Another victory will defeat Tony Blair

Spectator, The, May 26, 2001 by Gimson, Andrew

Andrew Gimson says that what New Labour has to fear is not apathy but the boundless disgust and contempt of its natural supporters which in the end will do for the government

IF Mr Tony Blair continues with his present style of politics, he will one day find himself buried by an outburst of popular hatred that will take him entirely by surprise. The fuel protest should have warned him of the danger of taking people for granted. So should the woman who upbraided him so devastatingly outside the hospital in Birmingham. Yet instead of understanding how unpopular New Labour has become, Miss Margaret McDonagh, Labour's general secretary, has the ineffable cheek to accuse broadcasters of `inciting and colluding with protesters': one more insult to a British public which is thought so spineless that it is incapable of protesting without a television producer to stage-manage the event.

There is a nation out there which, in the space of only four years, has become invisible to our rulers. This is not just a problem for Mr Blair; it is a problem for the entire managerial class at whose head New Labour has so skilfully placed itself - a class of newly-rich and famous people, intoxicated with their own success and insufferably sure of their ability to control the rest of us.

The control is what sticks in people's gullets. It is alien to the British idea of liberty, which includes the freedom to be bloody awkward. The trade unions were awkward to an insufferable degree. Most people thought that they were overmighty, and many people believed, after Mrs Margaret Thatcher had emasculated them by the clever expedient of forcing them to become democratic, that Britain had gained immeasurably. But something had also been lost: a sense that the workers had a voice, and one to which the nation must listen or else. The trade-union barons could be stupid, tyrannical and destructive, but they were also a valuable instrument of social control. Their passing has left a vacuum on the left of British politics that has been filled not so much by apathy as by an as yet inchoate anger.

As soon as the trade unions were broken, a different kind of Labour party could emerge: one that no longer had to worry about that tiresomely conservative force, the working class. The way was open for unadulterated modernisation. The party could move with the times and embrace business. This was a brilliantly successful political manoeuvre, for it enabled Mr Blair and his friends to steal most of the Conservatives' clothes. It has even enabled them to steal Mr Shaun Woodward and foist him upon the electors of St Helens South. But here a note of self-parody has become apparent. Modernisation has turned out to mean the reintroduction of the rotten borough. If Labour's leaders think that in any but the short term they can get away with such a breathtaking insult to their natural supporters, they have taken leave of their senses.

It may be argued that we are all middle class now, and it is certainly true that millions of traditional working-class jobs in mines, shipyards and steelworks have vanished. But the term `middle class' is worse than useless as a guide to the way people feel.

Mr Blair has Mr John Prescott as his token rough diamond. Mr Prescott was driven to such despair during the campaign that, on the day the newspapers revealed that his job would be taken by someone else once the election was over, he threw a punch. Old Labour lashed out in agony, unable to bear the farce of loyally supporting a party it scarcely recognises. The fact that Mr Prescott punched another member of the working class rather than Mr Blair means nothing. This was a dispute between friends about whether or not to collaborate with the regime. Since the opposition that destroyed Mrs Thatcher came from within her own party, Mr Blair should be greatly worried by the rising tide of revulsion he provokes inside the Labour movement.

Labour's natural supporters, whether working-class or not, have been taken for a ride because they have had nowhere else to go. Mr William Hague articulates some of their concerns, but as leader of a party with an uncritical attachment to free-market capitalism he has great difficulty making them feel he is genuinely on their side. The two main parties vie with each other to see how many wealthy businessmen they can persuade to sign letters of support. They seek to persuade us of the merits of their rival brands by using methods copied from business. They have become as totalitarian as any of those bland corporations where, as soon as you enter the vast atrium, it is borne in upon you that the individual exists simply in order to be manipulated for the greater good of the organisation. Members of these corporations are generally forbidden to talk to the press, and free speech is certainly frowned on by our political parties, never more so than during a general election. I was aghast to hear that Mr Oliver Letwin had been silenced by the Conservatives during the election, sent into hiding somewhere in the Dorset countryside, forced, one feared, into some underground hiding place like the hero of Rogue Male; anything rather than let the dear fellow talk, as he can do so well, about the scope for cutting taxes.