BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007 Read online

  and Control (Polity, 2007). He was President of the British Society of

  Criminology from 1993 to 1996.

  Rob Rhodes is Director of the Research School of Social Sciences and

  Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Australian National

  University. His recent books include The Oxford Handbook of Political

  Institutions (joint editor, 2006), and Governance Stories (with Mark Bevir,

  2006).

  Anthony Seldon is Master at Wellington College. He edits and writes in

  his spare time.

  Peter Sinclair is Professor of Economics at the University of Birmingham.

  He has held visiting professorships at the University of British Columbia ,

  Queen’s (Ontario) and Witwatersrand. His previous posts include

  Director of the Centre for Central Banking Studies at the Bank of England,

  and Fellow and Tutor in Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford. Much

  of his research is devoted to policy issues in international, monetary and

  taxation economics.

  Alan Smithers is the Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for

  Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham.

  He has previously held chairs at the University of Liverpool, Brunel

  University and the University of Manchester. Throughout Blair’s tenure he

  has been special adviser to the Commons Education Select Committee.

  Sarah Spencer, CBE, is Associate Director of the Centre on Migration,

  Policy and Society at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Professor at

  the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. She is Chair of the Equality

  and Diversity Forum and a former Deputy Chair of the Commission for

  Racial Equality. Her books include The Politics of Migration: Managing

  Opportunity, Conflict and Change (2003).

  Philip Stephens is Associate Editor of the Financial Times and a senior

  political and international affairs commentator. He is a well-known

  author, commentator and broadcaster. He is the author of Politics and the

  Pound (Macmillan), a study of the British government’s exchange rate

  management and its relations with Europe since 1979, and of Tony Blair

  xvi

  

  (Viking/Politico’s), a biography of the British Prime Minister. He is a

  Fulbright Fellow and winner of the 2002 David Watt Prize for outstanding

  political journalism. He was named in 2005 as Political Journalist of the

  Year by the Political Studies Association. He is a governor of the Ditchley

  Foundation and Treasurer of the Franco-British Colloque.

  Kitty Stewart is Research Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Social

  Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political

  Science. Her current research interests include child poverty, international

  comparisons of policy and outcomes relating to poverty and inequality,

  and employment trajectories for low-skilled workers. She is the co-editor,

  with John Hills, of A More Equal Society? New Labour, Poverty, Inequality

  and Exclusion (2005).

  Robert Taylor is a research associate at the Centre for Economic

  Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science

  and Associate Visitor at Nuffield College, Oxford. Former employment

  editor of the Financial Times and labour editor of The Observer, he has

  written four books on trade unions and labour markets. He is writing a

  history of the parliamentary Labour Party.

  Tony Travers is Director of LSE London at the London School of

  Economics. He is Expenditure Adviser to the House of Commons

  Education and Skills Committee and has also advised other parliamentary

  committees. He was a member of the Audit Commission from 1992 to

  1997 and an Associate of the Kings Fund. He has published a number of

  books and articles about local government and cities, including The

  Politics of London: Governing an Ungovernable City.

  P R E FAC E

  This is the fifth volume in the series which analyses the impact of British

  contemporary government. The earlier volumes, often co-edited with

  Dennis Kavanagh, The Thatcher Effect, The Major Effect, The Blair Effect

  1997–2001 and The Blair Effect 2001–05, were published in 1989, 1994,

  2001 and 2005, respectively. The focus of enquiry has remained always

  the same. What difference does a prime minister make across the waterfront of policy and government? The books were inspired by the Institute

  (now Centre) of Contemporary British History, founded in 1986.

  The formula in all five volumes has not changed. Leading authorities

  from academe and the commentariat were asked to address common

  themes in their own specialist area:

  • What was the state of your area when Labour took office in May 1997?

  • What was the state of the area in June 2007, when Tony Blair left office?

  • What changed and why?

  • How successful or effective have the changes been?

  • Where relevant, why was more not achieved?

  • To what extent was change driven by the Prime Minister himself, by

  No. 10 in general, by Gordon Brown, by other ministers, departments,

  think-tanks, or by any other factors?

  • What has been the net ‘Blair effect’ in your area between 1994/7 and

  2007?

  • To what extent did policy mark a departure from traditional Labour

  (and Thatcher/Major) policy?

  • Finally, how enduring might those changes prove?

  Authors were presented with these questions and asked to address them,

  while also being encouraged to develop distinctive approaches of their

  own. With such a diverse team of individuals, it is unsurprising that some

  interpreted their brief more loosely, while others saw the questions

  almost as a series of short essay titles to be addressed sequentially. The

  timeframe was the bookends of Blair’s government, since his election in

  xvii

  xviii

  

  May 1997 until his departure in June 2007, while also taking heed of what

  he had done as party leader from July 1994 onwards. Several new chapter

  subjects were added to this volume, including development (covering

  international poverty and Africa) and climate change, neither of which

  featured prominently for Blair in his first two terms. Two authors, Tim

  Garton Ash and Philip Stephens, offer short commentaries at the end of

  the book, and I write a brief concluding essay looking at Blair’s personal

  achievement and why it came so late in his premiership.

  Books in this series aim to be scrupulously non-party political. Where

  individual authors have particular political persuasions, I sought to

  balance them by others with alternative outlooks. It is hard to achieve a

  clear perspective on governments on the cusp of their ending. The challenge is heightened, but made much more rewarding, if they were unpopular and controversial, as was the case with the Blair government, above

  all for taking Britain into a highly unpopular and contentious war. The

  task was all the more fascinating, and necessary, when the principal political resistance came not from the opposition parties, but from the Prime

  Minister’s own party.

  This book aims to achieve a balanced perspective not only on the man
/>
  but also his government. As such, the hope is that it will not only be interesting in 2007 and 2008, but also in 2017 and 2032, on the twenty-fifth

  anniversary of Blair’s departure. Experience shows that judgements of

  contemporary history can be of enduring value, not only for describing

  how a government looked at the time, but also long after. All history is

  contemporary history, because every new generation judges the past

  afresh.

  Finally, I would like to thank the authors for being so punctilious and

  pleasant to work with, to Julia Harris for being such an outstanding

  editor’s assistant, for John Haslam, Liz Davey and the team at Cambridge

  University Press for making the book’s production a pleasure, to my Blair

  biography team, Peter Snowdon, Daniel Collings, Rob McNamara, and

  Susanna Sharpe for excellent back-up and particularly to Kunal Khatri

  for bringing the book together in the final stages, to Tom Lowe for final

  checking, to Dennis Kavanagh to whom I dedicate this book, and finally

  to my colleagues and governors at Wellington College for being so understanding and stimulating throughout.

  PA RT I

  Politics and government

  1

  The Blair premiership

   

  There is no doubt that Tony Blair has been a considerable figure in British

  and Labour party politics. He led Labour to three successive general election

  victories and is the party’s greatest election winner. His governments form

  one of three successful progressive administrations since 1906. He has been

  a successful Prime Minster, who has set a new path for the public services

  and leaves Britain a better place than he found it in 1997.

  But beyond those accomplishments, how considerable a figure he was

  and whether he could have left a larger mark are still unresolved questions, and this after more than a dozen biographies and hundreds of

  essays and articles. The interest has been and continues to be remarkable.

  Of prime ministers over the last century only Lloyd George, Churchill

  and Thatcher have commanded such attention. In that respect at least

  Blair is in the top rank.

  To disappoint was probably always going to be Blair’s fate, no matter

  how successful he was. In 1997 the opportunities seemed so immense. Of

  all the post-war new governments (1945, 1951, 1964, 1970, 1974 and 1979)

  none was as fortunate as Labour in 1997. Virtually all were hampered

  from the outset by a weak economy and/or a narrow or non-existent

  majority in parliament. But in 1997 Tony Blair was blessed with a strong

  economy and a large majority in the House of Commons. The Labour

  Party and the cabinet were gratified that their hunger for office had at

  long last been satisfied and many attributed it to Blair’s strong leadership.

  Brussels and the EU capitals looked forward to the young dynamic Prime

  Minister who would at long last positively engage with the EU. Blair also

  had good relations with the US President. For the first time in a general

  election Labour had been backed by a majority of the national newspapers. And the Conservative opposition was exhausted, divided and discredited. The bar for evaluation was set high.

  A second reason for inevitable disappointment was the exaggerated

  sense of excitement and expectation in May 1997. Some of this was whipped

  

  

   

  up by the incontinent rhetoric of Blair and his colleagues and some by an

  uncritical media. But none of the advantages mentioned above render such

  challenges as, say, family breakdown, declining economic competitiveness

  or climate change, any easier to tackle.

  Harold Wilson in 1964 was the last Prime Minister to enter office after

  his party had been out of power for thirteen years and amid great expectations. He had also promised to build a ‘new Britain’, spoke of ‘modernisation’, and planned to make No. 10 ‘a powerhouse’. It was not a

  comforting precedent.

  I

  What did Blair find when he entered office? First, the reputation of the

  premiership was at one of its low periods. John Major, beset by a tiny and

  unreliable majority, and badly damaged by the experience of British

  membership of the ERM and attacks by his predecessor and much of the

  Conservative press, lacked authority. Blair taunted him at the despatch

  box in 1995: ‘I lead my party – he follows his.’ Much of his electoral

  appeal lay in his promise of strong leadership and willingness to challenge

  his party. Major was very much a negative model for Blair.

  But from 1994 when he became party leader he was also reacting to

  previous Labour prime ministers. He noted (or was told) that Harold

  Wilson and James Callaghan had to balance cabinet appointments

  between left and right in the interest of party unity, that they were forced

  to negotiate with the NEC and the trades unions over key policies and

  that a new Labour prime minister had to appoint to cabinet members of

  the shadow cabinet elected by MPs. Labour leaders were constrained by

  the party’s constitution and ethos, both shaped when Labour was a minor

  party with little prospect of ever forming a government. There was a

  certain immobilism about Labour in the 1970s ( Blair joined the party in

  1975) and 1980s. A number of policies were simply ‘unthinkable’ for a

  Labour leader, including rewriting Clause 4 of the party constitution,

  which committed the party to widespread public ownership.

  Labour rode the public mood for change on many fronts in 1997. There

  was widespread agreement on the need for constitutional reform, more

  investment in and reform of the core public services and investment in

  the country’s infrastructure, improving Britain’s poor relations with

  Europe (although this did not involve a wish for more integration) and

  ending the sleaze associated with the outgoing Conservative government.

  But, in other respects, notably economic management, there was no great

    

  

  call for change. Overall, voters concluded that the Conservatives after

  eighteen years in office had outstayed their welcome and thought it was

  time to give Labour a chance. Blair offered change but with reassurance.

  Other chapters in the book examine the extent to which Blair ended in

  credit on the above.

  Not everything started with Blair. He inherited most of his constitutional programme from the previous Labour leader John Smith. Indeed,

  Andrew Gamble has argued that the programme was less a new agenda

  than the completion of an agenda dating back a hundred years. His

  achievement in bringing peace and a semblance of ‘normal politics’ to

  Northern Ireland built on the work begun by John Major. Gordon

  Brown’s successful low-inflation policies continued the approach of the

  previous government; Peter Riddell suggested that an economist from

  Mars ‘would conclude that the same government had been in charge

  throughout the second half of the 1990s’.

  There is a certain shape and character to Blair’s three terms of office.

  He has expressed disappointme
nt with the first 1997–2001 term. This was

  when his political capital was at his highest but by 2001 he had little to

  show for it, beyond preparing for and winning a second term. The public

  service reform agenda hardly existed, certainly in the form of increasing

  choice and diversity. The Conservatives’ health service internal market

  and city technology colleges were scrapped, before being effectively recreated in the second and third terms with different names – adversary

  politics at its worst. There were many ‘headline-catching initiatives’ and

  No. 10 and ministers acquired a reputation for putting presentation

  before substance. In the first twelve months ministers created nearly 200

  task forces, inquiries and Royal Commissions; most proved to be substitutes for action.

  Blair planned for the second term to be about ‘delivery’ of the reforms

  and improvements in public services. Instead he was thrown off course

  by the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers and the consequent war on terror,

  Iraq, and a running battle with Gordon Brown over the succession and

  policy. He reached a stage when he thought about standing down in

  2002 and eventually promised in September 2004 that, if elected again

  at the 2005 general election, he would not serve beyond a third term.

  Lack of progress in Iraq and controversy over whether Blair had lied or

  misused the intelligence to make the case for war was deeply damaging

  to him personally and politically. He continued to struggle with reform

  but with depleted political capital and facing increasingly rebellious

  Labour MPs.

  

   

  In the third term an attempted coup by Labour MPs in September 2006

  confirmed in his own mind a decision he had already made in May of that

  year to go in the summer of 2007. But he pressed on with reforms of pensions, energy, disability benefits, criminal justice, and trust schools

  (relying on the support of Conservative MPs). At the end there was a

  smooth and orderly handover to Gordon Brown and the Labour left had

  been so marginalised in parliament that it could not raise the forty-two

  MPs necessary to nominate a candidate to force a leadership election.

  Blair speaks with pride of his record over ten years in office and

  expresses confidence that the ideas of New Labour are now accepted