’s the climax to “A Fistful of Dollars” when the man with no name faces the bounty hunter and the thief in the graveyard. No one knows who is going to shoot first and you can see the frantic calculation in their eyes, as they realise that two of them are going to end in holes in the ground.
The received wisdom is that Tony Blair will blink first, but there is no guarantee of that. No one knows what really goes on behind the Prime Minister’s fixed smile - probably not even Tony Blair. What’s he in it for? What’s his game?
Well, possibly revenge. In the PM’s eyes, everything was going fine until a jumped up trades unionist, Jack Dromey, the party treasurer, fingered him as a crook. The NEC has now seized responsibility for party funding; Labour MPs are calling openly for him to resign. Well, if that’s their attitude, Tony Blair may think, then how can they expect me to do them any favours? I’ll do what’s right for me.
Forget the polls - as of this week the next general election is on a knife edge. If Labour plunges into internecine war, if Tony Blair refuses to budge, if the war continues to go wrong, then Gordon Brown could face defeat at the polls. He faces a far tougher challenger than any Tory leader Tony Blair ever faced. And what's worst of all is that the party he leads is effectively bankrupt and he won't be able to rely on millionaire donors to finance his first general election campaign as leader of the Labour Party
Honest Mistake
11/3/06
An honest mistake, that's how the First Minister, Jack McConnell, described the failings in the Scottish fingerprint service which led to the wrongful prosecution of detective Shirley McKie for leaving her fingerprint at the scene of a murder.
Well, we all make them, don't we. Accidents will happen.
I mean, any day of the week you could easily find yourself falsifying fingerprint evidence in a criminal trial. No one's infallible - well except the Crown Office.
So, a mistake in the Scottish Criminal Records Office sent a man to jail for three years for a murder he didn't commit, led to the false prosecution of a detective constable and cost the Scottish taxpayer something like two million in compensation and costs. But nobody's perfect are they? The law is no place for the blame culture.
Really, it's time that Shirley McKie and her posse of compensation con men packed up and moved on. Ian Mckie may be a former police superintendant, but that doesn't give him the right to go around, willy nilly, demanding justice for his daughter. There are much more important matters at stake here, like the infallibility of the Crown Office.
I mean, the people I feel sorry for are the law officers. What about a bit of sympathy for the Lord Advocate and his fine men who've had to suffer years of real hurt? Can the hyenas of the gutter press not see that the entire edifice of Scottish justice would collapse if it were shown that they had made a mistake? We should really start being a bit more mature and responsible. You can't have the competence of the law officers questioned just because they have been shown to be wrong
Ok - a report by the assistant chief constable of .......... McKay said that there had been criminal behaviour in the Scottish Crimial Records Office. That errors by the fingerprint analysts which led to the wrongful prosecution of Shirley McKie had been criminally covered up. But that's only one man's view after all. We can't just go around holding public inquiries just because fingerprint experts at home and abroad say that Shirley McKie's dabs were doctored.
Last week's Frontline Scotland programme, may have presented compelling prima facia evidence of criminal collusion between the police and the SCRO to fit up an innocent man and traduce a police woman. But so what? It's an old story. We've heard this all before from the nationalists who run BBC Scotland.
The bottom line is that the Scottish Executive paid a lot of money to stop this old, old story becoming new again, and really- as taxpayers - we should insist on getting value for our money. That's what the first Minister Jack McConnell was trying to say last week - explaining why he had thrown three quarters of a million at Shirley McKie to stop her going to court. We paid her to keep quiet and we should be holding her to that.The Scottish Executive would be perfectly justified in demanding that it get £750k back from Shirley McKie. What's the point of hush money if there's no hush.
So, it's in our interest as taxpayers that we don't hear the truth. Which is also why the Executive is slapping a public interest immunity certificate on the McKie affair, so that we can be properly protected from knowing any more about the criminality in the SCRO.
But I go back to the central issue here: the peace of mind of the Lord Advocate is surely of much greater importance than any so called truth. Criminal law isn't an exact science after all, any more than fingerprint evidence, as the former Justice Minister Jim Wallace once wisely put it. Questions of guilt and innocence are all really matters of opinion, and it is the opinion of the First Minister, Jack McConnel,l is that it's time to move on, draw a line, start afresh, make amends. Jack McConnell's opinion is as valid as anyone else's isn't it?
It's time that we in the press started to act maturely and stop reporting the Shirley McKie story. It's old news, people. As the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (retired) Alastair Campbell, always said: scandals only last three weeks before people get bored of them. That if government ministers ar up creek without a paddle, they should just keep stumm for 21 days and all the nasties would go away? Well, according to my watch we've had more than our three weeks. We've had nine years in fact.
So, it's time we in the press stopped boring our readers and giving the oxygen of publicity to people who have had their lives ruined by criminal behaviour by the forces of law and order. Shirley McKie has had her moment of fame and its time for the papers to report the First Minister's latest initiative on seizing the children of recovering drug addicts. That's the kind of story we should be running. And the kind of issue that columnists like me shoudl eb covering. Not the latest campaign launch by Ian McKie and Jim Swire of the Lockerbie victims.
That was surely the most egregious exercise in nationalist propaganda in this whole sorry affair. Suggesting hat there was in some way a link between the bombing of Pan am Flight 103 and the Shirley Mckie case. What utter balderdash and nonsense. When the FBI told the police and the Crown Office that there had to be no embarrassing questions about the standards of evidence in Scottish criminal courts until the Lockerbie show trials had eeben completed, they were only doing what any responsible security service would do. It would have been highly embarrassing if it had been suggested that, in Scotland, an innocent man could be found guilty on the basis of doctored or botched evidence. The Crown Office would have been a laughing stock. And we couldn't have that could we.
Of course, the moaning minnies say that only a proper public inquiry into what went wrong in the Scottish Criminal Records Office, can remove the taint from the Scottish justice system. That until this matter is all out in the open fingerprint evidence in Scottish court cases will be suspect and that many criminals may go free as a result. But what is the release of a few murderers and burglars when set against the independence and integrity of the Lord Advocate. Shit happens. Let's not dump any more of it on the innocent men and women of the Crown Office who have just been doing their job. .
An honest mistake, that's how the First Minister, Jack McConnell, described the failings in the Scottish fingerprint service which led to the wrongful prosecution of detective Shirley McKie for leaving her fingerprint at the scene of a murder.
Well, we all make them, don't we. Accidents will happen.
I mean, any day of the week you could easily find yourself falsifying fingerprint evidence in a criminal trial. No one's infallible - well except the Crown Office.
So, a mistake in the Scottish Criminal Records Office sent a man to jail for three years for a murder he didn't commit, led to the false prosecution of a detective constable and cost the Scottish taxpayer something like two million in compensation and costs. But nobody's perfect are they? The law is no place for the blame culture.
Really, it's time that Shirley McKie and her posse of compensation con men packed up and moved on. Ian Mckie may be a former police superintendant, but that doesn't give him the right to go around, willy nilly, demanding justice for his daughter. There are much more important matters at stake here, like the infallibility of the Crown Office.
I mean, the people I feel sorry for are the law officers. What about a bit of sympathy for the Lord Advocate and his fine men who've had to suffer years of real hurt? Can the hyenas of the gutter press not see that the entire edifice of Scottish justice would collapse if it were shown that they had made a mistake? We should really start being a bit more mature and responsible. You can't have the competence of the law officers questioned just because they have been shown to be wrong
Ok - a report by the assistant chief constable of .......... McKay said that there had been criminal behaviour in the Scottish Crimial Records Office. That errors by the fingerprint analysts which led to the wrongful prosecution of Shirley McKie had been criminally covered up. But that's only one man's view after all. We can't just go around holding public inquiries just because fingerprint experts at home and abroad say that Shirley McKie's dabs were doctored.
Last week's Frontline Scotland programme, may have presented compelling prima facia evidence of criminal collusion between the police and the SCRO to fit up an innocent man and traduce a police woman. But so what? It's an old story. We've heard this all before from the nationalists who run BBC Scotland.
The bottom line is that the Scottish Executive paid a lot of money to stop this old, old story becoming new again, and really- as taxpayers - we should insist on getting value for our money. That's what the first Minister Jack McConnell was trying to say last week - explaining why he had thrown three quarters of a million at Shirley McKie to stop her going to court. We paid her to keep quiet and we should be holding her to that.The Scottish Executive would be perfectly justified in demanding that it get £750k back from Shirley McKie. What's the point of hush money if there's no hush.
So, it's in our interest as taxpayers that we don't hear the truth. Which is also why the Executive is slapping a public interest immunity certificate on the McKie affair, so that we can be properly protected from knowing any more about the criminality in the SCRO.
But I go back to the central issue here: the peace of mind of the Lord Advocate is surely of much greater importance than any so called truth. Criminal law isn't an exact science after all, any more than fingerprint evidence, as the former Justice Minister Jim Wallace once wisely put it. Questions of guilt and innocence are all really matters of opinion, and it is the opinion of the First Minister, Jack McConnel,l is that it's time to move on, draw a line, start afresh, make amends. Jack McConnell's opinion is as valid as anyone else's isn't it?
It's time that we in the press started to act maturely and stop reporting the Shirley McKie story. It's old news, people. As the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (retired) Alastair Campbell, always said: scandals only last three weeks before people get bored of them. That if government ministers ar up creek without a paddle, they should just keep stumm for 21 days and all the nasties would go away? Well, according to my watch we've had more than our three weeks. We've had nine years in fact.
So, it's time we in the press stopped boring our readers and giving the oxygen of publicity to people who have had their lives ruined by criminal behaviour by the forces of law and order. Shirley McKie has had her moment of fame and its time for the papers to report the First Minister's latest initiative on seizing the children of recovering drug addicts. That's the kind of story we should be running. And the kind of issue that columnists like me shoudl eb covering. Not the latest campaign launch by Ian McKie and Jim Swire of the Lockerbie victims.
That was surely the most egregious exercise in nationalist propaganda in this whole sorry affair. Suggesting hat there was in some way a link between the bombing of Pan am Flight 103 and the Shirley Mckie case. What utter balderdash and nonsense. When the FBI told the police and the Crown Office that there had to be no embarrassing questions about the standards of evidence in Scottish criminal courts until the Lockerbie show trials had eeben completed, they were only doing what any responsible security service would do. It would have been highly embarrassing if it had been suggested that, in Scotland, an innocent man could be found guilty on the basis of doctored or botched evidence. The Crown Office would have been a laughing stock. And we couldn't have that could we.
Of course, the moaning minnies say that only a proper public inquiry into what went wrong in the Scottish Criminal Records Office, can remove the taint from the Scottish justice system. That until this matter is all out in the open fingerprint evidence in Scottish court cases will be suspect and that many criminals may go free as a result. But what is the release of a few murderers and burglars when set against the independence and integrity of the Lord Advocate. Shit happens. Let's not dump any more of it on the innocent men and women of the Crown Office who have just been doing their job. .
Decline and Fall of Tony Blair
18/3/06
In Westminster they used to say that while Tory scandals are invariably about sex, Labour scandals are always about money and it still holds true today. What did for John Major in the 1990s was the Tory leader's 'back to basics' policy initiative, which famously became “back to my place”, as ministers resigned successively after revealing illicit affairs. Now Blair’s illicit financial affairs are doing for him. We are witnessing the decline and fall of the Tony empire.
There was financial sleaze too, of course, under the Tories - cash for questions - but then you kind of expected it from them. What you didn’t expect was that New Labour would try to outdo the Conservatives in the sleaze stakes. I mean, fourteen million pound in secret loans. This from the party that created the Electoral Commission and introduced the legislation for compulsory registration of loans over #5,000. Labour has been conspiring to evade its own rules on party funding.
This political split personality is very much a New Labour phenomenon. Part of the party wants Labour to be the property of the people; the other part seems determined to sell it off to the highest bidder. The astonishing revelations last week about the cash sloshing around Downing Street - while the treasurer of the party, Jack Dromey, John Prescott and Gordon Brown were kept in the dark - are but the ignominious destination of a journey New Labour embarked upon even before Tony Blair entered Number Ten.
When he became leader in 1994, Blair saw it as imperative that Labour cease to be in financial hock to the trades unions, which had been paying eighty percent of the party revenue in the 80's. . He wanted to move towards a more American form of “high value” fund-raising by seeking donations from philanthropic businessmen - though some of them turned out to be not entirely philanthropic.
Pretty soon, Labour was playing the old Tory game of handing out knighthoods and peerages to anyone able to cough up a couple of hundred grand ‘for the cause’. Tony Blair denies that honours were for sale - that would anyway be a criminal offence - but the correlation between top donors and Labour peerages is too close to be mere coincidence.
Earlier this year The Sunday Times revealed that Dan Smith of the Specialist Schools Trust was telling businessmen that they would get honours “for certain” if they funded a city academy. At the centre of this financial network was Tony’s tennis partner, Lord Levy, the self-made businessman who brought you the pop groups “Dollar” and “Bad Manners”. His nickname, “Mr Cashpoint”,tells you all you need to know.
No laws were broken, but that isn’t the point. Sleaze is about probity, about avoiding the appearance impropriety in public appointments. It is about not looking as if money talks in government. Yet, New Labour “modernisers” started talking cash almost as soon as Labour came to office. Recall the lobbyist Derek Draper, ex-aide to Peter Mandelson, boasting in 1998 of “trousering #250 an hour” for introducing wealthy people into the corridors of power. The “cash-for-access” scandal revealed that a whole raft of Labour figures had been selling their New Labour contacts.
Then we had Bernie Ecclestone, Powderjet, Lasksmi Mittal, the Hindujas. Draper’s boss, Peter Mandelson, had to resign over a loan of #375,000 from the millionaire minister, Geoffrey Robinson. Another leading Blairite, Tessa Jowell's mortgage was paid by a curious cash injection from Tony's friend, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Bungs from Berlusconi, cash-for-peerages and now loans-for-honours. Tony Blair insisted at the height of the “lobbygate” scandal that he was “a pretty straight kind of a guy” and we all pretty much believed him. If said that today, he would be laughed off the TV screens.
If secret loans had been used to fund a Labour constituency association, or a local council, those responsible would probably find themselves in jail. I’m not suggesting that the Labour whistle-blower Jack Dromey is lying about having been kept in the dark about the latest loans. But you have to wonder how the party treasurer could not have been aware that the party had for years been dependent on massive loans to maintain its overdraft with the banks. I mean, does he never read the annual accounts?
Dromey clearly saw that he was likely to become a fall guy as the cash for honours scandal proliferated. So he decided to turn super-grass. He made a round of devastating tv and radio interviews which effectively branded his own party leader as a crook. This is more like the Mafia than politics. You almost expect him to be found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge.
What an end for the 'peoples’ party', a government which Tony Blair promised would be “purer than pure, whiter than white”. The truth is New Labour has always had an exaggerated respect for wealthy people, almost an infatuation. Modernisation made wealth respectable in Labour circles after 1994. Having abandoned socialism, it was suddenly cool to praise plutocracy, or as Peter Mandelson famously proclaimed in 1998:” Labour is intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”
Mandelson, Levy, along with pollster Philip Gould and other new Labour super-fixers seems to have been the core of an extraordinary inner party network, based in Number Ten, which became organisationally and financially separate from the Labour Party. They even had an name for it: “the Project” - an ironic reference to the US Neo-conservatives’ “Project for a New American Century”. Harold Wilson might have called them “a tightly-knit group of politically motivated men”.
Some have compared the Project to the “entryist” Militant Tendency, which was expelled in the 1980s for creating a “party within a party”. Exept that this was more a party without a party. Sickened by the leadership, Labour party activists have left in hundreds of thousands, leaving Labour without the foot-soldiers, door-knockers, envelope lickers that used to win elections. That’s why the Blairites needed the #14million in loans - to buy a media election campaign based on advertising and sophisticated polling.
New Labour naiveté about the rich was coupled with greed. A Prime Minister on a mere #180 thousand can’t help but feel inferior when the average salary - yes, the average - of a British chief executive officer is #550,000. The Blair’s didn’t even have a proper house, poor souls, just a couple of grace and favour mansions like Chequers and Number Ten. Cherie Blair seems to have been obsessed by this, which is why they took on four million pounds worth of mortgages for those flats in Bristol and a trophy house in London’s Connaught square.
I still don’t believe Tony Blair, or Cherie is corrupt. It’s worse than that: the totally lost their moral balance and sense of propriety. They think everyone is rich; that everyone has a two million pound house and a cottage in the country; that everyone sends their children to private schools.
I suspect this was the a large part of Tony Blair’s obsession with his education reforms. Tony Blair wanted to compete with fee-paying schools by creating ‘sort-of’ private state schools, which would - by occult selection - become good enough to be considered acceptable to rich parents. It is hard to think of any other reason why the Prime Minister should have courted disaster on this incoherent and unnecessary legislation.
In the long term the education bill could be far more damaging than the loans scandal. The Prime Minister has, in a very real sense, “crossed the floor” - he has allowed another party, the Conservatives, to play a key legislative role in his government. The bill would have never reached the statute book had it been left to the Labour Party alone. Labour MPs are forever being lectured on the need to be loyal to their party right or wrong, yet here is their leader forming a defacto alliance with David Cameron.
At least Ramsay MacDonald had the decency to resign in 1931 when he couldn’t get his party to accept his policies. Labour’s first Prime Minister formed a coalition with the Tories and the Liberals which - and Labour historians tend to forget - led to him winning the largest Commons majority every won by any British Prime Minister - 498 seats - in the 1931 general election. But the Tory leader Stanley Baldwin took MacDonald by the hand only to take him later by the throat, forcing him out of power. MacDonald died soon after, a pathetic figure, ridiculed by Conservatives and loathed by Labour.
David Cameron may be planning a similar fate for Blair. By adopting him as their own, the Tories are playing a very subtle game, severing the bonds of sentiment between Blair and Labour, bonds which were never all that firm in the first place. Having been so set in the ways of party discipline under Blair, most Labour MPs have been suffering in silence.
But they are eventually going to have to act to bring this terrible saga to a conclusion. Tony Blair is hugely damaged now - unable to get his legislation, lost in financial scandal, irremediably tainted by Iraq. He could have stood down after the general election ,on a high, and entered history as the first Labour Prime Minister ever to win three general elections in a row. But he chose to remain, demanding that his party endorse an illegal war, and his agenda for privatising public services.
Tony Blair has forced through some of the most regressive legislation on civil liberties that parliament has ever seen - on detention without trial, ID cards, ‘glorification’ of terrorism, religious hatred. Many Labour MPs believe, as the respected backbencher Michael Connarty has put it, that New Labour has violated all that Labour stands for and that this is "the end for Blairism"..It could also be the end for Labour fore there is now a very real possibility that they could lose the next general election.
British voters do not like divided parties, and Labour is now as divided as John Major’s government was in 1996. Britain does not like sleaze either, and now Tony Blair has landed the government with the mother of all sleaze scandals. People are fed up with the Iraq war and appalled by the casualties. Moreover, Britain is a country which invented many of the freedoms, like habeas corpus, which the Prime Minister is trying to take away.
David Cameron is well placed to exploit all these issues. And there isn’t much time left. The party can’t wait until the next general election, more than three years away. By then Labour could be history. If they want to win next time they have to seize the time - show that the Prime Minister has lost their confidence and that they are not prepared to see their party sold to the Conservatives.
And Gordon Brown? Well, at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the day of the fateful vote, Gordon Brown and John Prescott, flanking Blair, both wore bright red ties. It was surely a subliminal message to Labour supporters that Tony Blair isn’t one of them any more. If they'd held a red flag aloft, they couldn’t have been more explicit. Teh question now is: will Labour MPs get it?
In Westminster they used to say that while Tory scandals are invariably about sex, Labour scandals are always about money and it still holds true today. What did for John Major in the 1990s was the Tory leader's 'back to basics' policy initiative, which famously became “back to my place”, as ministers resigned successively after revealing illicit affairs. Now Blair’s illicit financial affairs are doing for him. We are witnessing the decline and fall of the Tony empire.
There was financial sleaze too, of course, under the Tories - cash for questions - but then you kind of expected it from them. What you didn’t expect was that New Labour would try to outdo the Conservatives in the sleaze stakes. I mean, fourteen million pound in secret loans. This from the party that created the Electoral Commission and introduced the legislation for compulsory registration of loans over #5,000. Labour has been conspiring to evade its own rules on party funding.
This political split personality is very much a New Labour phenomenon. Part of the party wants Labour to be the property of the people; the other part seems determined to sell it off to the highest bidder. The astonishing revelations last week about the cash sloshing around Downing Street - while the treasurer of the party, Jack Dromey, John Prescott and Gordon Brown were kept in the dark - are but the ignominious destination of a journey New Labour embarked upon even before Tony Blair entered Number Ten.
When he became leader in 1994, Blair saw it as imperative that Labour cease to be in financial hock to the trades unions, which had been paying eighty percent of the party revenue in the 80's. . He wanted to move towards a more American form of “high value” fund-raising by seeking donations from philanthropic businessmen - though some of them turned out to be not entirely philanthropic.
Pretty soon, Labour was playing the old Tory game of handing out knighthoods and peerages to anyone able to cough up a couple of hundred grand ‘for the cause’. Tony Blair denies that honours were for sale - that would anyway be a criminal offence - but the correlation between top donors and Labour peerages is too close to be mere coincidence.
Earlier this year The Sunday Times revealed that Dan Smith of the Specialist Schools Trust was telling businessmen that they would get honours “for certain” if they funded a city academy. At the centre of this financial network was Tony’s tennis partner, Lord Levy, the self-made businessman who brought you the pop groups “Dollar” and “Bad Manners”. His nickname, “Mr Cashpoint”,tells you all you need to know.
No laws were broken, but that isn’t the point. Sleaze is about probity, about avoiding the appearance impropriety in public appointments. It is about not looking as if money talks in government. Yet, New Labour “modernisers” started talking cash almost as soon as Labour came to office. Recall the lobbyist Derek Draper, ex-aide to Peter Mandelson, boasting in 1998 of “trousering #250 an hour” for introducing wealthy people into the corridors of power. The “cash-for-access” scandal revealed that a whole raft of Labour figures had been selling their New Labour contacts.
Then we had Bernie Ecclestone, Powderjet, Lasksmi Mittal, the Hindujas. Draper’s boss, Peter Mandelson, had to resign over a loan of #375,000 from the millionaire minister, Geoffrey Robinson. Another leading Blairite, Tessa Jowell's mortgage was paid by a curious cash injection from Tony's friend, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Bungs from Berlusconi, cash-for-peerages and now loans-for-honours. Tony Blair insisted at the height of the “lobbygate” scandal that he was “a pretty straight kind of a guy” and we all pretty much believed him. If said that today, he would be laughed off the TV screens.
If secret loans had been used to fund a Labour constituency association, or a local council, those responsible would probably find themselves in jail. I’m not suggesting that the Labour whistle-blower Jack Dromey is lying about having been kept in the dark about the latest loans. But you have to wonder how the party treasurer could not have been aware that the party had for years been dependent on massive loans to maintain its overdraft with the banks. I mean, does he never read the annual accounts?
Dromey clearly saw that he was likely to become a fall guy as the cash for honours scandal proliferated. So he decided to turn super-grass. He made a round of devastating tv and radio interviews which effectively branded his own party leader as a crook. This is more like the Mafia than politics. You almost expect him to be found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge.
What an end for the 'peoples’ party', a government which Tony Blair promised would be “purer than pure, whiter than white”. The truth is New Labour has always had an exaggerated respect for wealthy people, almost an infatuation. Modernisation made wealth respectable in Labour circles after 1994. Having abandoned socialism, it was suddenly cool to praise plutocracy, or as Peter Mandelson famously proclaimed in 1998:” Labour is intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”
Mandelson, Levy, along with pollster Philip Gould and other new Labour super-fixers seems to have been the core of an extraordinary inner party network, based in Number Ten, which became organisationally and financially separate from the Labour Party. They even had an name for it: “the Project” - an ironic reference to the US Neo-conservatives’ “Project for a New American Century”. Harold Wilson might have called them “a tightly-knit group of politically motivated men”.
Some have compared the Project to the “entryist” Militant Tendency, which was expelled in the 1980s for creating a “party within a party”. Exept that this was more a party without a party. Sickened by the leadership, Labour party activists have left in hundreds of thousands, leaving Labour without the foot-soldiers, door-knockers, envelope lickers that used to win elections. That’s why the Blairites needed the #14million in loans - to buy a media election campaign based on advertising and sophisticated polling.
New Labour naiveté about the rich was coupled with greed. A Prime Minister on a mere #180 thousand can’t help but feel inferior when the average salary - yes, the average - of a British chief executive officer is #550,000. The Blair’s didn’t even have a proper house, poor souls, just a couple of grace and favour mansions like Chequers and Number Ten. Cherie Blair seems to have been obsessed by this, which is why they took on four million pounds worth of mortgages for those flats in Bristol and a trophy house in London’s Connaught square.
I still don’t believe Tony Blair, or Cherie is corrupt. It’s worse than that: the totally lost their moral balance and sense of propriety. They think everyone is rich; that everyone has a two million pound house and a cottage in the country; that everyone sends their children to private schools.
I suspect this was the a large part of Tony Blair’s obsession with his education reforms. Tony Blair wanted to compete with fee-paying schools by creating ‘sort-of’ private state schools, which would - by occult selection - become good enough to be considered acceptable to rich parents. It is hard to think of any other reason why the Prime Minister should have courted disaster on this incoherent and unnecessary legislation.
In the long term the education bill could be far more damaging than the loans scandal. The Prime Minister has, in a very real sense, “crossed the floor” - he has allowed another party, the Conservatives, to play a key legislative role in his government. The bill would have never reached the statute book had it been left to the Labour Party alone. Labour MPs are forever being lectured on the need to be loyal to their party right or wrong, yet here is their leader forming a defacto alliance with David Cameron.
At least Ramsay MacDonald had the decency to resign in 1931 when he couldn’t get his party to accept his policies. Labour’s first Prime Minister formed a coalition with the Tories and the Liberals which - and Labour historians tend to forget - led to him winning the largest Commons majority every won by any British Prime Minister - 498 seats - in the 1931 general election. But the Tory leader Stanley Baldwin took MacDonald by the hand only to take him later by the throat, forcing him out of power. MacDonald died soon after, a pathetic figure, ridiculed by Conservatives and loathed by Labour.
David Cameron may be planning a similar fate for Blair. By adopting him as their own, the Tories are playing a very subtle game, severing the bonds of sentiment between Blair and Labour, bonds which were never all that firm in the first place. Having been so set in the ways of party discipline under Blair, most Labour MPs have been suffering in silence.
But they are eventually going to have to act to bring this terrible saga to a conclusion. Tony Blair is hugely damaged now - unable to get his legislation, lost in financial scandal, irremediably tainted by Iraq. He could have stood down after the general election ,on a high, and entered history as the first Labour Prime Minister ever to win three general elections in a row. But he chose to remain, demanding that his party endorse an illegal war, and his agenda for privatising public services.
Tony Blair has forced through some of the most regressive legislation on civil liberties that parliament has ever seen - on detention without trial, ID cards, ‘glorification’ of terrorism, religious hatred. Many Labour MPs believe, as the respected backbencher Michael Connarty has put it, that New Labour has violated all that Labour stands for and that this is "the end for Blairism"..It could also be the end for Labour fore there is now a very real possibility that they could lose the next general election.
British voters do not like divided parties, and Labour is now as divided as John Major’s government was in 1996. Britain does not like sleaze either, and now Tony Blair has landed the government with the mother of all sleaze scandals. People are fed up with the Iraq war and appalled by the casualties. Moreover, Britain is a country which invented many of the freedoms, like habeas corpus, which the Prime Minister is trying to take away.
David Cameron is well placed to exploit all these issues. And there isn’t much time left. The party can’t wait until the next general election, more than three years away. By then Labour could be history. If they want to win next time they have to seize the time - show that the Prime Minister has lost their confidence and that they are not prepared to see their party sold to the Conservatives.
And Gordon Brown? Well, at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the day of the fateful vote, Gordon Brown and John Prescott, flanking Blair, both wore bright red ties. It was surely a subliminal message to Labour supporters that Tony Blair isn’t one of them any more. If they'd held a red flag aloft, they couldn’t have been more explicit. Teh question now is: will Labour MPs get it?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Trident Replacement - Why Tony Blair Should Just Say No
What is it that robs politicians of their sense of irony as soon as they reach high office? You would think the Prime Minister would see that right now, when we are lecturing Iran about breaking the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty might not be the best time to start talking about breaking it ourselves. But that’s precisely what Tony Blair intends to do.
Indeed, we are breaking it already. As The Sunday Times confirmed at the weekend, the nuclear weapons research centre in Aldermaston is already developing a replacement warhead for our ageing submarine-based Trident missile system. And yes, replacing nuclear weapons with new and better ones is a breach of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, which commits nations “not to modernise or increase the size of nuclear arsenals”. Just ask Cherie Blair’s legal team at Matrix Chambers who are experts on the NPT.
Indeed, item 4 (c) of the 1970 Treaty commits governments, not just to preventing proliferation but to “active nuclear disarmament” - ie getting rid of the damn things. But, then, disarmament is for towel heads. Real countries like Britain and America need what are called “Reliable Replacement Warheads”, which means spending billions on developing more efficient means of wiping out entire continents.
For, of course, Trident is a weapon system rooted in the Cold War, and designed to obliterate the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union doesn’t exist any more, and you might have thought that the government could find better ways to spend twenty billion than on replacing a weapons system which can never be used. But we still need a reliable replacement, just in case.
America has another wheeze for getting round the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The Pentagon has spent $23 million on what is called a "robust nuclear earth penetrator", or bunker-busting bomb. Donald Rumsfeld, a leading advocate of the system, insists it is a purely defensive weapon, and therefore not a case of nuclear proliferation.
This is a bit like saying: this gun I am holding is purely defensive and designed to penetrate your brain in order to stop you killing me. But no, you can’t have one too because you can’t be trusted with it. In diplomatic circles this kind of thinking is called “American exceptionalism” ie - what America does is by definition right. Others call it plain hypocrisy.
Alarmed by the implications, the US Congress tried to cut the funding of the “robust penetrator” last year, but the defence analysts Jane’s Information Group believes it lives on under another name. Incredibly, America has actually doubled its spending on nuclear weapons development since the end of he Cold War, and is now spending 6.5 billion dollars a year. So, now you know where the peace dividend went.
But the world political balance has altered since the end of the Cold War. The logic of deterrence no longer applies - or rather it does but in dramatically different forms. For example, if Donald Rumsfeld were privately advising the Iranian government right now, he would probably be arguing that, to retain the balance in the Middle East, it is imperative that Iran gets the bomb. It is surrounded by nuclear states: Israel, Pakistan, India. The old logic of Mutual and Assured Destruction, on which American defence policy was based for decades, regards this is an inherently unstable situation..
I hasten to add that I do not subscribe to MAD myself, and the thought of Iranian Ayatollahs spreading the Prophet’s word by nuclear fission is a terrifying one. However, President Ahmedinejad isn’t a fool, just because he doesn’t wear a tie. He realises that nuclear brinksmanship plays well in the Muslim world precisely because it exposes Western double standards.
Islamic countries don’t have nuclear weapons (apart from Pakistan, which doesn’t count) so non-proliferation can be presented by radical Muslims as essentially non-proliferation-to-Islam.
After all, Britain and America gave Israel the bomb. Doesn’t this show there is a Judaeo-Christian nuclear crusade against Islam? No it doesn’t - but try telling that to the Tehran street.
Which brings us back to the renewal of the British bomb, currently under investigation by Defence Select Committee. It won’t need to investigate long - just read the Prime Minister’s TV promise during the general election campaign, to “retain Britain’s nuclear deterrent”. Tells you all you need to know. Retaining means renewing, means improving, means two fingers to the NPT. It will signal the start of another cycle of nuclear proliferation.
There must be a better way. There is, and the former foreign secretary Robin Cook, argued it before he died. Britain could use her ageing Trident fleet far more effectively by allowing it to rust in peace. Tony Blair could assume a role of real leadership of the world by announcing that Britain was not going to replace Trident, a ludicrous and wasteful system, but was going to use the resourses instead to promote real disarmament.
A leading nuclear nation like Britain could exert great moral influence if it chose so to do. We could act as global nuclear brokers in territorial disputes which threaten to turn nuclear, such as Kashmir, which nearly led to atomic war between Pakistan and India. Or North Korea, which has signalled a willingness to relinquish the bomb.
With our nuclear expertise Britain could help countries disarm, and advise on using nuclear technology for civil purposes. We could even offer to reprocess Iran’s uranium in exchange for weapons inspectors to monitor their nuclear facilities. Better us than the Russians. There is a real opportunity here.
It might even win votes. This may seem a small point in the great debate, but a majority of people in Scotland want rid of Trident also. As we approach T-day, the Scottish Parliament should be taking the initiative and expressing its own moral position, just as it has on matters like asylum seekers and immigration. There is nothing that says the Scottish Executive has to be party to a breach of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on Scottish soil.
Unilateralism works. If Mikhail Gorbachev hadn’t agreed unilaterally to start dismantling the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the Cold War wouldn’t have ended when it did. South Africa gave up her nuclear weapons, and so did the Ukraine - all they needed were incentives. As for Britain’s influence in the Security Council of the UN, which is reserved for nuclear nations, well, we’d still have the damn things for thirty years. Anyway, Britain’s deterrent was never truly independent, and could only be used on the orders of the White House.
So come on Tony. Here is a chance for a real legacy, a place in history. When it comes to Trident renewal: Just say no.
Indeed, we are breaking it already. As The Sunday Times confirmed at the weekend, the nuclear weapons research centre in Aldermaston is already developing a replacement warhead for our ageing submarine-based Trident missile system. And yes, replacing nuclear weapons with new and better ones is a breach of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, which commits nations “not to modernise or increase the size of nuclear arsenals”. Just ask Cherie Blair’s legal team at Matrix Chambers who are experts on the NPT.
Indeed, item 4 (c) of the 1970 Treaty commits governments, not just to preventing proliferation but to “active nuclear disarmament” - ie getting rid of the damn things. But, then, disarmament is for towel heads. Real countries like Britain and America need what are called “Reliable Replacement Warheads”, which means spending billions on developing more efficient means of wiping out entire continents.
For, of course, Trident is a weapon system rooted in the Cold War, and designed to obliterate the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union doesn’t exist any more, and you might have thought that the government could find better ways to spend twenty billion than on replacing a weapons system which can never be used. But we still need a reliable replacement, just in case.
America has another wheeze for getting round the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The Pentagon has spent $23 million on what is called a "robust nuclear earth penetrator", or bunker-busting bomb. Donald Rumsfeld, a leading advocate of the system, insists it is a purely defensive weapon, and therefore not a case of nuclear proliferation.
This is a bit like saying: this gun I am holding is purely defensive and designed to penetrate your brain in order to stop you killing me. But no, you can’t have one too because you can’t be trusted with it. In diplomatic circles this kind of thinking is called “American exceptionalism” ie - what America does is by definition right. Others call it plain hypocrisy.
Alarmed by the implications, the US Congress tried to cut the funding of the “robust penetrator” last year, but the defence analysts Jane’s Information Group believes it lives on under another name. Incredibly, America has actually doubled its spending on nuclear weapons development since the end of he Cold War, and is now spending 6.5 billion dollars a year. So, now you know where the peace dividend went.
But the world political balance has altered since the end of the Cold War. The logic of deterrence no longer applies - or rather it does but in dramatically different forms. For example, if Donald Rumsfeld were privately advising the Iranian government right now, he would probably be arguing that, to retain the balance in the Middle East, it is imperative that Iran gets the bomb. It is surrounded by nuclear states: Israel, Pakistan, India. The old logic of Mutual and Assured Destruction, on which American defence policy was based for decades, regards this is an inherently unstable situation..
I hasten to add that I do not subscribe to MAD myself, and the thought of Iranian Ayatollahs spreading the Prophet’s word by nuclear fission is a terrifying one. However, President Ahmedinejad isn’t a fool, just because he doesn’t wear a tie. He realises that nuclear brinksmanship plays well in the Muslim world precisely because it exposes Western double standards.
Islamic countries don’t have nuclear weapons (apart from Pakistan, which doesn’t count) so non-proliferation can be presented by radical Muslims as essentially non-proliferation-to-Islam.
After all, Britain and America gave Israel the bomb. Doesn’t this show there is a Judaeo-Christian nuclear crusade against Islam? No it doesn’t - but try telling that to the Tehran street.
Which brings us back to the renewal of the British bomb, currently under investigation by Defence Select Committee. It won’t need to investigate long - just read the Prime Minister’s TV promise during the general election campaign, to “retain Britain’s nuclear deterrent”. Tells you all you need to know. Retaining means renewing, means improving, means two fingers to the NPT. It will signal the start of another cycle of nuclear proliferation.
There must be a better way. There is, and the former foreign secretary Robin Cook, argued it before he died. Britain could use her ageing Trident fleet far more effectively by allowing it to rust in peace. Tony Blair could assume a role of real leadership of the world by announcing that Britain was not going to replace Trident, a ludicrous and wasteful system, but was going to use the resourses instead to promote real disarmament.
A leading nuclear nation like Britain could exert great moral influence if it chose so to do. We could act as global nuclear brokers in territorial disputes which threaten to turn nuclear, such as Kashmir, which nearly led to atomic war between Pakistan and India. Or North Korea, which has signalled a willingness to relinquish the bomb.
With our nuclear expertise Britain could help countries disarm, and advise on using nuclear technology for civil purposes. We could even offer to reprocess Iran’s uranium in exchange for weapons inspectors to monitor their nuclear facilities. Better us than the Russians. There is a real opportunity here.
It might even win votes. This may seem a small point in the great debate, but a majority of people in Scotland want rid of Trident also. As we approach T-day, the Scottish Parliament should be taking the initiative and expressing its own moral position, just as it has on matters like asylum seekers and immigration. There is nothing that says the Scottish Executive has to be party to a breach of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on Scottish soil.
Unilateralism works. If Mikhail Gorbachev hadn’t agreed unilaterally to start dismantling the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the Cold War wouldn’t have ended when it did. South Africa gave up her nuclear weapons, and so did the Ukraine - all they needed were incentives. As for Britain’s influence in the Security Council of the UN, which is reserved for nuclear nations, well, we’d still have the damn things for thirty years. Anyway, Britain’s deterrent was never truly independent, and could only be used on the orders of the White House.
So come on Tony. Here is a chance for a real legacy, a place in history. When it comes to Trident renewal: Just say no.
Francis Fukuyama Got it Wrong
‘AFTER THE NEOCONS - AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS” by FRANCIS FUKUYAMA. PROFILE BOOKS 30 MARCH 12.99 HB
You might not have thought of George W. Bush as a Marxist revolutionary, but the one of the leading thinkers of the American new Right, Francis Fukuyama, in his new book compares the President to V. I. Lenin. Like the Russian Bolshevik leader, Dubya has been trying to impose radical political change by force of arms in the Middle East - only with rather less success.
“Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version and it has turned into farce when practised by the United States”, says Fukuyama, paraphrasing Karl Marx. Perhaps. But Iraq is still a tragedy, as Fukuyama himself admits. More than fifteen thousand Americans killed or injured, many seriously; tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; two trillion dollars lost. And all because, as Fukuyama puts it, American needed to “make a statement” after 9/11.
It’s strange how many of the American Right use Marxist imagery in their writing. Or perhaps it isn’t because neo-conservatives mostly came from the Left - “liberals mugged by reality”, as William Kristol once put it. Certainly, the idea of revolution world revolution lives on in their politics. Neocons talk in apocalyptic terms, about changing history, about fulfilling America’s destiny by using force to spread free market liberalism across the globe. The ends justified the means.
Iraq was the bastard offspring of the infamous Project for a New American Century - an agenda for world mastery penned in 1998 by Republican academics, politicians and journalists, includling the Vice President Dick Cheney, and his former aide, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and, er, Francis Fukuyama. Intoxicated by the collapse of Communism, the PNAC called for America to use its military power to promote its moral objectives, which were assumed to be identical to the world’s.
Fukuyma was perhaps the most intoxicated of all. He had recently published an intellectual best seller, “The End of History and the Last Man”, which argued that, since American liberal democracy had triumphed, nothing really significant is every likely to happen in human history ever again. Making George W. Bush the Last Man, presumably - a sobering thought that.
And indeed, Fukuyama and co are now suffering the devil of a millennial hangover. Dubya has gone from man of destiny to object of ridicule, and the PNAC dream has been shattered. “One of the consequences of the perceived failure in Iraq”, writes Fukuyama, “will be the discrediting of the entire neoconservative agenda”. Well, it’s an ill wind.
History, it seems, has started up again. Unfortunately, Fukuyama finds himself on the wrong side of it. For while he rightly denounces the war as misconceived, incompetent and self-defeating, he was himself an advocate of the Iraq invasion. As recently as September 20th 2001, Fukuyama signed a PNAC letter to Bush calling for Saddam’s removal “even if the evidence does not link Iraq directly with the attack (on 9/11)”. Well, everyone makes mistakes.
Let us at least be thankful that the fathers of the Bush revolution are now thoroughly ashamed of themselves, or some of them. The twin doctrines of “American exceptionalism”, which assumed that the US had a moral right to act independently of the rest of the world, and “pre-emptive” or “preventive” war, which gave America the right to invade sovereign nations purely because of a theoretical risk, have been exposed as neo-imperialism. And to give Fukuyama his due, he demolishes them very comprehensively in this book. America has no monopoly on moral rectitude - especially after Iraq - and you pre-emption requires certainty about the future which no intelligence service can provide. Certainly not one which imagined WMD in Iraq.
“Benevolent hegemony”, is all very well, says Fukuyama. “But the hegemony has to be not only benevolent, but smart and prudent”. Iraq he concedes was anything but. It was a stupid war, fought on dodgy intelligence, with no planning for the future, and with stunning naiveté about the readiness of Iraqi for western liberal democracy. The result has been an unmitigated disaster which has weakened America morally and militarily. It has left America in no position to deal with real problems, such as Iran’s attempts to build a nuclear infrastructure.
Worst of all, Iraq created precisely the terrorist threat it was intended to destroy. “By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, training ground and operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at”.
The real tragedy of all this is that America did, briefly, enjoy moral leadership of the world. After the peaceful ending of the Cold War in the 1990’s, when President Bill Clinton was trying to make make America address problems like debt and failing states in Africa, the Balkans, Northern Ireland. Everyone at least respected America .
The lesson of the Cold War, as Fukuyama points out, is that “soft power” can be more powerful than military force. Fukuyama actually quotes the Clinton adviser Joseph Nye, who defined soft power as: “the ability to get what you want, not through military and economic coercion, but rather through the positive attraction of you values and society”. A neoconservative quoting a Clinton aide - now there's something you don’t see every day.
Clearly, humble pie is on the menu. Fukuyama calls for a return to what he calls “realistic Wilsoniainism” - for America to re-engage with the world community, and even cites the European Union as one of the better examples of international institution building.
However, it isn’t clear that the Republicans are ready to listen to the “cheese eating surrender monkeys” quite yet. Neo cons in America have turned on Fukuyama as a muddle headed wimp who can’t see that omelettes involve breaking eggs. A little perhaps as the Bolsheviks turned on Leon Trotsky when he warned them against revolution in one country. Mr Fukuyama should steer well clear of ice picks.
You might not have thought of George W. Bush as a Marxist revolutionary, but the one of the leading thinkers of the American new Right, Francis Fukuyama, in his new book compares the President to V. I. Lenin. Like the Russian Bolshevik leader, Dubya has been trying to impose radical political change by force of arms in the Middle East - only with rather less success.
“Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version and it has turned into farce when practised by the United States”, says Fukuyama, paraphrasing Karl Marx. Perhaps. But Iraq is still a tragedy, as Fukuyama himself admits. More than fifteen thousand Americans killed or injured, many seriously; tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; two trillion dollars lost. And all because, as Fukuyama puts it, American needed to “make a statement” after 9/11.
It’s strange how many of the American Right use Marxist imagery in their writing. Or perhaps it isn’t because neo-conservatives mostly came from the Left - “liberals mugged by reality”, as William Kristol once put it. Certainly, the idea of revolution world revolution lives on in their politics. Neocons talk in apocalyptic terms, about changing history, about fulfilling America’s destiny by using force to spread free market liberalism across the globe. The ends justified the means.
Iraq was the bastard offspring of the infamous Project for a New American Century - an agenda for world mastery penned in 1998 by Republican academics, politicians and journalists, includling the Vice President Dick Cheney, and his former aide, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and, er, Francis Fukuyama. Intoxicated by the collapse of Communism, the PNAC called for America to use its military power to promote its moral objectives, which were assumed to be identical to the world’s.
Fukuyma was perhaps the most intoxicated of all. He had recently published an intellectual best seller, “The End of History and the Last Man”, which argued that, since American liberal democracy had triumphed, nothing really significant is every likely to happen in human history ever again. Making George W. Bush the Last Man, presumably - a sobering thought that.
And indeed, Fukuyama and co are now suffering the devil of a millennial hangover. Dubya has gone from man of destiny to object of ridicule, and the PNAC dream has been shattered. “One of the consequences of the perceived failure in Iraq”, writes Fukuyama, “will be the discrediting of the entire neoconservative agenda”. Well, it’s an ill wind.
History, it seems, has started up again. Unfortunately, Fukuyama finds himself on the wrong side of it. For while he rightly denounces the war as misconceived, incompetent and self-defeating, he was himself an advocate of the Iraq invasion. As recently as September 20th 2001, Fukuyama signed a PNAC letter to Bush calling for Saddam’s removal “even if the evidence does not link Iraq directly with the attack (on 9/11)”. Well, everyone makes mistakes.
Let us at least be thankful that the fathers of the Bush revolution are now thoroughly ashamed of themselves, or some of them. The twin doctrines of “American exceptionalism”, which assumed that the US had a moral right to act independently of the rest of the world, and “pre-emptive” or “preventive” war, which gave America the right to invade sovereign nations purely because of a theoretical risk, have been exposed as neo-imperialism. And to give Fukuyama his due, he demolishes them very comprehensively in this book. America has no monopoly on moral rectitude - especially after Iraq - and you pre-emption requires certainty about the future which no intelligence service can provide. Certainly not one which imagined WMD in Iraq.
“Benevolent hegemony”, is all very well, says Fukuyama. “But the hegemony has to be not only benevolent, but smart and prudent”. Iraq he concedes was anything but. It was a stupid war, fought on dodgy intelligence, with no planning for the future, and with stunning naiveté about the readiness of Iraqi for western liberal democracy. The result has been an unmitigated disaster which has weakened America morally and militarily. It has left America in no position to deal with real problems, such as Iran’s attempts to build a nuclear infrastructure.
Worst of all, Iraq created precisely the terrorist threat it was intended to destroy. “By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, training ground and operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at”.
The real tragedy of all this is that America did, briefly, enjoy moral leadership of the world. After the peaceful ending of the Cold War in the 1990’s, when President Bill Clinton was trying to make make America address problems like debt and failing states in Africa, the Balkans, Northern Ireland. Everyone at least respected America .
The lesson of the Cold War, as Fukuyama points out, is that “soft power” can be more powerful than military force. Fukuyama actually quotes the Clinton adviser Joseph Nye, who defined soft power as: “the ability to get what you want, not through military and economic coercion, but rather through the positive attraction of you values and society”. A neoconservative quoting a Clinton aide - now there's something you don’t see every day.
Clearly, humble pie is on the menu. Fukuyama calls for a return to what he calls “realistic Wilsoniainism” - for America to re-engage with the world community, and even cites the European Union as one of the better examples of international institution building.
However, it isn’t clear that the Republicans are ready to listen to the “cheese eating surrender monkeys” quite yet. Neo cons in America have turned on Fukuyama as a muddle headed wimp who can’t see that omelettes involve breaking eggs. A little perhaps as the Bolsheviks turned on Leon Trotsky when he warned them against revolution in one country. Mr Fukuyama should steer well clear of ice picks.
Why More Devolution is Inevitable
My Lords Steel and Vallance make unlikely revolutionaries,but their Commission's report on the future of the Scottish constitution is little short of a declaration of independence. Giving Scotland control of taxation, broadcasting, welfare, immigration, asylum, the civil service, the constitution and many other powers would amount to a lot more than “fiscal federalism”, whatever that means. Under their plan Scotland’s government would even have its own borrowing powers and a national debt. It’s difficult to think of what Westminster would have left to do, apart from start wars.
Now, there has been much scoffing about how passé Lord Steel’s report is; that there’s little demand in Scotland for more constitutional upheavals, especially with the roof falling in in Holyrood. However, it would be unwise to dismiss the Steel Commission Report as the misguided musings of a home rule romantic. Critics said much the same about the last big constitutional report that Lord Steel chaired - that of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in 1988. It called for a Scottish parliament with full legislative powers to be elected by proportional representation. It’ll never fly,we were told...
These things have a way of creeping up on you. The Scottish people may not be taking to the streets to demand more powers for Holyrood, but nor did they for devolution. In Scotland, constitutional change happens incrementally, through the formation of broad coalitions, almost by stealth. And look around: a majority of the MSPs in the Scottish parliament already support the powers of Holyrood being extended. The political reality is that they almost certainly will be - sooner or later.
Devolution was always a process rather than an event, and we live in rapidly changing times. The new Tory leader, David Cameron, is on record as supporting greater powers for the Scottish parliament and a new constitutional settlement to take account of anomalies like theWest Lothian Question. The Liberal Democrats have a new leader in Menzies Campbell, who served on the original Scottish Constitutional Convention and has a rare intellectual grasp of the issues.
It is quite possible that there could be a coalition in Westminster after the next general election - even Professor John Curtice says so. Labour only need drop thirty three seats and Gordon Brown would find himself a leader bereft of a working majority. Brown is, of course, a long time supporter of devolution and any talks between him and Menzies Campbell about a UK coalition would inevitably involve the proposals in the Steel Commission.
Indeed, one way of looking at this week’s report is that it’s an opening bid in these very negotiations. It is a set of constitutional demands deliberately set high to allow room for movement. I cannot, for example, see any Westminster government handing powers over immigration and asylum to Scotland. Or rather I could, but it would mean setting up border controls at Gretna Green.
Given the government’s sensitivity over immigration, revealed yesterday by Charles Clarke’s new points system for immigrant workers , Westminster will not want to see foreigners entering the country through the Scottish backdoor. However, there could be some further modification of the points system to give it more of a regional bias.
Similarly, Gordon Brown would be reluctant to give full tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament. But again, there could be scope for bargaining here - perhaps a concession on corporate taxation. Remember that the Scottish parliament already possesses the power to vary income tax by 3 pence in the pound - a power it has never used. It’s not inconceivable that Prime Minister Brown might go along with the idea of the Scottish parliament setting tax rates provided it didn’t involve setting up a rival Inland Revenue. The Barnett Formula, which currently shares revenue on a peer capita basis, has outserved its usefulness and will almost certainly be reformed in the next parliament.
Brown - assuming he is returned as Prime Minister - might anyway have no choice but to accept greater Scottish autonomy. It will loom large in the negotiations for form a new Scottish coalition after the 2007 Holyrood elections. The Steel Report, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, represents the kinds of terms Nicol Stephen, will be set of Jack McConnell for any future Lib-Lab Partnership Agreement. We thought they had got everything they ever wanted from Labour, but not so.
And, of course, if there is no Lib-Lab coalition, then the Steel Report could form the basis of an alternative SNP/Lib/Green coalition in Holyrood. Labour has no freehold on office, and McConnell only need to lose half a dozen seats for the non Labour parties to be within sight of a non-Labour administration. An alternative coalition must happen eventually. The SNP has been careful not to speak too enthusiastically about Steel’s agenda, but it is right up Alex Salmond’s street. He might even get the SNP to shelve its demand for a referendum on independence - the main obstacle between the SNP and the Libdems - on the grounds that the Steel Report is only a couple of steps away from it.
And the Tories? Well, as their deputy leader, Murdo Fraser, made clear at the weekend, even the Scottish Tories are conquering their fear of nationalism and are willing to contemplate a “business pact” with the SNP. An extraordinary development, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago. The Steel Report would provide much of the intellectual ground work for any such arrangement. We really are in a very difficult political game, north and south of the border.
But merely stating the possible political configurations in Westminster and Holyrood is missing the point. For the main reason that the Steel report should be taken seriously is the force of its argument. It’s all a matter of respect. The Scottish parliament needs to find some way of moving on from the present transitional status of financial dependency, or financial delinquency.
Lord Steel is right to say that “no self respecting Parliament should expect to exist permanently on 100% handouts determined by another Parliament”. Scottish politicians will never be taken seriously, or take themselves seriously, until they are responsible for raising the tax payer’s money they are spending. This is what accountability really means. In curious way, local government is actually more responsible in Scotland than the Scottish Executive - at least councils raise part of their revenue and have to answer for their spending decisions at election time.
And there’s another reason why the Steel Report demands attention. Its call for a written constitution for the UK, to take account of devolution and revive parliamentary democracy, is shared by many people of all parties who believe that the relationship between government and the people is out of kilter. The decline of parliament and the cabinet and the rise in Prime Ministerial power has provoked a crisis of legitimacy, seen most strikingly in the Iraq war. As long cherished freedoms are eroded, day by day, by a PM who rules like an elective monarch, we need a more solid foundation for our liberties.
Even Gordon Brown has accepted that the constitution needs to be looked at to address public cynicism and mistrust. Where better to address these issues than in a new Constitutional Convention for the UK. It could be an idea whose time has come - again.
Now, there has been much scoffing about how passé Lord Steel’s report is; that there’s little demand in Scotland for more constitutional upheavals, especially with the roof falling in in Holyrood. However, it would be unwise to dismiss the Steel Commission Report as the misguided musings of a home rule romantic. Critics said much the same about the last big constitutional report that Lord Steel chaired - that of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in 1988. It called for a Scottish parliament with full legislative powers to be elected by proportional representation. It’ll never fly,we were told...
These things have a way of creeping up on you. The Scottish people may not be taking to the streets to demand more powers for Holyrood, but nor did they for devolution. In Scotland, constitutional change happens incrementally, through the formation of broad coalitions, almost by stealth. And look around: a majority of the MSPs in the Scottish parliament already support the powers of Holyrood being extended. The political reality is that they almost certainly will be - sooner or later.
Devolution was always a process rather than an event, and we live in rapidly changing times. The new Tory leader, David Cameron, is on record as supporting greater powers for the Scottish parliament and a new constitutional settlement to take account of anomalies like theWest Lothian Question. The Liberal Democrats have a new leader in Menzies Campbell, who served on the original Scottish Constitutional Convention and has a rare intellectual grasp of the issues.
It is quite possible that there could be a coalition in Westminster after the next general election - even Professor John Curtice says so. Labour only need drop thirty three seats and Gordon Brown would find himself a leader bereft of a working majority. Brown is, of course, a long time supporter of devolution and any talks between him and Menzies Campbell about a UK coalition would inevitably involve the proposals in the Steel Commission.
Indeed, one way of looking at this week’s report is that it’s an opening bid in these very negotiations. It is a set of constitutional demands deliberately set high to allow room for movement. I cannot, for example, see any Westminster government handing powers over immigration and asylum to Scotland. Or rather I could, but it would mean setting up border controls at Gretna Green.
Given the government’s sensitivity over immigration, revealed yesterday by Charles Clarke’s new points system for immigrant workers , Westminster will not want to see foreigners entering the country through the Scottish backdoor. However, there could be some further modification of the points system to give it more of a regional bias.
Similarly, Gordon Brown would be reluctant to give full tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament. But again, there could be scope for bargaining here - perhaps a concession on corporate taxation. Remember that the Scottish parliament already possesses the power to vary income tax by 3 pence in the pound - a power it has never used. It’s not inconceivable that Prime Minister Brown might go along with the idea of the Scottish parliament setting tax rates provided it didn’t involve setting up a rival Inland Revenue. The Barnett Formula, which currently shares revenue on a peer capita basis, has outserved its usefulness and will almost certainly be reformed in the next parliament.
Brown - assuming he is returned as Prime Minister - might anyway have no choice but to accept greater Scottish autonomy. It will loom large in the negotiations for form a new Scottish coalition after the 2007 Holyrood elections. The Steel Report, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, represents the kinds of terms Nicol Stephen, will be set of Jack McConnell for any future Lib-Lab Partnership Agreement. We thought they had got everything they ever wanted from Labour, but not so.
And, of course, if there is no Lib-Lab coalition, then the Steel Report could form the basis of an alternative SNP/Lib/Green coalition in Holyrood. Labour has no freehold on office, and McConnell only need to lose half a dozen seats for the non Labour parties to be within sight of a non-Labour administration. An alternative coalition must happen eventually. The SNP has been careful not to speak too enthusiastically about Steel’s agenda, but it is right up Alex Salmond’s street. He might even get the SNP to shelve its demand for a referendum on independence - the main obstacle between the SNP and the Libdems - on the grounds that the Steel Report is only a couple of steps away from it.
And the Tories? Well, as their deputy leader, Murdo Fraser, made clear at the weekend, even the Scottish Tories are conquering their fear of nationalism and are willing to contemplate a “business pact” with the SNP. An extraordinary development, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago. The Steel Report would provide much of the intellectual ground work for any such arrangement. We really are in a very difficult political game, north and south of the border.
But merely stating the possible political configurations in Westminster and Holyrood is missing the point. For the main reason that the Steel report should be taken seriously is the force of its argument. It’s all a matter of respect. The Scottish parliament needs to find some way of moving on from the present transitional status of financial dependency, or financial delinquency.
Lord Steel is right to say that “no self respecting Parliament should expect to exist permanently on 100% handouts determined by another Parliament”. Scottish politicians will never be taken seriously, or take themselves seriously, until they are responsible for raising the tax payer’s money they are spending. This is what accountability really means. In curious way, local government is actually more responsible in Scotland than the Scottish Executive - at least councils raise part of their revenue and have to answer for their spending decisions at election time.
And there’s another reason why the Steel Report demands attention. Its call for a written constitution for the UK, to take account of devolution and revive parliamentary democracy, is shared by many people of all parties who believe that the relationship between government and the people is out of kilter. The decline of parliament and the cabinet and the rise in Prime Ministerial power has provoked a crisis of legitimacy, seen most strikingly in the Iraq war. As long cherished freedoms are eroded, day by day, by a PM who rules like an elective monarch, we need a more solid foundation for our liberties.
Even Gordon Brown has accepted that the constitution needs to be looked at to address public cynicism and mistrust. Where better to address these issues than in a new Constitutional Convention for the UK. It could be an idea whose time has come - again.
What Devolution Has Done For England
There was a mixed response in Scotland to the news that there has been a marked increase in the number of English students applying to Scottish universities this year. Some nationalist politicians fear Scottish students are being elbowed out by English “fee refugees”. But at least it's confounded those critics who said that the abolition of university tuition fees in Scotland would lead to a parochial and narrow minded higher education sector.
Thousands of foreign students have also been making their way to Scotland - up 20% in a year - to benefit from the two year extension to their residency visas introduced by the Scottish Executive last year under the “Fresh Talent” initiative. Now English universities are starting to complain of unfair competition, and there is pressure for Scotland’s visa regime to be implemented south of the Border.
These are just two examples of the way in which devolution has introduced a new diversity into public provision in the UK. Scotland always was different, with its own legal and education systems. In 1999. devolution placed the entire range of domestic policy in the hands of the Holyrood parliament, and in the last couple of years the pace of differentiation has been stepped up.
Take home affairs. The Scottish Executive has challenged the UK Home Office over dawn raids on asylum seekers, and has been trying to pursue a more liberal immigration policy. Identity cards - if they ever happen - will not be compulsory for devolved services. The Freedom of Information regime in Scotland is much more open than its English counterpart and has, in its first year, been remarkably successful in altering the climate of official secretiveness. Scotland is becoming a more open society.
The Scottish Executive has resolved to resist any new generation of nuclear power stations in Scotland, unless or until there is a solution to the waste problem. If a new generation of Trident nuclear missiles are scheduled for the Clyde, there could be a furious response. Scotland intends to exploit the fact that it has - potentially - some 25% of Europe's entire wind and wave energy.
Proportional representation, introduced in Scotland in 1999 for the first time in any British mainland parliamentary election, is to be extended to local government next year. This has changed the character of electoral politics in Scotland by forcing parties to work together in coalitions. The council tax is likely to be reformed first in Scotland. Free personal care, as recommended by the Sutherland Report, has been well received in Scotland, despite the expense.
But it is above all in the Scottish Executive’s resistance to New Labour’s market-based public sector reforms, with their focus on competition and choice, that Scotland is embarking on a very different social journey. For Tony Blair, the need for reform is a self-evident truth. But not in Scotland.
At the Scottish Labour Party conference last year, the Prime Minister delivered a calculated snub to the Scottish government, and First Minister Jack McConnell, by loudly proclaiming the success of the English health reforms - like walk-in diagnostic and treatments centres - which have led to big cuts in waiting lists. McConnell took it badly. He isn’t impressed by the PM’s habit of holding Scotland up as a warning of what happens when public services go unreformed. The FM subsequently made it known that communication had largely broken down between the himself and the Prime Minister.
Departing from the PM’s public service message was a bold move. On the face of it, Scotland isn’t a great advert for the old “one size fits all” state, in health at least. Scotland gets around 20% more per head than England, yet life expectancy for a male in Glasgow remains around eleven years less than in the South of England. Waiting lists are finally coming down, but there is no equivalent to the promise in England of an 18 week maximum wait from GP to operating theatre. In the spring of 2005, when the PM delivered his conference speech, the number waiting for day case and inpatient treatment, 113,612, was higher than when Labour came to office.
In education, Scotland does better than England in many of the OECD’s PISA scores. However, there is no shortage of evidence that many Scottish schools are failing. Earlier this month, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Graham Donaldson, warned of the post -code lottery. In too many cases there is an unacceptable variation in the quality of learning and teaching across classes."
All grist to the PM’s mill. But, curiously, this hasn’t translated into political demands for the English reforms to be imported. In the recent Dunfermline by-election, the Chancellor Gordon Brown was given a severe electoral rebuff in his own home constituency. Hospitals were a big issue - specifically the transfer of orthopeadic services out of the local Queen Margaret Hospital. But there were no calls for foundation hospitals or private treatment centres - except from the Tories who came a bad fourth. The Scots remain largely immune to the discourse on choice that has informed Tony Blair’s war on state monopoly. There is no question here of patients being offered a choice of hospitals in which to have their hip operations. You get what you’re given; go where you’re told; doctor knows best.
This resistance to choice has puzzled many people, not least Labour MPs, who find themselves voting in parliament for restoring the internal market into the English NHS, with payment by results for trust hospitals, even though in Scotland old-style predict and provide prevails. Scottish MPs in Westminster have also voted for variable tuition fees in English universities, when tuition fees have actually been abolished in Scotland.
They will shortly be required to vote for another education bill, possibly including selection and self-financing for English schools, when these have been specifically rejected in Scotland. It is a constitutional anomaly which much irks the English Conservatives. But the West Lothian Question doesn’t seem to impinge much on the consciences of Scottish voters.
Scotland remains the last bastion of what the Prime Minister’s former spokesman, Alastair Campbell, dubbed “the bog standard comprehensive”. No beacon schools, foundation schools or city academies here. Selection is outlawed (except for Catholics who have their own schools under the 1918 Education Act). Scots seem content to send their children to the one-size-fits-all schools which Tony Blair insists are failing. Why?
Well, it could be that the canny Scots are just biding their time; waiting to see whether there really is a great leap forward in England following the Prime Minister’s initiatives. They’re sceptical but not stupid, and they do care about education - passionately. Jack McConnell isn’t anti-reform or even ideologically hostile to the market. But the Scottish Executive has been staying its hand aware that there are strong cultural and demographic factors a work.
There is much less less private education in Scotland than in England (nearly twice as many English pupils go to fee-paying schools as Scots) and private medicine is almost unheard of. This is for the rather obvious reason that most Scots can’t afford it - only about sixty thousand Scots earn more than #50,000 a year.
The biggest private hospital in Scotland, HCI Clydebank, had to be bought by the Scottish Executive two years ago because it was going bust. Expansion of private health in Scotland is difficult because there is so little of it.
Another reason is geography. Scotland has a third of the land mass of the British mainland but less than a tenth of the population. The idea of hospitals competing for patients may make sense in densely populated areas like the South East of England, but in Scotland it simply doesn’t work, unless patients are prepared to travel long distances.
The BMA in Scotland has long argued for the “collaborative” approach to health care to be continued in Scotland, whereby GPs establish their own contacts with hospitals and simply allocate patients according to availability. There is surprisingly little demand from the medical profession for market-centred reforms, even though GPs - it’s often forgotten - are small businessmen who are contracted bythe state, rather than employed by it.
In England, the Blairite reforms have been prompted the fear of middle class flight from the state. The increase in the number of people jumping NHS queues to get private operations in the late Nineties forced the waiting list issue to the top of Labour’s agenda. The sub text to the Education White Paper - before it was watered down by Neil Kinnock et al - was to give middle class parents greater scope to select schools, to stop them going private to avoid the local comprehensive. But in Scotland, most of the middle classes are staying put. It’s quite enough buying a house and saving for a holiday, without having to start paying for private schools too.
There is also, perhaps, a lingering equalitarianism and collectivism in Scottish culture. Scots are very jealous of the ‘lad o’ pairts’ tradition of anti-elitism in education, and so of course is the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who has campaigned against “elitism” in Oxbridge entrance procedures.
The Chancellor regards collective provision as a moral virtue; public service is “a calling not a career” as he put it in his own speech to the Scottish Labour Conference last year.
Brown believes there is more to public provision than markets and choice, and this seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of the views of many Scottish voters. How much of this translates into his stewardship of the country when he becomes Prime Minister remains to be seen. But it still goes down well back home.
So, Scotland is pursuing a very different public sector agenda from that in England. And while the present Prime Minister is convinced that there is no choice but to promote choice, in Scotland, people seem to have chosen a different model. And, seen from public sector Scotland, it is not at all certain yet which is going to win out.
Doctors in Scotland remark ruefully on the huge defects being registered by English hospital trust. Many believe that the English reforms are becoming unsustainable, and that the invasion of the private sector is going to fundamentally alter the NHS. The disappearance of NHS dentistry is held as a warning of what can happen when privatisation is given its head.
There has been a degree of Schadenfreude in Scotland at the indifferent performance of some English city academies. The teaching profession in Scotland think that parental choice is largely presentational, and they are confident that the comprehensive principle, even South of the Border, is being rehabilitated now that even the Tory leader, David Cameron, has come out against academic selection at 11.
Of course, seen another way, regional diversity could be regarded as itself an extension of choice. Why not allow Scotland to experiment with a more ‘European social model, while England pursues the ‘Anglo Saxon’ road? If Scotland has the political will and legislative power to create a more Scandinavian-style society, then who is to argue?
The only real question is whether England is prepared to pay for all this through the Barnett Formula, or whether Scotland will have to raise its own taxes revenue to pay for its own mistakes - and successes.
Thousands of foreign students have also been making their way to Scotland - up 20% in a year - to benefit from the two year extension to their residency visas introduced by the Scottish Executive last year under the “Fresh Talent” initiative. Now English universities are starting to complain of unfair competition, and there is pressure for Scotland’s visa regime to be implemented south of the Border.
These are just two examples of the way in which devolution has introduced a new diversity into public provision in the UK. Scotland always was different, with its own legal and education systems. In 1999. devolution placed the entire range of domestic policy in the hands of the Holyrood parliament, and in the last couple of years the pace of differentiation has been stepped up.
Take home affairs. The Scottish Executive has challenged the UK Home Office over dawn raids on asylum seekers, and has been trying to pursue a more liberal immigration policy. Identity cards - if they ever happen - will not be compulsory for devolved services. The Freedom of Information regime in Scotland is much more open than its English counterpart and has, in its first year, been remarkably successful in altering the climate of official secretiveness. Scotland is becoming a more open society.
The Scottish Executive has resolved to resist any new generation of nuclear power stations in Scotland, unless or until there is a solution to the waste problem. If a new generation of Trident nuclear missiles are scheduled for the Clyde, there could be a furious response. Scotland intends to exploit the fact that it has - potentially - some 25% of Europe's entire wind and wave energy.
Proportional representation, introduced in Scotland in 1999 for the first time in any British mainland parliamentary election, is to be extended to local government next year. This has changed the character of electoral politics in Scotland by forcing parties to work together in coalitions. The council tax is likely to be reformed first in Scotland. Free personal care, as recommended by the Sutherland Report, has been well received in Scotland, despite the expense.
But it is above all in the Scottish Executive’s resistance to New Labour’s market-based public sector reforms, with their focus on competition and choice, that Scotland is embarking on a very different social journey. For Tony Blair, the need for reform is a self-evident truth. But not in Scotland.
At the Scottish Labour Party conference last year, the Prime Minister delivered a calculated snub to the Scottish government, and First Minister Jack McConnell, by loudly proclaiming the success of the English health reforms - like walk-in diagnostic and treatments centres - which have led to big cuts in waiting lists. McConnell took it badly. He isn’t impressed by the PM’s habit of holding Scotland up as a warning of what happens when public services go unreformed. The FM subsequently made it known that communication had largely broken down between the himself and the Prime Minister.
Departing from the PM’s public service message was a bold move. On the face of it, Scotland isn’t a great advert for the old “one size fits all” state, in health at least. Scotland gets around 20% more per head than England, yet life expectancy for a male in Glasgow remains around eleven years less than in the South of England. Waiting lists are finally coming down, but there is no equivalent to the promise in England of an 18 week maximum wait from GP to operating theatre. In the spring of 2005, when the PM delivered his conference speech, the number waiting for day case and inpatient treatment, 113,612, was higher than when Labour came to office.
In education, Scotland does better than England in many of the OECD’s PISA scores. However, there is no shortage of evidence that many Scottish schools are failing. Earlier this month, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Graham Donaldson, warned of the post -code lottery. In too many cases there is an unacceptable variation in the quality of learning and teaching across classes."
All grist to the PM’s mill. But, curiously, this hasn’t translated into political demands for the English reforms to be imported. In the recent Dunfermline by-election, the Chancellor Gordon Brown was given a severe electoral rebuff in his own home constituency. Hospitals were a big issue - specifically the transfer of orthopeadic services out of the local Queen Margaret Hospital. But there were no calls for foundation hospitals or private treatment centres - except from the Tories who came a bad fourth. The Scots remain largely immune to the discourse on choice that has informed Tony Blair’s war on state monopoly. There is no question here of patients being offered a choice of hospitals in which to have their hip operations. You get what you’re given; go where you’re told; doctor knows best.
This resistance to choice has puzzled many people, not least Labour MPs, who find themselves voting in parliament for restoring the internal market into the English NHS, with payment by results for trust hospitals, even though in Scotland old-style predict and provide prevails. Scottish MPs in Westminster have also voted for variable tuition fees in English universities, when tuition fees have actually been abolished in Scotland.
They will shortly be required to vote for another education bill, possibly including selection and self-financing for English schools, when these have been specifically rejected in Scotland. It is a constitutional anomaly which much irks the English Conservatives. But the West Lothian Question doesn’t seem to impinge much on the consciences of Scottish voters.
Scotland remains the last bastion of what the Prime Minister’s former spokesman, Alastair Campbell, dubbed “the bog standard comprehensive”. No beacon schools, foundation schools or city academies here. Selection is outlawed (except for Catholics who have their own schools under the 1918 Education Act). Scots seem content to send their children to the one-size-fits-all schools which Tony Blair insists are failing. Why?
Well, it could be that the canny Scots are just biding their time; waiting to see whether there really is a great leap forward in England following the Prime Minister’s initiatives. They’re sceptical but not stupid, and they do care about education - passionately. Jack McConnell isn’t anti-reform or even ideologically hostile to the market. But the Scottish Executive has been staying its hand aware that there are strong cultural and demographic factors a work.
There is much less less private education in Scotland than in England (nearly twice as many English pupils go to fee-paying schools as Scots) and private medicine is almost unheard of. This is for the rather obvious reason that most Scots can’t afford it - only about sixty thousand Scots earn more than #50,000 a year.
The biggest private hospital in Scotland, HCI Clydebank, had to be bought by the Scottish Executive two years ago because it was going bust. Expansion of private health in Scotland is difficult because there is so little of it.
Another reason is geography. Scotland has a third of the land mass of the British mainland but less than a tenth of the population. The idea of hospitals competing for patients may make sense in densely populated areas like the South East of England, but in Scotland it simply doesn’t work, unless patients are prepared to travel long distances.
The BMA in Scotland has long argued for the “collaborative” approach to health care to be continued in Scotland, whereby GPs establish their own contacts with hospitals and simply allocate patients according to availability. There is surprisingly little demand from the medical profession for market-centred reforms, even though GPs - it’s often forgotten - are small businessmen who are contracted bythe state, rather than employed by it.
In England, the Blairite reforms have been prompted the fear of middle class flight from the state. The increase in the number of people jumping NHS queues to get private operations in the late Nineties forced the waiting list issue to the top of Labour’s agenda. The sub text to the Education White Paper - before it was watered down by Neil Kinnock et al - was to give middle class parents greater scope to select schools, to stop them going private to avoid the local comprehensive. But in Scotland, most of the middle classes are staying put. It’s quite enough buying a house and saving for a holiday, without having to start paying for private schools too.
There is also, perhaps, a lingering equalitarianism and collectivism in Scottish culture. Scots are very jealous of the ‘lad o’ pairts’ tradition of anti-elitism in education, and so of course is the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who has campaigned against “elitism” in Oxbridge entrance procedures.
The Chancellor regards collective provision as a moral virtue; public service is “a calling not a career” as he put it in his own speech to the Scottish Labour Conference last year.
Brown believes there is more to public provision than markets and choice, and this seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of the views of many Scottish voters. How much of this translates into his stewardship of the country when he becomes Prime Minister remains to be seen. But it still goes down well back home.
So, Scotland is pursuing a very different public sector agenda from that in England. And while the present Prime Minister is convinced that there is no choice but to promote choice, in Scotland, people seem to have chosen a different model. And, seen from public sector Scotland, it is not at all certain yet which is going to win out.
Doctors in Scotland remark ruefully on the huge defects being registered by English hospital trust. Many believe that the English reforms are becoming unsustainable, and that the invasion of the private sector is going to fundamentally alter the NHS. The disappearance of NHS dentistry is held as a warning of what can happen when privatisation is given its head.
There has been a degree of Schadenfreude in Scotland at the indifferent performance of some English city academies. The teaching profession in Scotland think that parental choice is largely presentational, and they are confident that the comprehensive principle, even South of the Border, is being rehabilitated now that even the Tory leader, David Cameron, has come out against academic selection at 11.
Of course, seen another way, regional diversity could be regarded as itself an extension of choice. Why not allow Scotland to experiment with a more ‘European social model, while England pursues the ‘Anglo Saxon’ road? If Scotland has the political will and legislative power to create a more Scandinavian-style society, then who is to argue?
The only real question is whether England is prepared to pay for all this through the Barnett Formula, or whether Scotland will have to raise its own taxes revenue to pay for its own mistakes - and successes.
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