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| A Prime Minister who has lost his faith in politics | | |
Andrew Rawnsley
The limits of power is a recurring theme of the series of speeches Tony Blair is making on his long goodbye tour.
AS YOU might expect from a man now in the departure lounge of his premiership, there is a strong valedictory flavour to Tony Blair these days. In a speech at the end of last week, he suggested that "an idealistic young person" who "wanted to change the world" should "become a scientist." If you want to make a difference, don't bother with politics. That came close to being the recommendation to the young from a man coming to the end of his time as one of the most powerful, famous, and controversial leaders on the planet.
This career advice was surprising at several levels. The schoolboy Blair was an object of despair to his science masters at Fettes. He regarded biology, chemistry, and physics as subjects suitable only for "people devoid of emotion, the boffins." He claims to have been "born again" while at Number 10. He has become "fascinated by scientific process... inspired by scientific progress and excited by scientific possibility."
His exhortation to young people to become scientists was designed to flatter that speech's audience, which was the Royal Society. But it was more than merely an example of sucking up to the dignitaries in front of him. Idealistic young people wanting to change the world should become scientists, argued Mr. Blair, because that was the implication of Sir Nicholas Stern's mammoth report on the threat posed by global warming. The politicians had their part to play in tackling climate change, said the Prime Minister, but he suggested that it was a lesser role than that of scientists. Politics was "insufficient" for the task of saving the world. It would be down to a "new generation" of scientists to develop carbon capture, nuclear fission, hydrogen use, and other breakthroughs that might help to save the globe from frying.
So here was one of the biggest politicians in the world commending a report by an economist and drawing from it the conclusion that politicians would be a lot less important to the future than the "boffins" he once disdained as a schoolboy. I cannot imagine Margaret Thatcher, who actually was a chemist by training, subordinating the importance of political leadership in quite that way.
The limits of what can be achieved by politics have been a lurking theme in other recent speeches Mr. Blair has been delivering as part of his long goodbye tour.
Following a pattern
There is a pattern to these speeches, whatever their subject. He lists what he sees as the Government's achievements. He assesses, often reasonably frankly, where progress has been disappointing. He concludes that things will have to be done in radically new ways in the future. In a speech at the end of July, he remarked that there had to be "a different relationship between citizen and state." Parents and patients would have to be much more active in generating change and driving up standards in health care and schools. Politicians could not do it all. He argued that "government can't be the only one with responsibility" for making sure public services performed at their best.
To most outside eyes, Mr. Blair has been an extraordinarily dominant Prime Minister who has done largely as he has pleased. From his perspective, his time in Downing Street does not seem like that at all. It has been a grinding struggle to get anything achieved against the resistance of mighty opponents in the media, the Treasury, the civil service bureaucracy, and the leaders of other governments.
Power has also been a lesson to Mr. Blair in the limits of his own persuasive abilities. He has made countless speeches about climate change and the need for international and domestic action to tackle the threat. The Prime Minister has been arguing that the menace is real and urgent until he is green in the face. But in the end, his government has had to go to a non-politician to try to clinch the case for them. Sir Nicholas Stern is a distinguished economist, but he is hitherto anonymous to most of the public. So little trusted is any message delivered by a politician, and so aware are they of this, that the Government had to recruit someone who could be presented as an independent expert to make the argument.
The Stern report was commissioned by Mr. Blair's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown who wanted someone authoritative to marshal evidence that not dealing with global warming will be much more expensive and ruinous for people's livelihoods than tackling it. This is of a piece with the way Mr. Brown has often operated when he is trying to prepare the ground for potentially controversial and unpopular decisions. When he wanted to raise tax to fund more spending on the National Health Service (NHS), he first commissioned a report on the NHS from City banker Sir Derek Wanless. Only when Sir Derek argued on the Government's behalf that the health service needed a lot more money did the Chancellor feel bold enough to announce a budget with an increase in national insurance contributions to pay for it.
Precisely what Mr. Brown plans to do when he becomes Prime Minister remains misty even to those with good claims to know what is going on inside his head. One clear theme is already evident. The Chancellor rightly thinks that Labour has a big trust deficit with the public and that addressing this is vital if his premiership is not to be an abbreviated one.
It has been strongly spun that he will legislate to take the final decision about going to war away from the Prime Minister and give it to Parliament. It has been further indicated that he is considering a reduction in Number 10's scope to decide who gets honours. The suggestion, in each case, is that Mr. Brown would voluntarily hand some of his power over to people who are not politicians.
The template for this is his first big decision as Chancellor when he switched control over interest rates to the Bank of England, a reform now universally hailed as one of Mr. Brown's greatest masterstrokes, lauded as brilliant even by those who at the time decried it as a terrible mistake. Labour built trust and confidence in its handling of the economy by giving away some of its power over the economy.
There are things to be said in favour of this approach. It can be smart politically to educate the public about the nature of nasty dilemmas and profound problems in order to prepare the country for the hard choices needed to resolve them. But you can't take all the politics out of politics. Everything difficult and controversial cannot be left to a sort of aristocracy of boffins.
Take Sir Nicholas's report into climate change.It will not be Sir Nicholas who has to try to persuade voters that the cost of their plane journeys and car rides will have to go up. He will not be waging the daily battle for the hearts and minds of the public. That has to be the job of the political leadership.
I hope that not every idealistic young person who wants to change the world follows the British Prime Minister's advice to become a scientist. Some youthful idealists are still going to be needed by politics. —
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