Up To Their Necks (17/04/14)
I agree with much of what John McTernan has to say in this opinion piece in The Times, especially the part where he nails Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and company for their hypocrisy in trying to distance themselves from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when, as a matter of fact, they were up to their necks in the New Labour project all along.
Ed’s big mistake was his break with the past
By John McTernan
Great things happened in the Blair and Brown years. Taking pride in those successes would give Labour a bit of swagger
‘Whole sight, or all the rest is desolation.” That was John Fowles’ meditation on the late self-portrait by Rembrandt in Kenwood House. Those rheumy eyes have seen so much, too much perhaps, but they remain unsparingly honest. This should be a lesson for every opposition party after an election defeat. Define your defeat — without that, you will never move on. Anyway, be sure that if you don’t do it for yourselves it will be done for you.
It’s the most obvious lesson of recent political history, yet it is honoured in the breach so often. It took Labour 18 years before Tony Blair and Gordon Brown reckoned with the Winter of Discontent. The Tories were routed three times before David Cameron came to terms with Margaret Thatcher — not fully, but just enough to become the largest party. Much easier to fall back into the lazy habits of opposition — first blame each other for the election defeat, then blame the voters. Repeat and rinse.
The iconic action of Ed Miliband’s leadership was to remove the word “new”. Simply the Labour party once more. It worked in giving him a fresh start, but at a huge cost. What was meant to be a clean break has become a fire-break, preventing Mr Miliband from reaching back to claim any credit for 13 years of Labour government. This hurts Labour twice. First, there were many very real achievements between 1997 and 2010 — radical policies which have now become part of the consensus, from the national minimum wage to civil partnerships.
Second, real transformation in public services — in health and in education — are now claimed by the Tories because Labour effectively repudiated its record. But, as I said, Labour gets the worst of all worlds because half of its leadership — from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to Andy Burnham and Jim Murphy — were advisers, MPs and ministers for the whole period. They can’t avoid the blame, though they spurn the credit. It’s all pain, no gain.
This is why Labour needs a reckoning — an honest account of its own past, warts and all. It’s essential, because it is one of those political problems that you can’t go round — you have to go through it. William Faulkner said of the US South: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That’s true for political parties too, until they lay their ghosts. It’s hard, because it should have been done in 2010, but it can be done even now.
Labour needs a story in which its values — which at their best are British values — achieve a great national purpose. It must remind the country that the greatness of Britain has not been achieved by chance but by choice. For one thing, we are an increasingly egalitarian country — one where the son of a Pakistani bus driver can become a millionaire and then a cabinet minister. This happened because of the Labour party and despite the Tories — or at least the Conservative party as they were until forced to change by Labour. Remember when the Tories were last in government? Lord Tebbit, the party chairman, said the “cricket test” suggested that many immigrants were not sufficiently integrated. That same administration put homophobia into law with Section 28.
The Disability Discrimination Act, denied by John Major, was brought in by Mr Blair. Racism. Homophobia. Disability discrimination. Tackled by Labour, accepted by Mr Cameron. A country more at ease with itself was Labour’s legacy, and so was a kinder, more tolerant Tory party.
For another, we are once again a modern country with modern public services. Remember the public realm in 1997? It was dilapidated and decayed. Schools starved of capital still had outdoor lavatories. What was called “the New Building” in my local hospital was built in 1967. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) rebuilt or modernised nearly every Accident and Emergency department in England. Neighbour-hoods across the country in 2010 had new school buildings completed. PFI is now universally attacked and compared with traditional public borrowing. But that was never the choice — it was PFI or nothing.
In economics Labour smashed the neo-liberal consensus that said increased rights for workers cost jobs. Employment with Labour rose every year until the great recession — and at the same time workers got the right to join a union, adoption leave, employment protection, four weeks’ holiday. It was proved that there need be no race to the bottom to become prosperous. Manu-facturing boomed — we were the fifth largest manufacturing economy in the world. Britain made more cars than in the 1970s and Sheffield produced more steel than in the Eighties.
My point is not that Labour should ever argue that this was some golden age — progressives should always have their eyes on the future. But Labour’s leadership needs some swagger — it has a lot of which to be proud. Where things went wrong — admit it, but paint the whole picture. The failure on housing was in not tackling rising prices — but we’re not alone there, look at George Osborne stoking house-price inflation. But we modernised a million council houses, built a record number of housing association homes and drove a brown-field housing boom that has brought new life to city centres. It’s not hard to win an argument — but you have got to want to make one in the first place.
What, in summary, should Labour’s story be? Not a list, but this. In our first term, we tackled the urgent issues of long-term unemployment, child and pensioner poverty and got the economy back on track to growth. In our second term, we used the proceeds of growth to fund the NHS and schools properly. But resources were matched by reform to ensure quality and choice. In our third term, we were able to turn to deeper problems with pension reform, refounding our energy policy with a return to nuclear power, commissioning Crossrail and starting the work on HS2. In short, nation-building.
So, the first line of Ed Miliband’s conference speech this year? Easy. “Comrades and colleagues, I will never apologise for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s achievements . . .”
Great things happened in the Blair and Brown years. Taking pride in those successes would give Labour a bit of swagger
‘Whole sight, or all the rest is desolation.” That was John Fowles’ meditation on the late self-portrait by Rembrandt in Kenwood House. Those rheumy eyes have seen so much, too much perhaps, but they remain unsparingly honest. This should be a lesson for every opposition party after an election defeat. Define your defeat — without that, you will never move on. Anyway, be sure that if you don’t do it for yourselves it will be done for you.
It’s the most obvious lesson of recent political history, yet it is honoured in the breach so often. It took Labour 18 years before Tony Blair and Gordon Brown reckoned with the Winter of Discontent. The Tories were routed three times before David Cameron came to terms with Margaret Thatcher — not fully, but just enough to become the largest party. Much easier to fall back into the lazy habits of opposition — first blame each other for the election defeat, then blame the voters. Repeat and rinse.
The iconic action of Ed Miliband’s leadership was to remove the word “new”. Simply the Labour party once more. It worked in giving him a fresh start, but at a huge cost. What was meant to be a clean break has become a fire-break, preventing Mr Miliband from reaching back to claim any credit for 13 years of Labour government. This hurts Labour twice. First, there were many very real achievements between 1997 and 2010 — radical policies which have now become part of the consensus, from the national minimum wage to civil partnerships.
Second, real transformation in public services — in health and in education — are now claimed by the Tories because Labour effectively repudiated its record. But, as I said, Labour gets the worst of all worlds because half of its leadership — from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to Andy Burnham and Jim Murphy — were advisers, MPs and ministers for the whole period. They can’t avoid the blame, though they spurn the credit. It’s all pain, no gain.
This is why Labour needs a reckoning — an honest account of its own past, warts and all. It’s essential, because it is one of those political problems that you can’t go round — you have to go through it. William Faulkner said of the US South: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That’s true for political parties too, until they lay their ghosts. It’s hard, because it should have been done in 2010, but it can be done even now.
Labour needs a story in which its values — which at their best are British values — achieve a great national purpose. It must remind the country that the greatness of Britain has not been achieved by chance but by choice. For one thing, we are an increasingly egalitarian country — one where the son of a Pakistani bus driver can become a millionaire and then a cabinet minister. This happened because of the Labour party and despite the Tories — or at least the Conservative party as they were until forced to change by Labour. Remember when the Tories were last in government? Lord Tebbit, the party chairman, said the “cricket test” suggested that many immigrants were not sufficiently integrated. That same administration put homophobia into law with Section 28.
The Disability Discrimination Act, denied by John Major, was brought in by Mr Blair. Racism. Homophobia. Disability discrimination. Tackled by Labour, accepted by Mr Cameron. A country more at ease with itself was Labour’s legacy, and so was a kinder, more tolerant Tory party.
For another, we are once again a modern country with modern public services. Remember the public realm in 1997? It was dilapidated and decayed. Schools starved of capital still had outdoor lavatories. What was called “the New Building” in my local hospital was built in 1967. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) rebuilt or modernised nearly every Accident and Emergency department in England. Neighbour-hoods across the country in 2010 had new school buildings completed. PFI is now universally attacked and compared with traditional public borrowing. But that was never the choice — it was PFI or nothing.
In economics Labour smashed the neo-liberal consensus that said increased rights for workers cost jobs. Employment with Labour rose every year until the great recession — and at the same time workers got the right to join a union, adoption leave, employment protection, four weeks’ holiday. It was proved that there need be no race to the bottom to become prosperous. Manu-facturing boomed — we were the fifth largest manufacturing economy in the world. Britain made more cars than in the 1970s and Sheffield produced more steel than in the Eighties.
My point is not that Labour should ever argue that this was some golden age — progressives should always have their eyes on the future. But Labour’s leadership needs some swagger — it has a lot of which to be proud. Where things went wrong — admit it, but paint the whole picture. The failure on housing was in not tackling rising prices — but we’re not alone there, look at George Osborne stoking house-price inflation. But we modernised a million council houses, built a record number of housing association homes and drove a brown-field housing boom that has brought new life to city centres. It’s not hard to win an argument — but you have got to want to make one in the first place.
What, in summary, should Labour’s story be? Not a list, but this. In our first term, we tackled the urgent issues of long-term unemployment, child and pensioner poverty and got the economy back on track to growth. In our second term, we used the proceeds of growth to fund the NHS and schools properly. But resources were matched by reform to ensure quality and choice. In our third term, we were able to turn to deeper problems with pension reform, refounding our energy policy with a return to nuclear power, commissioning Crossrail and starting the work on HS2. In short, nation-building.
So, the first line of Ed Miliband’s conference speech this year? Easy. “Comrades and colleagues, I will never apologise for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s achievements . . .”
