Thirty years ago, Gladstone was merely a figure of the past. The Labour party-then the only effective agent of change on the left-stood for thoroughly non-Gladstonian objectives: high government spending; an elaborate unconditional welfare system; redistributive taxation; Keynesian economic management; and public ownership. It was also a party shaped by its large trade union base. Today, in the centenary year of Gladstone's death, how the wheel has turned!
The Blair government's chief legislative initiative is constitutional reform, particularly the government of Scotland and Wales and reform of the House of Lords, both Gladstonian concerns. The Scotland and Wales bills will be the first attempt at devolution within the Westminster constitution (apart from the Government of Ireland Act 1920) to have been successfully enacted since Gladstone in 1886 began the process of trying to keep Ireland in the union by providing it with a devolved parliament. And the House of Lords, Gladstone told the Commons in his last speech there, was a question which "once raised, must go forward to an issue."
It is a curious comment on 20th century Britain that a progressive government's agenda at the end of the century so substantially involves unfinished business from the start of the century. It would be possible to draw more parallels, but this would be misleading. The Gladstonian framework of a low ratio of government expenditure to GNP (6 per cent as opposed to our present 38 per cent), linked to a framework of absolute free trade, resulted from a different form of capitalist economy, with different social and class relationships and expectations. Using it as an analogy is dangerous. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown may be tight-fisted, and the Treasury's approach to finance is in some respects more Gladstonian (especially with respect to free trade and international finance) than 30 years ago, but this is largely the achievement of Margaret Thatcher. Even the "new right" liberals of the 1980s came to see that modern government cannot pretend that it bears no responsibility for the working of the economy in which it is the largest player. Even so, Gladstone's career may offer useful comparisons for members of today's party of progress. Today's "left" is more similar to the Liberal party of the late-Victorian/Edwardian period than it is to the Labour party as it existed for most of this century.
Gladstone was born in 1809 and elected to the Commons in December 1832. He was in and out of office from 1834 until 1894, a span longer than that of either Palmerston or Churchill. He was president of the board of trade, colonial secretary, four times Chancellor of the Exchequer and four times prime minister. He also wrote works on Homer, theology and politics, as well as more than 100 articles and reviews. He had the capacity to surprise-indeed astonish-the political world, by living up to his belief that policies and politicians must change and adapt; objectives might, according to the times, be reached by new routes; politicians must guide the polity through change by their willingness to explain change. Gladstone himself changed his position on church and state in the 1830s and 1840s, on tariffs and free trade in the 1840s and 1850s, on political reform in the 1850s and 1860s and on Ireland in the 1880s. He tried to explain these changes in a series of pamphlets; and to state his methodology in his article "Probability as the guide of conduct"(1879) and in his two-volume edition of the works of his theological hero, Joseph Butler. Gladstone's Christian beliefs encouraged him to see politics as a means to a greater end; in this he differed sharply from those who, following the Greek model, saw civic life as an end in itself. Gladstone's sense of change was dictated by a belief that earthly systems are inherently impermanent. But this did not mean, in his view, that God could be called in to support any cause; the legitimacy of the cause had to be identified and explained through Butlerian principles.
Apart from the revival of Christianity among contemporary politicians, in what ways may Gladstone's approach to political life be of interest today? Four themes seem to have especial relevance to the predicament of the modern British "left."
First, Gladstone had an instinct for harmonising the party and the Commons in legislative crusades. These "big bills," as he called them, unified an often fractious party in the pursuit of legislation which also, by the process of its enactment, legitimised the Commons as the chief focus of national politics. Such use of a large majority remained standard until the Wilson government of 1966-70, which had a large majority but did little with it. The introduction of referenda poses a problem here: their effect, by castrating the opposition (whether on the opposition or government benches), is to reduce legislation to a technical and almost unreported exercise. Thus the passing of the Scotland Bill represents no particular triumph; there has been no significant parliamentary opposition to it, and the SNP has made hay in the meantime. So, rather than Labour appearing as the victors in a great parliamentary struggle with Unionism, Labour in Scotland may be losing the initiative to the party on its flank. Referenda (when successful) ease the life of party managers in the short term; they discipline the party in office as well as stymie the opposition; but they sap the culture of representative government in the medium and long term.
Second, Gladstone presented the party of progress as a crusade against vested interests: he believed that on all the great questions of his century "the masses have been right and the classes have been wrong." The Liberal party of his day benefited from the fact that the Tories and the Lords opposed so vigorously such questions as the secret ballot, the abolition of church rates, religious tests, the purchase of commissions in the army. On each of these the legislation, once passed, seemed entirely natural, even to those who had opposed it. The collapse of Tory opposition following the 1997 election poses real problems for Blair in the long term; the party of progress needs to be seen to be battling, and at present it too often seems to be battling only within itself.
Third, Gladstone knew that the party of progress must use the most up-to-date methods of political communication as a means of consolidating its base. Gladstone himself was happy in his times; the new medium was national reporting of the huge speeches at which he was so adept. His life coincided with the best opportunities for popular ventilation of big political questions. Today's progressive politicians have a similar flair for exploiting the available media, but the broadcasting media are not friendly to rational exposition of complex questions. The challenge is to recapture a high level of popular debate. Many of our difficulties with the EU spring from the fact that politicians have disguised rather than amplified the character of the union we have joined. Politicians still give Gladstonian-type speeches, but to tiny invited audiences and reported only in soundbites. Finding a replacement for what is still a Victorian form of political debate (with broadcasting added in) is the challenge. It may well be that the future will be in direct participation via electronic networks, with a Rousseau-like General Will expressed through the internet. There are signs that the government would welcome something of this sort: it would cut out both party and parliament even more than they are already. If technical developments are to take us in that direction, we have an even greater need for a proper definition of our constitution. The internet may allow us to return to a more sophisticated forum of political discussion; it offers limitless space for access by ordinary citizens to speeches and government reports. But use of the internet in this way will need as much effort as did the establishment of political reporting in the 19th century. If politics is not to become a privatised matter of personal computation, new means of general political communication must also be sought.
Finally, there remains much room for developing the Gladstonian approach to the constitution. It was extraordinary, he observed in an article on "The rights and responsibilities of labour" (1890), that Britain had institutions with a popular base on which was built "a hierarchy of classes and of establishments savouring in part of feudal times and privileges." This remains the case. Britain's unitary constitution was powerful in its day-and valuable to the left as well as the right-but it is now antiquated. Here Gladstone presents us with a real problem. His solution to the development of the unitary state was "Home Rule"-a Westminster response to a clearly stated national demand. "Home Rule" was, and is, a means of assuaging national feeling while retaining it within Britain. As such, it may be useful. But its effect is to highlight the problem of England. If Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive their parliaments, the Westminster system begins to topple over, unbalanced by the weight of its own ad hoc-ery. Devolution emerged in the 1880s as the British way; it was Gladstone's achievement so to capture the rhetoric of constitutional change that alternative proposals for systematic federalism never achieved political clout. Nor do they today. This is partly because the powers of the "crown in parliament," now almost wholly in commission to the cabinet, give stronger executive and patronage power to Westminster politicians than would ever be allowed under a planned constitution. With the role of the monarchy now also open to scrutiny, the time has come for a constitutional convention on Britain. But this cannot happen because we have already chosen the devolution route, and that must now be given a chance.
The past enshrouds us, however ahistorical "New Labour" tries to be. Gladstone, with his electric transformation from theocratic Tory to radical liberal, offered a career and a theory of change in politics which still boldly confronts any modern politician. His career showed that the party of progress must be ready to confront as well as accommodate.
Of course, Gladstone can only be partially relevant to our own times, and historical analogies are dangerous as well as necessary. Even so, the "Old Parliamentary Hand" remains an arresting icon for British progressives, a reminder of the possibilities of individual and party action within a representative government system.
