Alex Massie Alex Massie

Blairism Eclipsed

Danny Finkelstein’s typically excellent column (£) this week argued that Blairism is dead and buried in the Labour party, not least because none of Blair’s followers remain in any position of authority in the party. Blair, he suggests, was a one-off and the party leadership contest has been, if not a sprint, then a trundle to the left.

I think there’s a good deal to that. Indeed, it’s startling how Blair has been excised from the party’s memory. Startling, but not, perhaps, entirely surprising. Faced with a centrist government, it’s easy to see why the Labour party has shifted to the left, if only because a) a smaller parliamentary party is ever more dependent upon its Scottish and London strongholds and b) it needs to distance itself from the government. Cameron and Clegg are camped in the centre so Labour must pitch its tents elsewhere.

And since there are aspects of government policy (in England) in areas such as health and education that build-upon stalled Blairite reforms (while being bolder than even Blair dared to be) it’s the case that Labour in opposition can’t help but disassociate itself from aspects of its own record in government. The alternative is a kind of constructive opposition that’s ill-suited to our style of politics.

It’s not the case that the left is in command of the Labour party, more that the Blairite wing has been silenced. As Hopi Sen writes:

[P]artly it’s that their [the Blairites’] analysis is a tough and unpalatable one. They believe the party needs to confront the deficit with a clear strategy, embrace reform of public services, have a strong anti-crime and pro-voluntarism message, and support private sector job creation.

Personally, I more or less assent to that agenda (I have concerns over choice in public services in a time of low spending, and I don’t see why progressive civil liberties and green policies couldn’t fit within that policy structure) but nothing would be more fatal than for such a policy programme to be proposed by warmed over veterans of the “out-riders” years.

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