While there will doubtless be plenty of discussion of Blair’s contribution on his departure, it might be more useful to take a step further back and re-evaluate Thatcher. When Blair took office, he was generally seen as offering Thatcherism with a human face. Thatcher herself was generally seen,as a successful (counter-) revolutionary and aspirants to the Tory leadership were still competing for her mantle.
Ten years later, the picture is quite different, superficially at least. Brown seems much more Old Labour than Blair, and Cameron is eager to be seen as anything but Thatcherite.
That’s not to say Thatcherism is politically defunct. Most of the changes implemented by Thatcher (at least up to the time of the poll tax fiasco) remain in place. The big public utilities remain privatised, unions have never really recovered, the rich are a lot richer and so on. Still her term in office now seems to be thought of by both sides of politics, not as a a turning point, but as a period of unpleasant, though probably necessary, shock therapy, best passed over in silence.
Privatisation is a prime example. As it’s turned out, the difference between a commercially sensible public monopoly and a well-regulated private monopoly is so modest as to suggest that this should never have been the central ideological battleground it seemed to be for most of the 20th century. While I think there’s a good case for renationalisation in a number of industries, it will clearly take a Railtrack-scale fiasco for this to happen. On the other hand, interest in further privatisation has waned drastically, and the problems of PFI/PPP schemes seem to be ever more widely appreciated.
In other respects, though, the battle over the size and role of the state seems to have gone fairly conclusively to the social democrats. The central institutions of the social-democratic settlement, such as the NHS, public education, and redistributive transfer payments are not only still in place but are growing in importance. It seems far more likely that the US will implement socialized medicine (at least in the form of universal public insurance) than that the UK will abandon it.
All of this is a view from a long way off. My view is based on the refracted versions of Thatcherism that reached Oceania, and were implemented by Labo(u)r governments in the 1980s and 1990s. In some respects, this was a necessary response to the times. Demands on the postwar welfare state had outrun state capacity, and a combination of retrenchment and refurbishment was inevitable. Since the political right was correctly pointing this out at a time when the left was still recovering from the impossibilist fantasies of the 1960s, it was probably inevitable that the adjustment would come with some of the ideological baggage of Thatcherism.
I’d be interested in what commenters (particularly those closer to the action) have to say.
{ 16 comments }
Marc Mulholland 06.27.07 at 1:41 pm
“impossibilist fantasies of the 1960s”
Given that most of these added up to women’s liberation, gay liberation, end of empire, general tolerance for minorities, etc., doesn’t the balance-sheet still favour the left?
Self-determination for wage-labour, to at least that level enjoyed by property-owners, may have proved impossibilist back then, but I think there’s still realistically room for positive innovation.
Alex 06.27.07 at 2:08 pm
Well, I’d like to think so. But I’m much less optimistic. I think what we’ve got is not so much “Thatcherism” as either early Thatcherism or late Majorism.
Specifically, the tilt to capital is intact, but none of the libertarian noises. What has come through is Major’s government: continuity Thatcherism, like the Continuity IRA. PFI/PPP, targeting, quasi-private sector managerialism, and a big, big focus on surveillance, prison, and greater police powers. Unlike Thatch, Major was more willing to buy social peace; no change.
Then you have the influence of the London Labour Party in the 80s and trying to change the world from Islington council, which feeds into the niggly targety wanking.
magistra 06.27.07 at 2:58 pm
The whole Blair ‘choice’ agenda in schools, hospitals etc is very much a thinly disguised version of the right-wing/Thatcherite belief that markets always make things work better. This of course completely ignores the fact that it’s not much use knowing that there’s a brillant hospital in Inverness and a great railway service on the Isle of Wight if for purposes of work you have to live in Hertfordshire. Or the fact that you can’t just scale up the delivery of services the way you can the manufacture of widgets, so that the idea of popular schools expanding to meet the demand is a daydream.
Michael Mouse 06.27.07 at 4:27 pm
Brown seems much more Old Labour than Blair
People keep saying this but I’ve yet to see any solid evidence of things he’s done or said (in public) to base this belief on. There is the small matter of being half of the powerhouse that devised and forced through the change from Old Labour.
Is it simply because he’s less telegenic? I suppose that counts come to think of it – New Labour does involve a certain focus on the presentational.
John 06.27.07 at 5:12 pm
What michael mouse said – how is Brown Old Labour? He’s the co-creator of New Labour with Blair. The fact that he doesn’t like Blair personally shouldn’t be confused with the two having political disagreements.
harry b 06.27.07 at 6:08 pm
I think the difference between Blair and Brown is better captured by saying that Brown is Labour (like mm and john I think new much more than old) and Blair really isn’t Labour at all. Since before he became primeminister he has not belonged in his own party, and they all recognised this. The people he drew into membership (most of them long gone) were recognised as not belonging by existing members. Blair did not go as far as he clearly wanted to, partly because of political constraints and partly because it wasn’t clear exactly how to go where he wanted to (he wanted root and branch reform of the delivery of public services, but did not know what that would look like or how to do it, and I don’t really blame him for that). Brown, most people suspect, even though he was going in the same direction as Blair, was basically going as far as he wanted to.
Two things missing from John’s analysis (which gets things about right, I think). One is that Blair consolidated Thatcher’s defeat of the unions, by undermining their power in the Labour Party (no bad thing for them, this, in the long term at least after they can figure out an alternative strategy). The other, much less tangible, is the erosion of a public service ethic informing the choices both of public sector professionals and of consumers/clients of the services provided by the sector. This can’t be quanitified, and I can’t even give much evidence for it, but Thatcher’s reforms and Blair’s ethos both encouraged people to act much more like the rent-seekers of public choice theory, and that’s what has happened. Blair, even more than Thatcher, has undermined the autonomy of the civil service, encouraged movement between private and public sector, and, through PFIs public/private partnerships, and the constant processes of bidding for contracts within the public sector, encouraged actors to prioritise their own interest over any public good. Some of this was inevitable, sure, but policy has made it much worse. I think that’s a terrible loss. Perhaps it is very personal for me, having grown up in an environment particularly infused with the public service ethic.
Theo 06.27.07 at 10:51 pm
Old Labour. New Labour. Whatever. Do those labels still have any real meaning?
Brown was suitably obscure with his talk of “the work of change” – god only knows that he has in mind (literally, cause the rest of the country is completely in the dark). To his credit, tho’, he’s got off to a cracking start by ditching the foreign secretary.
Tracy W 06.28.07 at 1:32 am
he wanted root and branch reform of the delivery of public services, but did not know what that would look like or how to do it, and I don’t really blame him for that
I’m curious. Why don’t you really blame Blair for that?
What’s the point of wanting root and branch reform if you don’t know what the reform would look like or how to do it? I think someone setting about a root and branch reform should have both those things already worked out. Otherwise there’s no point in moving away from the status quo.
If Blair did want root and branch reform but did not know what that would look like or how to do it, then blaming him strikes me as the only rational response.
harry b 06.28.07 at 3:02 am
tracy — completely natural misreading of an ambiguous demonstrative. I don’t blame him for not knowing what it would look like or how to do it; in agreement with you, given that he didn’t, I blame him, not exactly for wanting it, but for pursuing it. (I should add that in the area I know a lot about, at least one of his advisors did have pretty clear ideas at least about what to avoid, at least; I am much less critical of what they have ended up doing in education than I once was, even though I wish they’d done differently on a lot of the details).
John Quiggin 06.28.07 at 4:00 am
Briefly responding to mm, I meant my reference to impossibilism to be focused on economic issues, and I share the hope that there is still room for positive innovation.
I didn’t mention issues like women’s liberation and gay liberation where no-one suggests that Thatcher had a lasting impact, except I suppose that her Victorian values stuff, when compared to actual behavior, helped to cement the image of the Tories as the party of sleaze.
shwe 06.28.07 at 9:31 am
I quite agree with Harry b that one of the key legacies of Blairism is the extension of Thatcherism into the public sphere, even if it remains publicly funded. The loss of the public service ethos will be controversial because hard to prove, but it is a very great loss indeed.
chris armstrong 06.28.07 at 9:35 am
I agree with Harry on what he calls the erosion from both sides of the public service ethos. In my head I see this as a forging of an odd new alliance between state and citizen. In the ‘old’ order, the government of the day is responsible for delivering services, and when it fails, citizens criticise the government and demand remedy. In the ‘new’ scheme of things, dominated by league tables, ‘consumer choice’ and so on, the govt provides targets for service providers, and the citizen is encouraged to criticise these providers if they fail to match up to their expectations – but now, the govt criticises providers too, for failing to deliver. The govt sidles up to the discontented service consumer, sympathises with her grievances, and increasingly removes itself from direct responsibility for them. The result is usually a tide of rising expectations of public services, which it will always struggle to come to terms with. Add to this glorious British institutions like the Daily Mail, which continually chastises the NHS for refusing to fund ever-more-expensive medicines (although the Mail is scarcely a defender of the NHS itself), and you have a recipe for increasing discontent with ‘public’ services, and a rationale for increasing private provision of those services, as if this will make any difference (see the PFI fiasco). I just don’t know how Brown might tackle this vicious cycle, or whether he even wants to. Cor, I’m grumpy today…
shwe 06.28.07 at 12:12 pm
I wouldn’t want to romanticise the way public services were though…
harry b 06.28.07 at 2:03 pm
shwe, no, nor would I. Its an easy trap to fall into (“golden ageism”) and a good many of the initiatives in reforming education (which I know about) are well-willed responses to very real problems. In fact, I think some ministers are very clear-sighted about the problems, and about the fact that what they have done has contributed to erosion of public service ethos, but think that in the circumstances that was just the best they could do. I’m inclined to disagree, but I temper that disagreement with a certain humility — I didn’t have to make any hard choices myself.
Slocum 06.28.07 at 5:30 pm
In other respects, though, the battle over the size and role of the state seems to have gone fairly conclusively to the social democrats. The central institutions of the social-democratic settlement, such as the NHS, public education, and redistributive transfer payments are not only still in place but are growing in importance.
With the major exception of ‘top up fees’ for universities. There, the UK make a significant step in the direction of the U.S. rather than the other way around.
harry b 06.28.07 at 7:53 pm
Some of us think that the ultimate top-up fees settlement was an improvement on egalitarian grounds. In fact, there was one step toward the US (fees) and two steps toward equality (reinstatement of grants for low income students, and generous delays/forgiveness for people entering low income professions). Much better than the US, and much better than what preceded it.
Just my opinion of course…
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