Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
Writing in the Guardian today Polly Toynbee argues that “If John Major was in office but not in power, Tony Blair is still in power but no one knows what for.”
I’d say he knows what he’s in power for – the problem is that not enough people tend to agree with him. As far as I can tell, the Blair is being quite open about what he wants:
- Competition and choice in public services (e.g. the NHS, the schools white paper)
- An interventionist foreign policy (through the UN where possible)
- A focus on international development and climate change (again through multi-lateral agreements)
- Renewing the nuclear deterrent
- Reform of the house of lords
The list goes on, but the problem for him is that lots of it is pretty unpopular. The result of this is that he simultaneously gets accused of rushing things through and of lacking direction.
Tony Benn says that New Labour is ‘the smallest political party in history…it’s just they’re all in the cabinet’. The real question is whether that’s true – and whether someone can come up with a set of ideas that doesn’t just provide direction, but provides a direction that people unite behind.
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I'm not so sure that the substance of the Blair agenda really is that unpopular, it's the fact that he's the one expressing it that causes the problem. I think it's safe to say that a focus on international development and climate change can command a pretty broad consensus. I would even go so far as to say then interventionist foreign policy through international institutions would find a lot of sympathy. And as for competition and choice in public services goes, while Polly and her Guardian colleagues and readers may not be big on them, they're not necessarily in the majority. I suspect that an awful lot of people would be all for the actual aims of these policies - more efficient services able to better respond to public wishes.
The problem then is that through having been around for a while, which inevitably takes the bloom off the rose, Blair does finds it hard to say anything ewhich is mbraced with enthusiasm. The default setting towards him is cynicism. New ideas are not necessarily what's needed, but someone with higher 'trust capital' to express them. We already have a direction people want to get behind, what's needed is a better way of leading them there.
The current wave of public service reform isn't connecting with people's real needs and aspirations - reflected in the fact that so many people don't believe things have really got better. Blair's policies might make services more responsive to people's needs, but the people don't seem to have noticed.
Competition and choice at best provide a form of 'mass customisation' - the danger is that people can choose between lots of options, but that none of them really does the job.
If we want to re-engage people democratically, involve them in improving their own wellbeing, and bring them together to tackle climate change, we can't do that through offering five different hospital operations. We need to tailor services to the individual in deeper ways, rebuild trust and create new opportunities for deliberation and conversation. Choice might be part of that, but only in the hands of someone far more radical.
Continuity or change? Is a new leader enough to meet the policy + political challenges behind 'renewal'? Is there more to New Labour - in outlook and approach - than Blairism?
I think there are those hoping that its just personal antipathy to Blair that's the problem - which i agree is part of it - but i think its going to take a lot more than that.