BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
Page 10
50
2000
40
39
52
2001
37
38
49
2002
29
39
53
2003
34
42
51
2004
23
32
42
2005
26
32
44
n/a ϭnot asked.
Source: British Social Attitudes survey.
First we might note that despite her stated ambition and her best efforts,
Margaret Thatcher failed to shift Britain to the right. If anything by 1990,
the year that Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister, people were slightly
more inclined to give a left-wing response than they had been the first
time each of our questions was included on the Social Attitudes survey.
Meanwhile little changed in the period between Thatcher’s demise and
Blair’s accession to the Labour leadership.
But thereafter there was a marked change. On all three of our measures
people were somewhat less likely to offer a left-wing response by 1997
than they had been three years earlier. The perception that unemployment benefits were too low had fallen by seven points, as had (by 1996)
the proportion who thought the government should redistribute income,
while (again by 1996) the proportion classified as ‘left of centre’ had
dropped by six points. But it was in the period after Tony Blair became
Prime Minister that attitudes changed most sharply. In just the first year
of his premiership there was no less than a seventeen-point drop – from
46% to 29% – in the proportion thinking that unemployment was too
low. At the same time there were also further drops in support for greater
income equality, as well as in the proportion giving ‘left of centre’
responses on our scale. Thereafter, despite some fluctuation in both
directions, overall the country moved yet further to the right. Thus by
2005 support for income redistribution had fallen by twelve points since
1996, while the proportion who could be called ‘left of centre’ had
dropped by fourteen points. Indeed according to the latter measure it
appears that during Blair’s tenure in office Britain changed from being a
predominantly left-of-centre country to a majority right-of-centre one.
Of course we might still wonder how much responsibility for this
rightward drift lies at Blair’s door. As we remarked earlier, we would
anticipate that if indeed Labour’s move to the right influenced attitudes,
then it is Labour supporters whose attitudes should have been influenced
the most. Table 3.6 overleaf suggests that this is indeed what happened.16
The decline in support for redistribution and the decline in the proportion who overall could be classified as ‘left of centre’ was considerably
greater amongst Labour supporters than Conservative adherents, both
over the whole period of Blair’s Labour leadership and during his tenure
as Prime Minister. As a result, by the time Blair’s premiership was
drawing to a close only a bare majority of Labour supporters could be
classified as ‘left of centre’.17
So it seems that in moving his party to the centre Blair did not simply
change people’s perceptions of the Labour Party – he also discouraged
them from supporting the values with which the party had traditionally
been associated. As a result, the ideological terrain on which Gordon
Brown will have to fight his party’s cause is more rugged than the one that
16 For further evidence using panel data that takes into account the possible impact of
changes in the kind of person that supports the Labour Party, see J. Curtice and S. Fisher,
‘The Power to Persuade? A Tale of Two Prime Ministers’, in A. Park, J. Curtice,
K. Thomson, L. Jarvis and C. Bromley (eds.), British Social Attitudes: The 20th Report:
Continuity and Change over Two Decades (London: Sage, 2003), pp. 233–53.
17 Much the same is also true of attitudes to unemployment benefit. In 1994, 67% of Labour
identifiers thought this benefit was too low, as did 58% in 1997. By 2005 the figure had
fallen to 32%. The equivalent figures for Conservative identifiers were 34%, 30% and 13%
respectively.
Table 3.6. Left–right attitudes by party identification 1986–2005
Support redistribution (%)
Left of centre (%)
Conservative
Labour
Conservative
Labour
identifiers
identifiers
identifiers
identifiers
1986
22
64
29
76
1994
26
68
37
81
1996
22
58
33
75
1998
23
48
34
63
2001
22
46
31
58
2005
16
39
26
51
Source: British Social Attitudes survey.
Tony Blair inherited. Fewer voters now believe in the things that Labour
(once) believe(d). While, as we have seen, ideology is far from being all in
the battle for electoral supremacy, in having encouraged the nation’s
values to move in a more conservative direction Blair has certainly not
made it any easier for his party to achieve electoral success over the long
term.
Conclusion
History is usually written by the victors. Thus, because Labour won the
1997 election so decisively, supporters of Blair were able to claim that it
was thanks to his repositioning and rebranding of the party that Labour
secured its decisive victory. Equally when Blair became the first Labour
leader to win three general elections in a row, they have been able to argue
that it was his leadership that enabled the party to achieve unprecedented
electoral success.
Our critical scrutiny has, however, painted a far more prosaic picture.
Blair inherited a party that was already heading for victory thanks to the
Conservatives’ misfortunes on ‘Black Wednesday’ in 1992. He benefited
crucially from a biased electoral system that ensured that the heaviest loss
of electoral support ever suffered by a Labour government did not stand
between him and his third electoral victory. True, his rebranding and
repositioning of his party did change people’s perceptions of the Labour
Party and appears to have hit its target in that it encouraged middle-class
voters and those living in the south of England to vote for the party. But
much of this change happened after Blair secured power, not before. In
any event it proved no barrier to a severe loss of electoral support at the
ballot box, a l
oss that in the local and devolved elections held towards the
end of his leadership was not masked by the electoral system. Moreover,
Blair’s strategy seems to have dissuaded people from wanting a more
equal society, and government action to secure that aim, a change that
will certainly not make it any easier for his party to win elections in
future.
The crucial piece of the electoral jigsaw that was persistently ignored in
the claims made by advocates of the New Labour project was competence. Image and ideology may provide the foundations on which victory
may be built. But they are worth little if a party is thought incapable of
delivering on its promises. After his second victory in 2001 at least – and
especially so after the Iraq invasion in 2003 – the longer that Blair governed, the more his own and his party’s competence was questioned,
leading to a serious erosion of his party’s electoral support. The key electoral task facing his successor, Gordon Brown, is to try to find a way of
reversing this ‘Blair effect’.
4
Local government
Before 1997
Local government had long played a key role in the Labour Party’s organisation and activist base. Several parts of the country, notably South
Wales, Tyneside and parts of east London have been dominated by
Labour ever since the party developed. During the eighteen years of
Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997, Labour had developed huge
strength in town halls. However, during Labour’s long years in opposition the party had often been embarrassed by so-called ‘loony left’ councillors in places such as Liverpool, Sheffield and Lambeth. Margaret
Thatcher’s government had abolished the Greater London Council and
metropolitan county authorities, introduced the poll tax and ‘rate
capping’, and more generally conducted a prolonged war against town
halls. Although John Major’s ministers were more emollient, the
central–local relationship in 1997 was still fragile.
Many senior New Labour politicians were wary of local government.
The behaviour of radical Labour councils in the 1980s and early 1990s
was widely believed to have cost the party votes in general elections. Tony
Blair had never been a councillor and showed no particular concern for
the subject. Moreover, his 1997 government wished to project an image of
modernity and prudence. There was no room for outdated practices
within government, including at the local level. However, despite this
challenging background, many senior figures within local government
hoped the new Labour government would improve and strengthen local
democracy.
1997–2001
Labour’s first term
Labour’s 1997 manifesto1 was a predictor of the fundamentally cautious
approach adopted by the party once it had won power. The main points
of the party’s plans were: to remove expenditure capping; to give councils
powers to promote economic, social and environmental well-being;
annual elections for all councils; experiments with elected mayors; the
introduction of a ‘Best Value’ regime; the abolition of compulsory competitive tendering; a ‘fair’ grant distribution; a directly elected mayor and
Assembly for London; a Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly; and
Regional Development Agencies for England.
Soon after taking office, Labour decided to merge the Department of
the Environment (local government’s sponsor) with the Department of
Transport. This returned the Whitehall arrangements to those that had
existed during the Heath government of 1970–4. The new Department of
the Environment, Transport and the Regions was to be headed by John
Prescott (also Deputy Prime Minister), with Hilary Armstrong as Minister
of State for Local Government. Nick Raynsford was given specific responsibility for the creation of a new local government structure in London.
The Blair government signalled its intention to reform councils by the
publication of a series of consultative papers, under the title ‘Modernising
Local Government’. The notion of ‘modernisation’ was to become key to
the Blair government’s approach to local authorities. Senior Labour
figures believed the existing system of local authorities – and, indeed,
many councillors – were antiquated and conservative. Wholesale modernisation was required.
Six consultative papers were produced during 1997. Three were
about management, probity and effectiveness: ‘Local Democracy and
Community Leadership’, ‘Improving Local Services Through Best Value’,
and ‘A New Ethical Framework’. The remaining three tackled the perennial issue of finance: ‘Improving Local Financial Accountability’, ‘Capital
Finance’ and ‘Business Rates’. These documents implied government
radicalism in its approach to the internal management of local authorities and deep conservatism about finance.
The papers on internal management and processes suggested that
local government should move away from its traditional reliance on the
11 Labour Party, New Labour Because Britain Deserves Better (London: Labour Party, 1997),
pp. 34 and 35.
committee system and instead split the ‘executive’ and ‘non-executive’
roles of councillors within each local authority. In particular, the possibility of introducing an executive mayor or a cabinet system was outlined.2
The government argued that councils should provide more effective civic
leadership. Concern was expressed at low electoral turnouts in local government. Potential reforms such as annual elections for all councils and
ways of easing access to voting were put forward.
The proposed Best Value regime provided clear evidence of New
Labour’s approach. The government was determined to keep pressure on
councils to deliver the kind of public service efficiencies and effectiveness
that the previous Conservative governments had – with some success –
striven for. However, ministers wanted to differentiate themselves from
the Tories’ preoccupation with ‘value for money’, also delivering
effectiveness and quality in local services, backed up by targets and performance indicators.3
Best Value was to involve each authority in producing a performance
plan that would then be independently audited. It was a highly technical
solution to the government’s problem of how to ensure that (often
Labour) authorities did not revert to the kind of behaviour and
inefficiency commonplace in the bad old days before Margaret Thatcher’s
government had tamed them. But although the Blair government’s
motives were obvious, there was less certainty about how Best Value
would actually operate.
Blair’s government showed no desire to unravel the system of local
government finance. Margaret Thatcher had, in part, been brought down
by a new, disliked, local government tax. The best John Prescott could
offer was the removal of ‘crude and universal’ expenditure capping, the
possibility of a small local supplement to the national non-domestic rate
(which the
Tories had nationalised in 1990) and some delegation of
control over capital spending.
The final key element in Labour’s approach was the proposal that all
councils should adopt a ‘new ethical framework’, which would involve
the adoption of a new code of conduct for councillors and officers, the
creation of a ‘standards committee’ for each authority and an appeal
mechanism involving independent members. Many decisions about possible standards breaches would be made by a nationally appointed
12 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Modernising Local
Government. Local Democracy and Community Leadership (London: TSO, 1998), p. 33.
13 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Modernising Local
Government. Improving Local Services Through Best Value (London: TSO, 1998), p. 9.
regional board. The perceived need for such reforms arose from the recommendations of the Nolan Report.4
Local authorities saw the new government’s approach as a mixture of
carrots and sticks. While the Local Government Association was happy
enough with the abolition of capping and compulsory competitive tendering, it was less content with the performance-driven threat of Best
Value, which it viewed as centralisation. There was virtually no support
for the idea of elected mayors. From local government’s point of view the
Blair administration was planning to be radical where councillors wanted
no change (i.e. the internal workings of local government) and cautious
where local authorities wanted reform (i.e. finance).
In one area of policy there was little or no opposition to Blair’s
approach to local government. The manifesto had promised a new citywide government for the capital, to replace the Greater London Council
(GLC), which had been abolished by the Conservatives in 1986. A Green
Paper on London government was published in July 1997,5 followed by
the legislation required to test public opinion in a referendum to be held
in May 1998. While the overall proposals for the capital were widely welcomed, there was some opposition to the idea of an American-style
directly elected mayor.
The introduction of a mayor for London was a radical proposal. The
United Kingdom had no previous experience of such an elected executive. The proposed Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were conventional administrations which involved the election of a number of
members who would, between them, create an executive and elect a First