Tony Blair's departure was marked by extraordinary weather. Indeed, as hail, rain, sunshine and humidity jostled each other, sometimes on the same day, we seemed to be getting all the seasons at once. Which is fitting somehow, given the extent to which the Blair years have been marked by the unceremonious jamming together of opposites and the insistence that the resulting Pushme-Pullyu is, in fact, a racing thoroughbred from that well-known international stud farm, the third way.
In the July issue of Prospect, Julian Le Grand suggested that the Blair era had been a "golden age." We should state straight away that, insofar as Blair's ten years at the top will be bathed in nostalgia during the tough times that lie ahead, we agree wholeheartedly. But that does not necessarily tell us much about the real achievements of Blair's administrations.
After all, the late 1950s achieved legendary status ten years or so down the line as a glorious candyfloss summer of plentiful jobs and innocent pleasures, spawning nostalgia films such as That'll Be the Day. But that said little about Harold Macmillan's record in office, a record that—in terms of presiding over a consumer credit boom, committing Britain to buying an expensive American nuclear missile system and generally storing up enormous problems for the future—is eerily reminiscent of that of another prime minister with a posh English accent and a Scottish surname.
While thoroughly enjoying Le Grand's robust defence of Blair's record, we cannot help think that he sees exactly the same features of the Blair years that we see, but interprets them in an entirely different way. Thus he makes no argument over Blair's attempt to straddle various apparently irreconcilable positions, and indeed sees this as a strength, whereas to our mind it goes a long way to explaining both the quite remarkable lack of achievement of the last decade and the mountain of difficulties that has been allowed to pile up.
Le Grand identifies an "Anglo-social model"—a blend of the free-market Anglo-Saxon economic system and the European social model—as Blair's bequest to the country. Of course, Blair said nothing of this when he took office. Nor, indeed, did he mention it when he left office. It is tempting to conclude that this is merely a dignified description of where we ended up after the years of Blair failing to make up his mind.
Unfair? Well, let's take a look at the labour market, one of the key areas of social policy. Britain, Le Grand tells us, "has more labour protection than the liberal [free market] model usually allows, including many rights for employees." Yes, quite. But that may merely mean British labour law represents an ungainly attempt to split the difference between the continental European and Anglo-Saxon approaches. Not so much a new model as a monument to an attempt to keep everyone happy.
The Blair government's approach to the labour market—one his successor shows every sign of continuing—is to insist simultaneously that a) we live in a tough competitive world in which employees must be flexible in order to survive and b) that ever more rights can be granted to those same employees, thus making them ever less flexible, without any loss of competitiveness.
But then this oxymoronic approach has been absolutely routine during the past ten years, as a government that talked a great deal about "tough choices" has attempted to "triangulate" its way out of having to make any choices at all.
Thus a "prudent" government has presided over an explosion in consumer debt, the public services have been "saved" by allowing them to be fleeced by private companies, wars are fought on a peacetime budget, a poorly educated workforce is urged to prepare for a "knowledge economy" and we are assured that unlimited economic growth is entirely compatible with environmental protection.
Just as every fat man contains a thin man struggling to escape, so the bloated fantasies of the Blair years conceal a modest list of achievements, such as the limited wealth redistribution of recent years or free entry to museums. But such a slender schedule was never going to be enough for Blair or his admirers. Instead, drift and dithering have had to be presented as a purposeful forward march, and ten years of talk as ten years of action.
Hard to do? No, just another day's work on fantasy island.
