After 2,000 german business leaders had enthusiastically applauded Tony Blair at a recent conference in Bonn, Hans-Olaf Henkel, head of the main German business association, announ-ced that British social democracy is now more advanced than its German counterpart. He thus reversed a nearly 40-year-old assumption-that the post-Bad Godesberg German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had a lot to teach but little to learn from its British sister party. Is this role reversal justified? If so, what difference will a Blair victory make to the dispirited European left?
Smoothie Blair remains untested. Oskar Lafontaine, the SPD leader, although of the same generation as Blair, has been a member of the Bundestag since 1970, president of a Land for almost 12 years, a candidate for chancellor in the historic 1990 election, and has survived an assassination attempt. Lafontaine seems like a battle scarred trooper next to elegant media star Blair, who has only been in parliament since 1983 and never held office of any kind.
Blair's German admirers, such as Hans-Olaf Henkel, tend to forget that the groundwork for much of his reform of the Labour party was laid by Neil Kinnock and John Smith. But Blair finished the job with conviction. Throwing out old socialist baggage was necessary and it was professionally done. But this does not represent a new blueprint for a European left which has been disheartened, marginalised and confused by the fall of communism. Blair is a well advised, intelligent young career politician who is popular with the media-a hope for the future. The rest remains to be seen.
He is accused by many, including some within his own party, of lacking edge, being too cautious and too unvaryingly cheerful. But if the Tories win again after 18 years in power, Labour is finished. So his smoothness is tolerated even by most sceptics on his own side.
He remains silent on many things, which seems wise. He wants power first. And he has understood the signs of the times. Blair would not commit the folly of alienating 77m consumers in favour of two small unions representing shop workers, which is what the SPD has done on the issue of liberalising trading laws. And, like the Swedish or the Dutch social democrats, he is likely to show some courage in reforming the welfare state-more than can be expected from the Germans or the French. This does not mean that he will become a Willy Brandt, a Bruno Kreisky or an Olof Palme, but it shows that he has potential.
Most of all, Blair is a communicator. If someone asks a silly question, he gives a silly answer without flinching. But then he gives a wink, which translates as: I know you have to ask your question in this way; I also have to answer in this way. Such is life. As a result, he is a success with stupid and intelligent people alike.
Some say that Blair has moved Labour sharply to the right, even embraced Thatcherism. There is a huge difference between Labour under Michael Foot and under Tony Blair; even Franz Vranitzky's Socialist Party of Austria, Oskar Lafontaine's SPD, Lionel Jospin's Socialist Party and Felipe Gonz?lez's Socialist Workers' Party are more traditional than New Labour. But dumping ideological ballast is a precondition for success in the 21st century.
Blair's openness to change compares favourably with the SPD's conservatism. Recently the German press was full of pictures of protesting miners embracing SPD leaders who defend their subsidies of DM 130,000 per man per year. But Blair's reformism is not unique in Europe. Massimo d'Alema, chairman of Italy's former communist PDS, is not much different from Blair. D'Alema hides behind Prime Minister Romano Prodi, a liberal entrepreneur; but Prodi would be politically dead if d'Alema withdrew his support. Neither is Blair alone on the European left in pursuing flexible labour markets, pension and health care reforms. D'Alema, G?ran Persson and Wim Kok are facing similar decisions.
One justified criticism of Blair is that he has no central, galvanising idea. John Major, Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac also know that the welfare state has to be made more affordable. That understanding is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for change. Moreover, Blair has no answer to the big questions: what is to be done to stop the domination of our information society by a wealthy elite representing 0.5 per cent of the population? How can the power of financial markets be limited? Where are the strategies to reduce unemployment in OECD countries? In his defence one has to say that no one else has an answer.
Blair's economic policies do not (yet) define a new project of the left, provide a new strategy for co-operation or face up to the ugly face of 1990s capitalism. Some of what he proposes is overdue on the left. Some of what he says is wholly inadequate. But he must have his chance. Maybe he will seize it.
