Acts of Journalism (Part VI)

Blair’s Broken Promise


By the time you read this, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair will no longer be Prime Minister. He will become one of those rare creatures, an ex-Prime Minister (of which there are only two other examples alive today) and he will leave behind a Britain that has, without a shred of doubt, changed.

Ask the man on the street what he thinks Tony Blair’s legacy will be and it will almost certainly contain the words “Iraq”, “spin”, “NHS crisis”, “human rights abuse” or “liar” (or, if they’re more inclined to the far-right, “immigration” and “multiculturalism, said in tones of disdain). However, is this fair? Has Blair’s premiership been an entirely negative thing, and are all of these criticisms justified? While the public perception of the Blair years has been clouded with these accusations, some of them justified, Blair’s leadership has not been the unmitigated failure that most appear to believe.

However, I shall begin with the justified criticism. Under Blair, Britain has seen its people disengage from politics. This can be seen by the sharp decline in voter turnout. In 1997, the year of the Labour landslide, voter turnout was around 71%. This was only very slightly below the average for the previous ten elections, and approximately the same as the turnout that re-elected Margaret Thatcher for the first time. However, in 2001, turnout plummeted to 59%, only increasing to 61% in 2005. This cannot be attributed to mere disillusionment as may be expected with any government. Since the war, voter turnout has not dropped below 70%, with the exception of these two most recent general elections.

This disengagement, which has perhaps allowed the Blair government to push through measures that would, in other circumstances, be violently opposed by the people, must have a cause, and part of that cause can be found in the “spin” that emanated from Downing Street over these years. Spin is certainly not a new thing; it is only natural that governments attempt to put a positive light on their activities. However, under Tony Blair, it appeared to reach new heights (or depths, depending on how you look at it). The Labour “spin doctors”, most notably Alistair Campbell, attempted to control the media in an entirely new way, keeping a tight leash on information and access to it. Even the Prime Minister’s monthly press conferences in Number 10, the first of their kind, were tightly managed with reporters eager not to anger the spin doctors.

For most, this spin reached its zenith with the “Dodgy Dossier” and the Iraq war. This dossier, especially when proved to be almost totally untrue (and, in fact, the whitewash that was the Hutton Report) only served to increase the mistrust of government and politics, a mistrust compounded most recently by “cash-for-peerages”. This mistrust, and the ensuing disengagement from politics, is certainly a legacy that Tony Blair will leave behind.

Iraq, and the “Special Relationship”, will be another. The Special Relationship (for which read “slavish support of the US Government”) damaged Britain’s credibility abroad. Not only is Britain seen as nothing but the “poodle” of the United States (there is a reason why this dog is given Mr. Blair’s face in many political cartoons), but also as reactionary, with our support for “extraordinary rendition” (the euphemism the Pentagon has given to kidnapping and torturing terrorist suspects without recourse to such tiresome encumbrances as due process and courts of law), non-opposition to Guantanamo and failing to stand up to America over pretty much anything, we have lost friends in Europe and the Middle East (where we had few friends to begin with), made our local Muslim communities ripe fields to be harvested by the terrorist recruiters and lessened our diplomatic status in the world.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the greatest foreign relations disaster since Suez, our troops are fighting a battle they have little hope of winning while every day an insurgency grows stronger. Perhaps the situation is not entirely Blair’s fault, but he (and his cabinet) voted for the war and he has turned a deaf ear to reports of the situation worsening while blundering on, putting British soldiers (and civilians) at risk. This will be the most significant item of Blair’s legacy, and rightly so.

Finally, Mr. Blair has left an authoritarian stamp upon British society. As well as creating over 3000 new criminal offences, the Blair government has instituted detention without trial (at least until it was struck down), ASBOs that are applicable for just about anything, a ban on the right to protest in Parliament Square, stop and search powers, as well as introducing a bill (the hideously dull sounding Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill) that would allow ministers to amend laws without consulting parliament at all. All this, in addition to numerous other affronts to the basic liberties of this country, has resulted in an incredibly authoritarian government. Again, Mr. Blair will be remembered for this, and rightly so.

However, it is not all bad. For example, despite constant criticism of the NHS, it has not, contrary to public opinion, been an absolute disaster. While many trusts are facing financial problems (which is to be expected, with such a huge public organisation), the idea that care is all sub-standard is simply unfounded. There are still more beds than there are occupants, waiting lists are down (although this may be a branch of the aforementioned “spin”) and, most significantly, 92% of hospital inpatients rated their overall care as “Good” or better. While I could now digress and pontificate on the virtues of socialised healthcare, this article is about Mr. Blair, so I shall merely say that there has been an increase in government spending on the NHS in addition to the things mentioned above.

While speaking of government spending, I must briefly mention the British economic state. One of the greatest achievements of Blair’s early years was the granting of independence for the Bank of England, resulting in interest rates being set according to what was good for the economy, rather than what would gain votes. This should be viewed as a success, as should the fact that Britain has seen steady growth and reasonable inflation. While this may be more due to the Chancellor and incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair’s government will leave this behind and it must be considered in any evaluation of his premiership.

However, Mr. Blair’s greatest achievement has to be the great leaps he has made towards peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Beginning with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to the ceasefires, peace talks and, finally, the disarmament of militant elements in Northern Ireland and the formation of a power sharing executive for the province, Blair has achieved what many Prime Ministers before him, from Gladstone to Thatcher, failed to achieve.

Had we not gone to war in Iraq, it is likely that his achievements in Ireland (which, after centuries of bloodshed and hatred, were no small deed) would have been the thing that marked out Tony Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister. Indeed, we could have seen great success, with public spending increasing, healthcare improving, more people going to university, Britain becoming richer and quality of life improving. When Labour won a landslide victory in 1997, they were given their greatest chance to make an impact on British society since Attlee won the 1945 election. With a huge majority in the House of Commons and a massive mandate from the people, the Labour Party had so much potential. However, they became mired in scandal, spin and foreign policy disasters and now, while Tony Blair searches through the rubble of that first hope for a legacy, the potential has been wasted. Instead of being a force for great reform and an improvement in social welfare, Mr. Blair did not fulfil this potential. Ultimately, his legacy isn’t Iraq or authoritarianism, those are merely symbols of the greater Blair legacy, that of disappointment, failed potential and frustrated hopes.


[Originally published in the Political Economy Review, 10th edition- 2007]