Frank Field’s piece in the magazine is one of the most interesting analyses of New Labour and its character I have read: Frank’s point is that the Blair Project was not primarily presentational but contractual. The architects of New Labour – Gordon Brown prime among them – agreed to hold true to certain core values in return for the party’s compliance over a radical programme of internal modernisation. The abolition of the 10p tax rate, he continues, violates this contract and marks out a gulf of “clear red water” between Government and PLP.
Frank is, of course, no spokesman of the Labour Left but his passionate concern for the poor is lifelong and universally respected at Westminster. The PM will find it much harder to be lectured over the 10p debacle by Peter Mandelson, who says that the measure “violated that key tenet of New Labour, which is that we look after the poor and needy in society.” This from a politician who once said that “we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” and has always been regarded by Brown and his gang as unspeakably greedy himself. But both Field and Mandelson are right, in this sense at least: a Labour leader anointed by his party as the man with the moral compass can ill afford to be seen as indifferent to the poor. To be fair, Brown would probably single out the alleviation of poverty as the reason that he went into politics. But the number of Labour MPs who believe he has remained true to that mission is dwindling. What sweet revenge for Mandelson to be able to rub salt in the wounds.
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