LONDON, 29 October 2005 — Where is the center ground, that famous piece of sacred turf which any party must gain in order to govern? This week Tony Blair reimagined it considerably further rightward. Blair and his most likely opponents as the next leaders of the opposition Conservative Party team (David) Cameron both see it as a sumo wrestling ring where heavyweights must shove one another off some tiny magic circle of winning ground. But is that really the geography of power? Absolutely not.
The center ground is a wide, high plateau that accommodates both quite far right and left terrain. Most of the population inhabits this great plain, scattered broadly across it. In a recent poll for the London-based Guardian newspaper, 45 percent claimed to live there, describing themselves as neither right nor left. An equal number on each side — 15 percent — call themselves slightly or fairly left or right.
So the battle is not to stand on some fictitious dead center as if all 45 percent were huddled together on one spot. The winning task is to enthuse enough of that disparate 45 percent over to your side of the broad plain by the power of conviction and persuasion. But that is not the politics of either Tony Blair or David Cameron as they press up every closer against one another.
This week, Blair said, was a “pivotal” moment. And so it was, as his imagined center ground pushed further right. He went so far in education that Cameron blind-sided him by announcing he would support the government’s plan to turn education in England and Wales into a market of purchasers and providers. The Tory press now describes Blair as the brave champion of the small state, marketizing services in defiance of most of his party. As Blair and Cameron squeeze on to ever-shrinking territory, the Cameron crew on the sidelines beams from ear to ear. For the further Blair moves on to their terrain, the easier victory will be for them. They hardly need be seen to move at all. When Blair finally departs he will have delivered the center ground to them, making it easy to depict Brown and the rest of Labor as stranded on some far shore.
So it has been a miserable week for most in Labor. It is written on their faces like the poor beasts in Animal Farm mutely watching the pigs morph into the farmers. Strange policies appear out of the blue that seem to have nothing to do with what they thought they were in politics for.
The education white paper transforming schools into a competitive market risks uprooting them from local education authorities and a spirit of cooperation demanded by the “Every Child Matters” policy statement, where schools were to be the hub of support for children, wrapping local health, social services, child-care and after-school clubs around them. This week, groups of MPs trooped in to protest their alarm at the undebated radical marketization of the UK’s state-funded National Health Service as they find their own primary care trusts in utter disarray, with worse to come.
At the same time, the terrorism bill was greeted rightly with gloom, giving the equivalent of a six-month sentence to those not even charged with an offense. The mad idea of prosecuting “glorification” of terror was so universally derided many assumed it would vanish, but no. The UK’s second parliamentary chamber the House of Lords threw out the proposed ban on religious hatred with its seven-year sentence for abuse of religion — but it will be back. Deep disquiet abounds on every side among the loyal beasts of burden, including many ministers.
Why don’t they rebel? For the very good reason that dissension in government is the fast-track route to opposition. Blair and his very small phalanx of sheep dogs rule not through terror but through genuine fear of the long-term damage to Labour of expressing dissent. That is why some ministers find themselves obliged to do things they would not choose to do, or not in the reckless manner Blair demands. Ask why they go along with what so many regard as wrongheaded, and my guess is that many would say, “At least I managed to moderate his plan.” To resign or initiate a Cabinet row might trigger a nuclear explosion, with irreparable fallout for Labour as Tories unite.
There are good reasons for wise MPs and ministers not to rebel, even if Blair seems to have lost the plot politically on a grand scale in his dying phase. He has taken markets deeper into the public sphere than the radical right-wing UK premier of the 1980s Margaret Thatcher ever tried. Polls are alarming, as he loses any political sense of what flag Labour voters are supposed to rally behind. Managerialism? Better-managed markets? Smaller government?
Running against local government, against teachers, doctors, the law, he celebrates competition as the only human motivator, without balancing its value with ideas of public good, professional ethos or collective cooperation. Worst of all, in his dash for “pivotal moments,” he trashes his own and his government’s considerable record every step he takes, implying that nothing has really worked.
Plenty of sensible Labour people think some contestability and experiment with the private sector might enrich the public sector. But in both health and education Blair has set loose wild market systems that may well crash. Without a proper regulator and with the rationing brakes off, the competitive NHS may come off the rails. Without imposing a fair banding system for admissions, headlong competition may collect the best pupils into a few best schools, destroying the rest.
Loyal Labour doesn’t rebel because it rightly wants no part in jeopardizing the excellent progress made so far. That is the bind it is caught in, holding its breath, hoping its leader will surprise the party and go sooner, but fearing he means to stay until 2008. To push him might be fatal, yet the smoking row is just one harbinger of why this state of mind cannot last.
It is easy to understand the dilemma of the loyal insiders. Like them, I see a government with the best record of my political lifetime that deserves to rule for a good many years yet. It has plenty of clever and good ministers, with a strong next generation. Joining the usual suspects on the far left, who always seek to destroy an electable Labour party, is not an appealing prospect. The late Robin Cook, a one-time minister in a Blair administration, had positive criticism right.
John Denham, following in his wake, strikes the right tone of forceful disagreement without rubbishing the whole endeavor. It’s a tricky tightrope, but it’s time wise heads in Labour demanded, at the very least, an end to this reckless policy-making from the top.
