Milburn: What’s it all about, Gordon?

Fraser Nelson

29 March 2008

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

‘If you are a poor parent stuck in a failing school, it means the power to put your kid in a good school. If you are in a local housing estate, it means the power to decide how the estate is going to be run, rather than having the estate run by local bureaucrats. If you are frustrated about the police response to antisocial behaviour, it means the power to decide who is going to be running policing through elections.’ And political power? ‘I’ve exercised it. And I also know about its limitations as a consequence.’

Of all the politicians I have interviewed, Mr Milburn is perhaps the most animated. He rarely sits still for more than a few minutes, and he illustrates various points with hand gestures and facial expressions. His supporters argue that he was elected too late, and came to the stage just as the curtain fell on the Blair era. One of his allies once put it to me that his friendliness was a weakness: that he has (in Blackadder terms) ‘something of the Lord Flashhart about him’ which obscures the seriousness of the points he is making.

Now aged 50, Mr Milburn can qualify as a ‘greybeard’ by today’s Cabinet standards. Yet when he places his return to the front benches ‘in the “highly unlikely” category’, I believe him. He does not speak with any nostalgia about his four years as health secretary. ‘What I learnt is that you can’t rely on the reforming zeal of a minister, because ministers come and go,’ he says. ‘The task is to cut the strings that bind. As I see it, my only job in life is to keep prosecuting this argument.’

But will he be heeded, given the years he spent at loggerheads with Mr Brown? ‘I don’t know whether Gordon thinks I am a villain or not,’ he says, looking a little downhearted. ‘I hope not. I am just trying to help find a way that we can win the next election.’ And, for once, he sits entirely still. There is nothing in his voice to suggest he thinks he will succeed.

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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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