assessed. Without a strategic framework, the 'concrete proposals' could be brilliant; or they could just be off-the-wall - com­ pletely batty. In recent months. Demos has The Great Moving offered us plenty of both kinds. In fact, seen in the context of New Labour's sustained hype and vaunting ambition over the past 18 months, Mul­ gan's idea that nothing requires serious attention apart from pragmatic effective­ Nowhere Show ness is not only wrong but curiously 'off- message' and wholly out of synch with His Tony Blair has talked much about 'the project'. Master's Voice. It was clear from the outset that Mr Blair saw himself in the Thatch­ But what precisely is it? Stripped of the hyperbole, erite mould and he has worked hard to the continuities with Thatcherism are all too obvious. model himself on her style of leadership. And with some success! Recent polls sug­ Stuart Hall examines a great missed opportunity gest the electorate is impressed with 'what they regard as the strong Thatcherite style', though they also seem unsure whether this is more than 'better gloss, more PR and spin' and, more worryingly, they doubt that hat is the political charac­ the sociological trends on to the political New Labour 'will make a real difference ter of the Blair regime? Is screen. She never supposed Thatcherite sub­ and force a clean policy break with the Tory New Labour a radically jects were already out there, fully formed, years' (The Guardian, September 28 1998). new response to the core requiring only to be focus-grouped into Mr Blair has also modelled his ambitions Wpolitical issues of our time? Is its perspec­ position. Instead, she set out to produce to make everything in Britain 'New' on tive as broad in sweep, modern in outlook new political subjects - Entrepreneurial Thatchcrism's project of national self- and coherent as Thatcherism's neo-liberal Man - out of the mix of altruism and com­ renewal. Consequently, these days, no New project, only different - because it is break­ petitiveness of which ordinary mortals are Labour spokesperson opens his/her mouth, ing decisively with the legacy and logic of composed. Above all she knew that, to nor journalist reports the event, without the Thatcher years? Or is it a series of prag­ achieve radical change, politics must be reference to 'the Blair project'. It is New matic adjustments and adaptive moves to conducted like a war of position between Labour, not the intellectuals, who put this essentially Thatcherite terrain? Since tak­ adversaries. She clearly identified her ene­ 'meta-political' question on the agenda. It ing office, New Labour has certainly been mies, remorselessly dividing the political is Blair who talks of New Labour in apoca­ hyperactive, setting policy reviews in place field: Wets v Drys. Us v Them, those who lyptic terms - 'one of the great, radical, here, legislating and innovating there. A are 'with us' v 'the enemy within'. reforming governments of our history', 'to be nothing less than the model twenty-first careful audit of the achievements and fail­ When Marxism Today first began to dis­ ures of these early years remains to be century nation, a beacon to the world", cuss Thalcherism as a 'project', smarl-arsed 'becoming the natural party of govern­ made. But that is for a different occasion. journalists and Labour analysts joined Here, we want to stay with "the big picture'. ment'. ("Natural parties of government' are forces to pour scorn on the idea - a thought those whose ideas lead on all fronts, carry­ Where is New Labour really going? Does altogether too concerted and 'continental' Mr Blair have a political project? ing authority in every domain of life; whose for the empiricist temper of British political philosophy of change has become the com­ Thatcherism, from which Mr Blair has culture. Geoff Mulgan - Director of mon sense of the age. In the old days we learned so much, certainly did have a pro­ Demos, former MT contributor and now in used to call them 'hegemonic'.) Mr Blair is ject. Its aim was to transform the political the Number 10 Policy Unit - advances a definitely into 'the vision thing'. landscape, irrevocably: to make us think in similar view elsewhere in this issue. 'Mela- and speak its language as if there were no political' questions, he says, are irrelevant - ew Labour's latest bid to give other. It had a strategy - an idea of where it a sign that the left intellectuals who ask 'this vision thing' historic cred­ wanted to get to and how to get there. Mrs them are hopelessly isolated from the 'real' ibility and so to capture and Thatcher had no fondness for intellectuals: business of government. They would be define 'the big picture' is the the word 'ideas' did not trip lightly off her better employed, like Demos, thinking up 'Third Way'. This comes in several shapes tongue. Nevertheless, everything she did concrete proposals which New Labour and sizes. There is the intellectual's version was animated by a social 'philosophy'. could put into effect. of the 'Third Way' offered by Anthony From a reductive reading of Adam Smith, Guilty British academics on the left are Giddens. Mr Blair's most influential intel­ she learned to see individuals as exclusive­ particularly vulnerable to this kind of gross lectual, which sketches out a number of sig­ ly economic agents. From Hayek, she anti-intellectualism. However, Mulgan's nificantly novel sociological shifts which learned that the social good is impossible to position seems disingenuous. Of course, seem to have major political consequences. define and that to try to harness markets to policy innovation is essential to any politi­ Many of these one would be happy to agree social objectives led down a one-way slip­ cal strategy - that is why Martin Jacques with or to debate further. After all, eco­ pery slope to the nanny state, misguided dreamed up the idea of Demos in the first nomic globalisation is a reality and has social engineering, welfare dependence and place. There is lots of room for lateral transformed the space of operations and moral degeneration - 'There is No Such thinking. But - Mr Blair's Rendezvous the 'reach' of nation states and national Thing As Societv'. From the Monetarists With Destiny notwithstanding- May 1997 economies. There is a new individualism she learned market fundamentalism: mar­ was not the start of 'Year Zero'. All ques­ abroad, due to the growing social complex­ kets are 'good' and work mysteriously to tions of perspective and strategy have not ity and diversity of modern life, which has the benefit of all; they are self-instituting been 'solved'. As Decca Aitkenhead put it undermined much of the old collectivism and self-regulating entities; market ratio­ recently, the Blairites sometimes behave as and the political programmes it under­ nality is the only valid mode of social cal­ if 'Number 10 is sorted for nuts and bolts; pinned. Many problems do present new culation, 'market forces must prevail!' it's just not sure what sort of machine they challenges or assume new forms not well What is more, she armed herself with a add up to". In fact, it's impossible to know covered by the old political ideologies. We decisive analysis of the points of historical how radical and innovative a concrete pro­ do need to broker a new relationship change which had created the opening to posal is until you know which strategy it is between markets and the public good, the Thatcherism. But she did not, like some attempting to put in place and the criteria individual and the community. These versions of the 'Third Way', simply project against which its 'radicalism' is being sociological shifts are part of the great

9 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 'Third Way' speaks as if there are no longer any conflicting interests which cannot be reconciled. It therefore envisages a 'politics without adversaries'. This suggests that, by some miracle of transcendence, the inter­ ests represented by, say, the ban on tobac­ co advertising and 'Formula One', the private car lobby and John Prescott's White Paper, an ethical foreign policy and the sale of arms to Indonesia, media diversity and the concentrated drive-to-global-power of Rupert Murdoch's media empire have been effortlessly 'harmonised' on a Higher Plane, above politics. Whereas, it needs to be clearly said that a project to transform and modernise society in a radical direc­ tion, which does not disturb any existing interests and has no enemies, is not a seri­ ous political enterprise. he 'Third Way' is hot on the responsibilities of individuals, but those of business are passed over with a slippery evasiveness. T'Companies,' Tony Blair argues in his Fabian pamphlet The Third Way, 'will devise ways to share with their staff the wealth their know-how creates.' Will they? The 'Third Way' does observe accelerating social inequality but refuses to acknowl­ edge that there might be structural interests preventing our achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth and life-chances. As Ross McKibbin recently remarked, although most people 'do believe that soci­ historical rupture - the onset of late-late- also to have transcended them - to be ety should be based on some notion of fair­ 'The Third ness', they also believe 'that the rich and modernity - which Thatcherism first mas­ Way speaks 'beyond Right and Left'. These shifting for­ tered politically but certainly did not origi­ mulations are not quite what one would call powerful can only be made to acknowledge nate or set in motion. This is where as if there a project with a clear political profile. this by political action'. The 'Third Way's Marxism Today's 'New Times' analysis and are no In so far as one can make out what it is discourse, however, is disconcertingly devoid of any sustained reference to power. its call for the reinvention of the left began, longer any claiming, does it offer a correct strategic all those years ago. So much is indeed perspective? The fact - of which the "Third Mr Blair is constantly directing us, shared territory . conflicting Way' makes a great deal - that many of the instead, to 'values'. But when one asks, ut when we move from the interests traditional solutions of the left seem histor­ 'which values?' a rousing but platitudinous intellectual to New Labour's which ically exhausted, that its programme need­ vagueness descends. He can be very eloquent about community, an inclusive (more political and strategic cannot be ed to be radically overhauled and that there version of the 'Third Way', we are new problems which outrun its analytic society, with the strong supporting the are less on the terrain of political strategy reconciled' framework, does not mean that its princi­ weak, and the value of facing challenges and more, as Francis Wheen recently ples have nothing to offer to the task of together. The problem arises when this observed, in some 'vacant space between political renewal on the left. Welfare communitarian side of the Blair philosophy the Fourth Dimension and the Second reform is only one of many areas where meets head-on the equally-authentic, rock­ Coming'. The 'Third Way' has been hyped there is a continuing debate between two like, modernising, targeting, moralising as 'a new kind of polities'. Its central claim clearly competing models, drawing on if streak in 'Blairism'. In practice it is difficult is the discovery of a mysterious middle not identical with, the two great traditions fervently to believe in 'the politics of com­ course on every question between all the that have governed political life: the left-of- munity' and at the same time to hold existing extremes. However, the closer one centre version, looking for new forms in unshakably to the view that the task of gov­ examines this via media, the more it looks, which to promote social solidarity, interde­ ernment is 'to help individuals to help not like a way through the problems, but a pendence and collective social provision themselves', especially when the ways of soft-headed way around them. It speaks against market inequality and instability; implementing each so often point in dia­ with forked, or at the very least garbled, and the neo-liberal, promoting low taxes, a metrically opposed directions. Besides, as a tongue. It is advanced as a New Interna­ competitive view of human nature, market timely Guardian editorial observed: 'What tional Model to which centre-left govern­ provision and individualism. Can the distinguishes governments of the centre- ments around the world arc even now 'tough decisions' on welfare which New left is not their values ... but their perenni­ rallying. However, when it is not raptur­ Labour have been 'taking' for 18 months al dissatisfaction with what markets - ously received, it suddenly becomes, not 'a really be 'beyond Left and Right'? Or is necessary as they are - produce.' Model", just a 'work in progress'. Can it be that a smoke-screen thrown up to evade ' It therefore seems most unlikely that the both heroic and tentative? It cannot make the really hard questions of political prin­ shifting indecisions and ambiguous formu­ up its mind whether its aim is to capture ciple which remain deeply unresolved. lations of the 'Third Way" offer us clear 'the radical centre' or to modernise 'the guidelines for assessing the underlying One of the core reasons for the 'Third thrust of the Blair political project. For an centre-left' (and should not therefore be Way's semantic inexactitude - measured by surprised to find young voters placing its answer to our original question, we will the promiscuous proliferation of such trou­ need to look at the Blair performance over­ repositioning as clearly 'centre-right'!). It bling adverbs as 'between', 'above' and claims to draw from the repertoires of both all, sifting the strong tendencies from the 'beyond' - is its efforts to be all-inclusive. It ebb and flow of everyday governance. the New Right and Social Democracy-but has no enemies. Everyone can belong. The Blair: 'The reason we have been out of power for fifteen years is simple - that society changed

10 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER/DKCEMBER 1998 trying to disinter from its practice its is the high priests of global neo-liberalism - Response:' We are not spending underlying political logic, philosophy and Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman and George strategic direction. Soros - not Blair and Brown, who have led our time saying this is a terrible gov­ In the global context. New Labour has the retreat towards regulation. ernment. It is a much better govern­ brought a sweeping interpretation of glob­ New Labour appears to have been ment than the one before. It is a gov­ alisation, which it regards as the single most seduced by the neo-liberal gospel that 'the ernment that has done a fairly substan­ important factor which has transformed global market' is an automatic and self- tial amount of things and we shall all go our world, setting an impassable threshold instituting principle, requiring no particular on voting for it supposing there is an between New Labour and Old, now and social, cultural, political or institutional election tomorrow. What we are trying everything that went before. This is crucial framework. It can be 'applied' under any to find out is what it is trying to do in because, in our view, it is its commitment to conditions, anywhere. New Labour there­ line with the old traditions of the Left. a certain definition of globalisation which fore seems as bewildered as every neo-lib­ First, I don't think this government is provides the outer horizon as well as the eral hot-gospeller that Japanese bankers a single bloc. There are different lan­ dubious legitimacy to Mr Blair's whole just don't actually behave like Wall Street guages coming out. If you listen to Blair political project. bankers, and that if you dump 'the market' or Brown or Mandelson or Field, you New Labour understands globalisation into a state-socialist society like Russia hear different views. in very simplistic terms - as a single, uncon- without transforming its political institu­ Second I think it is simply not so that tions or its culture - a much slower and tradictory. uni-dircctional phenomenon, New Labour carries on with the tradi­ exhibiting the same features and producing more complex operation - it is likely to produce, not Adam Smith's natural barter- tional centre-left. Geoff Mulgan is quite the same inevitable outcomes everywhere. wrong about the great wave of centre- Despite Giddens's strictures. New Labour ers and truckers, but a capitalist mafia. As left governments being the same sort does deal with globalisation as if it is a self- Andrew Marr shrewdly observed, 'It's the of thing and happening in the same sort regulating and implacable Force of Nature. politics, stupid!' It treats the global economy as being, in of way. There is a basic difference. The ince globalisation is a fact of life Blair idea, and I am talking about Blair effect, like the weather. In his speech to the to which There Is No Alterna­ not other people, is of a centre-left Labour Party conference. Mr Blair por­ tive, and national governments trayed the global economy as moving so cannot hope to regulate or which is between the Democratic Party fast, its financial flows so gigantic and so Simpose any order on its processes or in the US and New Labour. He believes speedy, the pace at which it has plunged a effects. New Labour has accordingly large­ that is the model for the centre-left. third of the world economy into crisis so ly withdrawn from the active management But the alternative is New Labour or rapid, that its operations are now effective­ of the economy (in the long run, Keynes is the traditional European centre-left, ly beyond the control of nation states and dead!'). What it has done, instead, is to set marxist, social-democratic and social- probably of regional and international about vigorously adapting society to the christian. And there is a great difference agencies as well. He calls this, with a weary global economy's needs, tutoring its citi­ between the two. The American tradi­ finality, 'the way of the world". His 'New Labour zens to be self-sufficient and self-reliant in tion is fundamentally not that of the response is to 'manage change'. But it order to compete more successfully in the European social state. It may be that as seems that what he really means is that we deals with global marketplace. The framing strategy between Republicans and Democrats, must 'manage ourselves to adapt to globalisation of New Labour's economic repertoire the Democrats are, in terms of class changes which we cannot otherwise con­ as if it remains essentially the neo-liberal one: the composition and topographical posi­ trol' - a similar sounding but substantively deregulation of markets, the wholesale tion, the Left. But they are not the very different kettle of fish. is a self- refashioning of the public sector by the regulating, same as the European tradition. If you his accounts for the passivity of New Managerialism, the continued privati­ look at the reaction, for instance, from the Blair government, despite its implacable sation of public assets, low taxation, break­ Blair and others to the election of the pivotal role in Europe and lead­ Force of ing the 'inhibitions' to market flexibility, Left in France, and Clinton in the US, it ing position in the G7 etc, in the institutionalising the culture of private is very different. Whatever it is, New Nature, like provision and personal risk, and privileging Tface of the current crisis in Asia, Russia and Labour is not a centre-left government the weather' in its moral discourse the values of self- elsewhere. It continued until very late to in any traditional sense in which we in reiterate the false reassurances that the sufficiency, competitiveness and entrepre­ neurial dynamism. Europe perceive it and that includes Asian crisis would have little noticeable not only socialists but demo-christians, effect on Britain. It has shown a surprising Economic Man or as s/he came to be the whole of the social state which is lack of flexibility in the face of mounting called, The Enterprising Subject and the the central tradition of the 19th and evidence to the contrary. It seems content Sovereign Consumer, have supplanted the 20th centuries on the continent' to reiterate the mantra: 'The goal of eco­ idea of the citizen and the public sphere. As nomic stability and stable inflation will the government's Annual Report boldly Eric Hobsbawm, Marxism Today never be abandoned or modified. New reminded us: 'People arc not only citizens, Seminar, 4-6 September 1998 Labour is not for turning,' which sounds they are also customers'. The most signifi­ increasinglv like a desperate struggle to cant breaches in this neo-liberal edifice win. not the present, but the last war. were the statutory minimum wage and the It has signally failed to seize the advan­ Working Time directive - commitments tage of the rapidly changing terms of New Labour would have been too abject to Labour has been quietly seduced by the macro-economic debate to offer early, abandon. It has, however, set the minimum neo-liberal view that, as far as possible, the effective or radical leadership to the inter­ wage at the lowest politically-negotiable economy must be treated like a machine, national community, as one country after level, excluding the sector most at risk to obeying economic 'laws' without human another deserts the neo-Iiberal ship and structural unemployment - young people intervention. In practice, what is gained in moves towards thinking the unthinkable - between 18 and 21. credibility by being able to say - 'The Gov­ that the unregulated movement of curren­ Giving the Bank of England its indepen­ ernment is not involved! Rising interest cy and capital, aided and abetted by de- dence may have been a good idea. But only rates, an over-valued currency, falling terrestrialised corporate power and new a touching faith in economic automatism order books and rising regional unemploy­ technology, will, if left to the 'hidden hand' can explain why this meant restricting its ment have nothing to do with us. They are of macro-economic forces alone, bring the brief, effectively, to one dimension of eco­ unfortunate 'facts of life' which folks must whole edifice crashing to the ground. His nomic policy only - inflation - with, in simply put up with. You can't buck global belated proposals for the reform of the effect, only one tool of economic manage­ trends!" - is lost in terms of strategic con­ IMF are far from radical. Paradoxically, it ment - interest rates. It suggests that trol. Whether New Labour acknowledges refused tO Change With it.' (New Statesman, 15.7.1994)

11 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 this or not, its effect is automatically to pri­ fundamentalism. According to Giddens, in justice (that is a bridge too far) but 'social oritise meeting inflation targets over every­ his book The Third Way: 'The gap between fairness'. But his actual image of the citizen thing else. The irony is that it is precisely the highest paid and the lowest paid work­ is of the lonely individual, 'set free' of the the whole structure of neo-liberal, scientis- ers is greater than it has been for the last 50 state to face the hazards of the global tic jiggerv-pokery which is rapidly falling years' and while 'the majority of workers weather alone, armed against incalculable apart. Economies are not machines. are better off in real terms than 20 years risk, privately insured up to the hilt against Changes in one sector have knock-on con­ ago, the the poorest 10 per cent have seen every eventuality - birth, unemployment, sequences elsewhere. The hedge-funds their real incomes decline.' This is no aber­ disability, illness, retirement and death - equations which have kept the inflated ration. It follows a period of the most like those lean urban 'survivors' on their bubble of futures, options and derivatives intense 'marketisalion'. It is what markets mountain bikes who haunt our streets, their markets afloat are liquefying. The infa­ do - the kind of Will Hutton, 40/30/30 soci­ chocky bar, Evian water-bottle and change- mous monetarist so-called 'natural rate of ety which markets 'naturally' produce of-trainers in their knapsacks. Man as unemployment', which enabled banks and when left to themselves. What's more, the 'poor, bare, fork'd animal', isolated and at governments to calculate the necessary nature of poverty has changed, becoming bay before the elements. unemployment "costs' for a given level of more diverse, while its causes have multi­ Mr Blair represents his welfare reforms inflation, has fallen into disrepute. The plied. The term 'social exclusion' draws as a continuation of the spirit of Beveridge, Bank of England itself says that 'it cannot attention to these differences, and under­ but this is simply not the case. For Bev­ be directly measured and changes over lines the fact that income and economic eridge understood that welfare systems time'. The Federal Reserve long ago sacri­ factors are by no means the only reason dif­ reflect and have profound effects on the ficed it on the altar of jobs and growth. ferent groups find themselves excluded wider social framework. He knew that the n the domestic front, the policy from the mainstream of society. There is, principle of 'social insurance' was not only repertoire seems at first sight however, considerable evasiveness, both in efficient but a way of underwriting citizen­ more diverse, but has tended to Giddens's argument and in New Labour's ship; that 'universalism', despite its costs, follow the same tendenlial appropriation of it, around the question of was essential to binding the richer sections Ogroove. The main emphasis has been how important the income/economic factor of society into collective forms of welfare. thrown on to the supply side of the equa­ in 'social exclusion' is and what to do about He anticipated Galbraith's argument that tion. There have been many commendable it. Giddens' bald statement that 'exclusion the whole system would be in danger as social-democratic interventions. But its key is not about gradations of inequality' looks soon as the rich could willingly exclude watchwords - 'Education and Training, like a sentence in search of a 'not only' that themselves from collective provision by Training and Education' - are driven, in went missing. buying themselves out. Why should they go the last analysis, less by the commitment to These issues are at the heart of New on paying for a service they had ceased to opportunities for all in a more egalitarian Labour's profound ambiguity and duplicity use? This potential 'revolt of the elites' is, society, and more in terms of supplying around welfare reform. After months of a of course, the critical political issue in wel­ flexibility to the labour market and re-edu­ 'Blair's image Great Debate, and a disastrous and abort­ fare reform. The establishment of a two- cating people to 'get on their bikes' when ed effort to begin to put 'it' into effect, we tiered system, with the richer sectors buy­ their jobs disappear as a result of some of the citizen are still really none the wiser about what ing themselves into private provision, is unpredictable glitch in the global market. is of the Mr Blair really thinks or proposes to do what helps to fix in stone the political New Labour does not and cannot have lonely about welfare. We do not know whether he threshold against redistribution. It destroys the public interest in favour of private solu­ much of an industrial economic policy. But individual, proposes to transform the welfare state to it can and does expend enormous moral meet its broader social purposes more tions dictated by wealth inequalities and energy seeking to change 'the culture' and "set free" of effectively, or intends to go down in histo­ must drive what is then left in the residual produce new kinds of subjects, kitted out the state to ry as the politician with the 'courage' to 'public' sector to the bottom, perpetually in and defended against the cold winds that face the wind up the welfare state as the basis of the crisis and starved of investment, and propel blow in from the global marketplace. those who are left out to the margins. hazards of social settlement between the 'haves' and To this source also we must trace the the 'have-nots' which has kept twentieth his 'law' is already manifest in remoralisation of the work ethic, and the the global century capitalist societies relatively stable education - though New Labour restoration of that discredited and obscene weather and free of social violence. 'Reform' is the systematically refuses to confront Victorian utilitarian distinction between alone' weasel-word, the floating signifier, which it. Buying the children out of pub­ 'the deserving' and 'the undeserving' poor. masks this gaping absence. Tlic education and into the selective private The New Deal subsidises training and Mr He says welfare is not reaching those system has become a habitual middle-class Blunkett attacks class sizes and expands who are most in need. True: but it does not pastime, which New Labour's own leaders nursery places for lone parents willing to follow that 'targeting', as such, is the cor­ have indulged as lightheartedly as any seek employment - very commendable, rect overall strategy. He says Britain, in a other ordinary, unreflective, Thatchcrite, and about time too. New Labour will not, global economic context, cannot financial­ possessive individual. 'Targeting', 'selectiv­ however, intervene to ensure that there are ly sustain it. But he does not make anything ity', and 'means testing', which Mr Blair has jobs, though its entire welfare reforms are of the fact that the UK is about fifteenth in surreptitiously slid into place as his great riveted to work and paid employment. the world league table of social security 'principles of reform', are destined, as sure­ Since it must depend on the private sector spending. He treats the present level of ly as night follows day, to deepen already to provide them, it can only morally exhort. wealth distribution as a Natural Law rather existing inequalities, to increase marginal- Hence the paradox of Jack Straw holding than a political outcome. He believes wel­ isation and social exclusion, to divide soci­ parents exclusively responsible for their fare is bad for us, corrupting our morals ety into two unbridgeable tiers and further childrens" misdemeanours while Welfare - and inducing us to commit crime. But the fragment social integration and reciprocity. to-Work insists that anyone who can move actual level of fraud is one of the most con­ Hence the muffled confusion surround­ and wants to draw a benefit must leave tested social statistics, and the Fraud Office ing the Harriet Harman/Frank Field fiasco. their children, get up off their sick beds, systematically fails to produce the missing Mr Field bats with the best of New Labour overcome their disability, come back out of millions. There is as much evidence that the in terms of self-righteous moralism about retirement and work. Not since the work­ really poor, of whatever kind, can't live poverty and the desire to do to people house has labour been so fervently and decently on the level of benefits they are things which are good for their souls. His single-mindedly valorised. offered and that many are thereby driven Methodist spirit is riveted by the fantasy of Social inequality, broadly defined, is one to crime as there is for the proposition that the great Demon Fraud and the Feckless of the critical defining issues of national millions of people are making a 'lifestyle Work-shy. But he understood that the prin­ politics and a crucial test of the distinction choice' to live homeless on benefit in per­ ciples of contributory social insurance and between the Blair project and market petuity. He promises the poor not social 'universalism' had to be preserved, howev- Blair: 'The centre-left may have lost the battle of ideas in the 1980s, but we are winning now. Ai

12 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 Labour project. The attempt to govern by spin (through the management of appear­ ances alone), where you 'gloss' because you cannot make your meaning clear. New Labour's systematic preference for media reality over sterner political realities, indeed, the constant hype about 'hard choices' coupled with the consistent refusal to make them, are all part of the same phe­ nomenon. This is not a superficial 'style' we don't much like, but something that goes to the heart of the Blair project. Despite all the promising talk about decentralisation and participation, the commitment to devolution and constitu­ tional reform - which are significant -one gets the queasy feeling that New Labour increasingly finds the rituals of democratic practice tiresome, and in practice if not for­ mally, would be happy to move in the direction of a more 'direct', plebiscitary, referendum style of governance. The pro­ ject is consistently more 'populist' than 'popular'. This is not the populism of Mrs Thatcher's neo-liberal Right but it is a vari­ ant species of 'authoritarian populism' none the less - corporate and managerialist in its 'downward' leadership style and its moralising attitude to those to whom good is being done. It's also deeply manipulative in the way it represents the authority it imposes as somehow 'empowering us' - another triumph for 'customer services'. er modified their forms; that a network of 'Despite the gain, through debate, some broader reso­ he same can be said of New voluntary agencies could only be intro­ nance in terms of the everyday lives and Labour's sense of agency - of duced if regulated, underpinned and talk about experiences of ordinary folks, and genuine­ who exactly are the political sub­ enforced by the state. He believed that participation ly be modified or win consent, has been jects in whose image the Blair benefits must provide, not a residual but a one gets the ruthlessly emasculated. A terrifying and TRevolution is made. Many of us responded decent standard of life for those who qual­ queasy obsequious uniformity of view has settled to his election as leader of the Labour Party ify for them; and that the costs of transition over the political scene, compounded by a with the same optimism we greeted the from one form of delivering these princi­ feeling New powerful centralisation of political author­ nomination of Bill Clinton. Not because we ples to another had to be borne. These Labour finds ity, with twenty-something Young Turks agreed with everything he believed, or were the 'unthinkable' thoughts for which the rituals of beaming out ill-will from ministerial back­ properly knew what it was he did believe, he was dismissed. The debate about how democratic rooms, the whole caboodle under surveil­ but because he was of the generation who much, in what form, with what effects, lance from Millbank and cemented in place had lived through the Thatcher-Reagan therefore, remains to be had. Tiered uni- practice by a low-flying authoritarianism. era, through the 1960s and the social and versalism. combinations of public/private tiresome' The Labour benches have, with a few cultural revolutions of our time. We hoped contributory solutions etc, remain to be honourable exceptions, been the most he would respond - however much we debated. There is work for Demos to do! bedazzled by the hope of preferment, the might disagree in detail - with sensibilities But only after the principles of reform have most obsequious of all. Critics, welcomed informed by these late-modern experi­ been openly and thoroughly debated. at the front door, are systematically ences. How wrong we were. The Blair It is deeply characteristic of the whole discredited through innuendo and spin- social project is 'modernising' but modern style of the Blair project that Great doctored at the back door as being trapped only to a very limited extent. Debates are announced which do not actu­ in a time warp, if not actually barking mad. His key social constituency in the run up ally take place. Instead of a clear and open Anyone who does not pass the loyalty test to the election was 'Middle England' - a laying-out of the alternatives, we have a is labelled with the ritual hate-word, 'intel­ profoundly traditionalist and backward- massive public relations and spinning exer­ lectual', gathered into one indiscriminate looking cultural investment. His discourse cise, and policy forums to speak over the heap - those who called for the reinvention on the family, social values and diversity heads of the much-abused 'experts and crit­ of the Left while Mr Blair was still, meta­ remains deeply conventional. Middle Eng­ ics', direct to selectively chosen members of phorically, in his political cradle lumped in land commands some votes. But as a char­ the Great British Public. There may be an with Trotskyist wreckers - and the whole acterisation of New Labour's political open invitation to participate, to join the shooting-match branded as 'Old Labour'. subject, it is the repository of English tradi­ consultation. But this openness is effective­ 'Bring me the head of Roy Hattersley!' tionalism, irredeemably small 'c' conserva­ ly closed by Mr Blair's own already-settled Against a majority of people on the left, tive. As Jonathan Freedland recently conviction that he is Right - what Hugo Marxism Today argued that bringing the reminded us. Middle England is a place of Young called 'his unfreighted innocence, Labour Party into the late twentieth centu­ the mind, an imagined community', always wide-eyed rationality and untroubled self- ry and transforming many of its traditional located somewhere south or in the centre belief. When in difficulties, the party faith­ habits and programmes were necessary, if of the country, never north - though Mr ful - about whom he is a less than devoted traumatic, events. But the reduction of the Mandelson has recently put in a claim for admirer - are summoned to hear the mes­ party to a sound-box is quite another thing. Hartlepool Man. Middle England is sage, not to state their views. The Labour It reveals, to borrow a phrase of Martin peopled by skilled, clerical or supervisory Party, as an organisation within which Kettle's, how far the demotic has tri­ grade home-owners, never manual workers these profound matters of strategy may umphed over the democratic in the New or public sector professionals. It is commit- we won a bigger battle today: the battle of values.' (Blackpool, 29.9.1998)

13 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1998 ledly suburban, anti-city, family-centred, folk, too subversive, too 'Black British' or ceaseless efforts to talk a project into place, devoted to self-reliance and respectability. 'Asian cross-over' or 'British hybrid' for paradoxically appears both 'bold' and 'vac­ Its cultural icons, he argues, are 'Neigh­ New Labour's more sober, corporate-man- illating". But having held one's breath and bourhood Watch, Gordon's Gin, Enid Bly- agerialist English style.This was definitive­ crossed one's fingers, it is necessary to ton. Ford Mondeo, Hyacinth Bucket, The ly not the 'modernity' towards which speak it as it looks. New Labour, faced with Antiques Roadshow. Nescafe Gold Blend. Britain required to be 'modernised". a near-impossible historic task, has not fully Acacia Avenue, Scouts and Brownies, Finally, in recent weeks, an "enemy' has confronted its challenge. Instead, it has Nigel Kennedy and the Salvation Army.' surfaced on New Labour's social stage. been looking for easy - 'Third' - ways out, Its voice is the Daily Mail. These are 'the intellectuals' or. as Mr Blair craftily triangulating all the troubling ques­ ince the election, wc have heard charmingly characterised them, the 'chat­ tions, trying to finesse the difficulties. It less of 'Middle England' and tering classes'. Recently, he declared him­ may therefore turn out to be a half-way more of 'The People'. This is the self to have been 'never a partaker of the decent Labour government, one which one great body of unknowns, the chattering classes'. Critics and whingers to would have been grateful to have in 'nor­ SEssex Lads, the 'Babes', homines el filles the backbone, this lot 'pocket everything mal' circumstances. The times - and the moyen sensuelles. 'The People', Jonathan that they do like and then moan about the task - however, are exceptional. And the Freedland argues, arc the imagined subject 10 things they don't like'. He clearly found higher the spin doctors pump up the bal­ of phrases like the 'People's priorities', the it difficult to keep the tone of exasperation loon, the more firmly one becomes aware Lottery as the "People's money', the 'Peo­ out of his voice. The 'sneer squad', as he how much of it is hot air. ple's Princess'. The People are definitely dubbed them, occupy the forbidden zone of hat wc knew after Thatch­ not the 'working classes' or the 'under­ Radio 4, The Guardian, The Observer. er was that the New Right classes' or the 'chattering classes' or man­ Newsnight, Channel 4 News. They are out­ could respond to the ual workers or lone parents or black fami­ side the circle of influence, 'below the new historical conditions, lies or trade unionists or public sector radar'. There is little doubt that the readers Wthough the results of its attempt to do so 'Historic workers, or Labour Party rank-and-file of Marxism Today belong firmly to the were an unmitigated disaster. But could the opportunities members, come to that. Their desires must lower circles of this encampment. Left? The Left was certainly not in good be flattered: 'wooed' rather than 'repre­ don't last It will inevitably be said that this account shape when New Labour took office. sented". They are spoken to rather than has been unfairly selective. What about all However, the fact is that Mr Blair does forever. speaking. When not watching GMTV or the good things New Labour has set in train not seem to have any deep political roots in And they Sky Sport, they arc to be found in focus - the peace deal in Northern Ireland, its hopes and traditions. He is in some don't keep groups. The People, Nick Sparrow incorporating Human Rights into British ways a modern man, at ease with some remarks, 'are those who matter once every coming back, legislation, the minimum wage, family tax of the changes which now characterise five years'. Their voice is The Sun. credit, expanding nursery places, the school our world. But, politically, he is essentially offering you Then there are The Businessmen. The and hospital building programme, breaking a post-Thatcherite figure, in the sense a second longer New Labour governs, the more it the tide of Euro-scepticism, the move that the experience of Thatcherism chance' cosies up to Business, reinventing itself in towards devolution, constitutional reform? was, it seems, his shaping and formative full-dress corporate disguise. Mr Blair is Of course, these initiatives are welcome. political experience. constantly to be seen in their company. They add up to a substantial claim on our So, try as he may to find an alternative Visually, he is exclusively associated with support. There are many others which ground on which to stand, he finds the Success, a dedicated follower of celebrity, point in the right direction, which we imperatives of a soft Christian humanism which is the modern form of the success should support, though their implementa­ more compelling; its cadences come to him story. He looks decidedly uncomfortable in tion may be controversial. These include more naturally than those of the centre-left. the company of the poor. No doubt a some of the proposals for urban renewal, He is an able and clever politician and has Labour government needs support from the efforts to reach through to some of the become a clever, even to some a charismat­ the business community. But New Labour's deep, underlying causes of social exclusion ic, leader. Just now he is basking in the relentless wooing of the new business nou- in communities, and the general commit­ power a landslide majority has conferred veaux riches is nothing short of abject. ment to improve standards in education - on him. And, far from betraying his princi­ Businessmen can do no wrong. Their logo though whether letting Chris Woodhead, ples, he seems totally and honestly per­ adorns every Labour Party conference del­ Thatcherism's chief Enforcer, loose to suaded that what he is doing is right. He egate's name-tag ('Serving the community brow-beat schools and abuse teachers is the has and will continue to make many impor­ nationwide' - courtesy of Somerfield super­ best approach to the latter objective one tant adjustments to the legacy he inherited. market). Their ads will soon be beamed begs leave to doubt. There is also a genuine humanity which into every classroom that is wired up to the he momentous landslide victory one would have been unwise to put any National Grid for Learning. Their expertise of May 1997 was indeed an his­ money on in Mrs Thatcher. They are simi­ is required on every public, regulatory or toric opportunity, inviting New lar figures, but they are not the same. advisory body. They are the 'wealth Labour to the difficult task of However, the difficult truth seems to be creators', whose salaries are beyond con­ Tfacing up to the complexities of historical that the Blair project, in its overall analysis trol, dictated by some extraterrcstrially change and. at the same time, offering an and key assumptions, is still essentially defined 'rate for the job': the big spenders, alternative political strategy, different from framed by and moving on terrain defined the off-shore investing 'patriots', the and breaking decisively with the neo-liberal by Thatcherism. Mrs Thatcher had a pro­ Mercedes-Benz and Don Giovanni crowd, project which was, internationally, the first ject. Blair's historic project is adjusting Us with a finger in every share-option deal and - but cannot be The Only - political to It. That touches half- the modernising a luxury pad in every global city. The fact response to the crisis of 'New Times'. part - of the task, as Marxism Today that, comparatively speaking, they are set Historic opportunities, however, don't last argued it. fair to also being the most poorly educated, forever. And they don't keep coming back, But the other, more difficult, half- that philistine. anti-intellectual, short-termist offering you a second chance. So in answer­ of the Left reinventing a genuinely modern and venal 'business class' in the western ing the big questions about the Blair pro­ response to the crisis of our times - has world does not seem to matter. ject, one has had to be ruthlessly selective been largely abandoned. At the global and In an ill-advised attempt to appropriate and go for the strategic choices, trying to domestic levels, the broad parameters of the spirit of the new British cultural revival, identify the persistent tendencies: what the 'turn' which Thatcherism made have there was, briefly, 'Cool Britannia'. But it seems to be the underlying framework of not been radically modified or reversed. was short-lived. The energy levels here assumptions, the shaping 'philosophy'. The project of renewal thus remains rough- proved too high, the swing too wild and The picture is ambiguous. There are still ly where it did when Marxism Today pub­ unmanageable, the rhythms too loud, the counter-arguments to hear. New Labour lished its final issue. Mr Blair seems to have fashion too see-through, the culture too remains in some ways an enigma, and Mr learned some of the words. But. sadly, he 'multi-cultural', too full of clever creative Blair, either despite of or because of his has forgotten the music.•

14 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBHR/DECFMBER 1998