unions reduced the monies they provided. There is perhaps no better
proof of the Blairite transformation of the Labour Party than its reordered
financial base. Almost £66 million was donated to Labour between 2001
32 Ibid.
33 The Guardian, 21 February 2007.
and 2005, 64% of this still from trade unions, but with some 25% being
drawn from thirty-seven individuals.34 Large donations, solicited by Lord
Levy, who was Blair’s – not Labour’s – personal fundraiser, came from
Paul Hamlyn, Christopher Ondaatje, Lord Sainsbury (Blair’s Science
Minister who donated some £16 million between 1995 and 200535),
Bernie Ecclestone, Lakshmi Mittal and Richard Desmond, among others.
In 2006 Labour’s finances prompted a political crisis with the ‘cashfor-peerages’ (or loans-for-honours) scandal, when it emerged that
nearly £14 million had been secretly loaned by wealthy individuals, most
of it funding the £18 million spent on Labour’s 2005 general election
campaign. Several individuals Blair had nominated for life peerages were
among these donors. Tony Blair, Lord Levy and the then party general
secretary, Matt Carter, knew of these loans, but Jack Dromey, Labour’s
elected treasurer, did not. While, under the Political Parties, Elections
and Referendums Act (PPERA) passed by Labour in 2000, anyone donating £5,000 or more must be named, loans of any amount made on commercial terms do not have to be declared. Labour had breached the spirit,
if not the letter, of its own legislation. It was, however, the fact that there
might be some link between making a loan and being given a peerage,
which was illegal under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925,
that led to a police investigation. Lord Levy and Ruth Turner, Blair’s political secretary, were arrested and interviewed under caution. Blair was also
thrice interviewed (the first prime minister to be so), but as a witness not
as a suspect, and he was not placed under caution. By the summer of
2007, the police had concluded their investigation, interviewing some
136 people, so it remains to be seen if charges will be brought by the CPS.
Thanks largely to PPERA and the fact that the cash-for-peerages furore
makes it politically difficult to tap wealthy and corporate supporters,
Labour, even under Blair, retained a financial link with the trade unions,
even if its political link with the unions was not valued at the highest
levels of the party. Labour’s finances remain parlous. The party drew an
income of £26.9 million in 2003, £29.3 in 2004 and £35.3 in 2005, set
against expenditure of £24.3 million in 2003, £32.1 in 2004 and £49.8 in
the election year of 2005. Although some 80% of expenditure is spent on
day-to-day running costs,36 elections impose considerable financial pressures. By 2006, following the 2005 election, Labour confirmed it was
34 House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee, Party Funding (London: TSO,
2006), www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmconst/163/163i.pdf.
35 Sunday Times, 23 January 2005.
36 Ibid.
facing ‘acute cash flow problems’ with debts of some £23 million. It
seems, then, that the present means of funding political parties is in dire
need of reform. The inquiry chaired by Hayden Phillips, established by
Blair in the wake of the cash-for-peerages affair, will play a key role in
future forms of party funding, but the introduction of some form of state
funding, paid for by the taxpayer, remains a very real possibility.
Blair’s legacy and the limits to his party authority
Denis Healey, still nursing bruises inflicted by party infighting in days
gone by, envied Blair and Brown ‘their good luck in living in a Britain
where the trade unions are not a serious problem and there is no important challenge either in policy or personality from the left wing. There is
no Tony Benn or Nye Bevan as we used to have . . . The nearest thing to a
left winger these days is Peter Hain.’37 Blair clearly benefited from the
weakness (and, to be frank, irrelevance) of the Labour left. This weakness
was best typified by John McDonnell’s failure to attract support for his
kamikaze tilt at the Labour leadership from other than a handful of unreconstructed left MPs (Gordon Brown was nominated by 313 MPs,
McDonnell by only 29). It meant that Labour’s culturally relativist, thirdworldist and anti-American hard left, bereft of any economic idea, clinging to the belief in the state as planner and provider, did little but heckle
the Blairite steamroller after 1994. Serious misgivings over policy aside,
particularly Iraq, Blair retained the support of the Labour mainstream.
As Robin Cook observed, he did so largely ‘because he has delivered phenomenal popularity for the party’.38 This did much to compensate for
Blair being perceived to be ‘for’, but not ‘of ’, the Labour Party. His wellcrafted speeches at the party conference, a forum in which he had a ‘complete mastery’,39 were always warmly and enthusiastically received. By
being electorally successful, Blair was a more popular leader among
Labour loyalists (less so, obviously, Labour leftists and trade unionists)
than he was usually given credit for.
In the end, while Tony Blair has not been a president, he was, unlike
most prime ministers, ‘term-limited’. Blair’s September 2004 declaration
that he would seek a third term, but not a fourth was a short-term (and
bitterly regretted) measure to unify the party in the run-up to the 2005
37 Denis Healey, ‘Why the Treasury is so Difficult’, in Howard Davies (ed.), The Chancellors’
Tales: Managing the British Economy (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), pp. 61–2.
38 Cook, Point of Departure, p.79.
39 Ibid., p. 222.
election and placate his wannabe successor, the Chancellor Gordon
Brown. Blair’s intention to serve out the entirety of the 2005 parliament
was soon thwarted. This owed something to ongoing news media speculation about the Prime Minister’s future, but owed more to a large element
of Labour’s parliamentary party deciding Blair should leave office
sooner rather than later. Some Labour MPs, leftist critics, disaffected
ex-ministers and never-promoted backbenchers, long-standing critics of
Blair, had long wanted him gone. Others, principally supporters of
Gordon Brown, wanted Blair to go so that Brown could claim his inheritance. Still others, the vast majority of them Labour loyalists, reluctantly
concluded that Blair’s successor needed time to prepare for the election to
be held some time before June 2010. These different schools of thought,
all separately agitating for Blair’s departure (or for a date to be set when he
would depart), came together in the would-be ‘coup’ of September 2006.
Then, following the resignation of a junior minister and several ministerial aides, speculation in parliament and the usual news media frenzy, Blair
declared he would leave office ‘within the year’ and before the 2007
Labour Party conf
erence. Once again, as is always the case in Britain’s parliamentary democracy (excluding when electors turf the government out
of office at a general election), the ultimate agents of Blair’s undoing were
elements within his parliamentary party. Blair, unlike Thatcher, might
have chosen the moment of his departure, but he went earlier than he
wanted, following the urging of some Labour MPs, and when faced with a
party challenge from a ministerial colleague, Gordon Brown.
The Blair–Brown relationship, the key New Labour fault-line, was both
fractious and fruitful. Political and policy disagreements between the two,
exacerbated by their camp-followers and fuelled by media reportage, at
times disfigured and divided the government. In his having to handle
Gordon Brown we can see that party management, as ever, lay at the heart
of the most significant problem of Blair’s leadership. The seeds of discord
between Prime Minister and Chancellor were set in stone from the first.
Blair, rewarding Brown for not running against him in 1994 by the
‘Granita pact’, granted his Chancellor a prominence which gave him too
great an independence. In hindsight Blair, who would surely have soundly
beaten Brown by a significant margin, should have allowed Brown to run
against him. Then he would not have been beholden to a beaten opponent. In government Blair shrank from clipping Brown’s wings, sometimes placating him, but usually preferring to work with him or around
him on domestic policy in which the Treasury could claim an interest. On
foreign policy Blair had a much freer hand. Had, for example, Blair
moved Brown from the Treasury to the Home Office in 2005 (a move,
being a would-be prime minister, he could not have refused) then Brown,
not Charles Clarke, would most likely have been forced out of the government in the wake of the foreign prisoner release scandal in May 2006.
With his rival beyond the race, Blair might well have managed to have
stayed in Downing Street for the remainder of Labour’s third term.
Of course, having been Blair’s heir apparent for thirteen years is testimony to Brown’s considerable political weight. Having been in the cabinet
or shadow cabinet for twenty years, he led for Labour on economic policy
for some fifteen years. It is remarkable that no serious alternative emerged
to challenge his longstanding claim to the leadership. More remarkable
still is that 313 out of 352 Labour MPs supported (for a variety of reasons,
some less honourable than others) his claim to succeed Blair. How strange
it should be, however, that someone denied the Labour leadership in 1994
could claim it unopposed in 2007. In contrast to Brown’s virtual coronation, three heavyweights had contested the Conservative leadership following Thatcher’s fall, six following Wilson’s resignation and at least four
serious candidates were considered by the ‘magic circle’ to ‘emerge’ in succession to Macmillan. Clearly, Blair’s ascendancy did little to encourage
would-be successors to emerge; it did nothing to limit the established
challenge of Brown. Mentioned alternatives, among them David Blunkett,
Alan Milburn and John Reid, came and went. Two possibles, Alan Johnson
and the inexperienced David Miliband, declined suggestions that they
challenge the heir presumptive. Indeed, despite his grasp on his party,
Blair strangely seemed often to march alone. He attracted supporters, but
did little to advance the careers of loyalist followers, rarely placing
favourites in high offices of state – so much so that loyalists like Alan
Milburn, Stephen Byers and, most strikingly, even the ultra-loyal and at
one time indispensable Peter Mandelson might perhaps look back on the
Blair years as a time of missed personal opportunity.
Conclusion
By 2005 Labour’s electoral ascendancy, whilst delighting the party, did not
instil a sense of triumphalism, nor, beyond the parliamentary party, much
of a sense of purpose. Such feelings, perhaps explained by mid-term
blues, sometimes seemed to reflect unease, perhaps even disenchantment
with the government’s record since 1997. It remains to be seen how the
concept of New Labour will last beyond Blair. It might be that the phrase
is retired, but not the idea it identified. In terms of legacy, Blair will be
remembered both for his electoral ascendancy and for his success in modernising the Labour Party. By modernisation Blair made Labour work
within the economic policy framework bequeathed by Thatcherism, reconciling antagonistic concepts such as public and private, individualism
and collectivism.40 His insistence that his government promote business
and empower and liberalise, not restrict or limit market mechanisms,
meant Labour championed capitalism and did not criticise it. It might well
be, however, that where the Conservatives re-educated Labour on economic questions (marketisation, the importance of flexible labour
markets, and the need to abandon excessive forms of tax-and-spend)
before 1997, Blair-led Labour painfully re-educated the Conservative Party
on social questions (support for public services, respect for personal identity and preferences, and the need to recognise such a ‘thing as society’)
after 1997.
The greatest historical claim of ‘Blairism beyond Blair’ might well be
Blair’s style of bold, authoritative party leadership. He, perhaps more
than anyone, popularised the idea that a party has to be dominated by an
audacious party leader to be electorally successful. Such a leader, while
still paying heed to party traditions, has to prioritise office-seeking over
policy-seeking. Blair’s management of the Labour Party might not have
produced far-reaching formal changes in its structures and procedures,
but Blair did much to further encourage the model of vertical communication from leaders to members while discouraging horizontal communication between activists and members. Blair always had three related
objectives in his sights: first, to increase his autonomy from both Labour’s
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary party; second, to programmatically modernise the party in order to prioritise New Labour officeseeking over Old Labour policy-seeking; and, third, to professionalise
and personalise Labour’s mode of campaigning. The ultimate goal had to
be to win elections. This approach was not Blair’s invention, but having
done much to further root the electoral professional party form in British
politics, he dramatically entrenched it. In so doing he not only politically
reoriented the Labour Party but he significantly reworked the template of
modern political party leadership.
40 See Sean Driver and Luke Martell, New Labour (Cambridge: Polity, 2006); Ludlam and
Smith, Governing as New Labour; Steven Fielding, The Labour Party: Continuity and
Change in the Making of New Labour (London: Palgrave, 2002); Richard Heffernan, New
Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain (London: Palgrave, 2001); Colin Hay,
The Political Economy of New Labour: Labouring under False Pretences (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1999).
9
Social democracy
‘Chirac pronounced: “Tony is a modern socialist. That means he is five miles
to the right of me” – “And I’m of proud of it”, said Tony (10 October 1999)1
I
Politicians like to see themselves as shaping the future. Historians sometimes collude with them. Yet, often, the skill of political leaders lies in
accommodating themselves to their environment, rather than transforming it. There are, to be sure, occasions on which political leaders
wrench history from what seemed to be its preordained course: an
obvious example is Churchill in 1940. More often, however, the art of
political leadership consists in giving a gloss to the inevitable. That is why
biographies of prime ministers so often mislead.
In considering the ‘Blair effect’ upon social democracy, it is tempting
to assume that Tony Blair almost single-handedly transformed the ideology of the Labour Party. Perhaps his art, however, has consisted less in
transformation than in adapting Labour to changes that had already
occurred in British society and in the global economy. Perhaps his skill
lay in enabling Labour to administer a Thatcherite dispensation more
efficiently but also more humanely than the Conservatives themselves
were able to do; just as Harold Macmillan in the 1950s had been to
administer the Attlee dispensation more effectively than the Labour
Party. But, while Macmillan had sought to achieve his aims through indirection, Blair had launched a direct assault on Labour’s shibboleths, and
in particular that part of Clause 4 of the party’s constitution, committing
it to the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and
exchange, which he succeeded in removing in 1995. Tony Blair’s ‘Third
11 Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years: Extracts from the Campbell Diaries (London:
Hutchinson, 2007), p. 250.
Way’ was Labour’s gloss on the reforms undertaken during the long years
of Tory rule under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
When Blair became Labour leader in 1994, the party was around 20%
ahead in the polls. In hindsight, its electoral victory in 1997 might appear
inevitable. But, in 1994, Blair dared not take victory for granted. For
BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007 Page 27