Milburn: What’s it all about, Gordon?

26 March 2008

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Alan Milburn gives his first interview since Brown became PM, and tells Fraser Nelson that Gordon has converted to Blairism too late. Something new is needed now

‘There was his speech on the NHS in January and his plans for individual budgets for patients. Then his talk on the “New Politics”. Then James Purnell [the Work & Pensions Secretary] pushing ahead on welfare reform in a way that would have been unimaginable a while ago.’ Exactly how long ago? ‘In the immediate post-Blair era. Possibly Gordon had a different view whilst he was Chancellor. But that is not his view now. And that is fine.’

Yet Mr Brown, he says, is not alone in his late conversion to Blairism. Nick Clegg is ‘trying to move the Liberal Democrats from a leftist position to a more centrist Blairite position’, while David Cameron also ‘wants to accept the pillars of the Blair settlement’. ‘So all three parties are moving from, if you like, an anti-Blair position to a Blair position. And you may think it’s odd for me to say this. But I think they’re all wrong.’

Their error, says Mr Milburn, lies in failing to recognise that the Blair agenda was ‘right for its time’ — but politics has moved on. ‘Tony always thought that if you could make organisations more autonomous, like NHS foundation hospitals or city academies, then this would be the most powerful lever to facilitate change.’ Just as Thatcher gave power to the market, he says, Blair empowered institutions. ‘But what neither did was move power from the state to the individual. And that’s where the agenda is at.’

An example, he says, is Barack Obama. ‘His agenda is about new politics based upon concepts of empowerment and engagement. He has moved politics to the place it needs to be, asking how we change the distribution of power in society. That, for me, is post-Blair politics.’ Mr Brown uses Obama language, but Mr Milburn says action is required. ‘What Gordon needs to do when he talks about this “new politics” that places power in the hands of people, is to announce a policy that gives that huge symbolic lift.’

Like what? Mr Milburn has a proposal. ‘The way I would do that is by dramatically cutting the size of Whitehall. I would slash it over and above what is being done by a quarter.’ A quarter? Yes, I heard him right. ‘If you are serious about fundamentally transforming how power is held in this country, you must start at the top,’ he says. ‘The bigger the machine, the more it will do.’ So Mr Milburn’s post-Blair agenda would start by cutting government staff, using a rationale that recalls Reagan’s ‘starve the beast’ tactics. Outside agencies could advise ministers, instead of the Civil Service.

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John Bull

March 28th, 2008 12:36pm Report this comment

The concept of reducing central government size in order to lower the levels of interference in our everyday lives is a good one.

The problem comes with the 'farming out' of 'Advisers to the Government'. Look simply at the current state - the friends and families of every MP and his dog are scrabbling frantically for the almost daily handouts of hugely funded government 'contracts' for which we already have more than sufficient 'In-House' expertise in our highly paid Civil Service.

The correct word for this is CORRUPTION.

Recognise it soon, for with the advent of the Federal State of the EU, it will soon be visible on every street corner in the land !

Platitudes no longer have any relevance. Action is called for.

Now !!!

Elizabeth Elliot-Pyle

March 28th, 2008 2:37pm Report this comment

It seems to me that almost everything that Millburn is advocating is current Conservative party policy. Perhaps he should consider crossing the floor of the house.

jon livesey

March 28th, 2008 8:29pm Report this comment

Milburn's real problem, as someone already said, is that he's in the wrong party.

Labour doesn't disempower the individual for a whim but for structural reasons. Labour only has two reasons for existence. One is its core belief that "experts" know more than individuals. Teachers know more than parents, nurses know more than patients, civil servants know more than taxpayers.

Labour's second reason for existence meshes with the first. Labour can reward its supporters with sinecures at taxpayer expense, and since its supporters know that, it is compelled to, with the result that we employ more and more experts who do less and less, because they are experts in name only. Yet Labour's basic strategy, that of rewarding its supporters, works, whether they work or not.

A "Milburn" Labour Party would be one that did not depend on sinecures and rotten boroughs to get elected, and which did not over-inflate the useless part of the Civil Service in office. But that wouldn't be the Labour Party at all; it would be the Tories.

David Lindsay

March 29th, 2008 12:28pm Report this comment

Who are you going to interview next? Are there any members of the Macmillan Cabinet left alive?

Paul Danon

March 31st, 2008 1:58pm Report this comment

The folks who will come forward to take part in local democracy are the sort with time on their hands and a meddlesome attitude. Better to find ways of delivering good public services than to tie it up in all sorts of committees of busybodies. Tesco's aren't good because they're run by customers but because they seek to serve customers

Nick Wilson

April 6th, 2008 6:26pm Report this comment

This article put me in mind of the Demos report, 'Making it Personal', about the success of personal budgets in the field of social care. This report by Charles Leadbeater and others makes clear that, by being in control of their own budgets, people are empowered to make different choices AND an average of 15% is saved to the public purse.
As a follow-up to the interview with Alan Milburn, you/he might like to consider whether the personalised budget model could help to achieve the downsizing of the government machine to which Alan Milburn referred.

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