A Journey (111 page)

I could see where the current party debate was heading. Both Jon Cruddas and Douglas Alexander had written pamphlets. Jon made quite a name for himself. It was clever political positioning. To his overall political analysis – New Labour had deserted the working class and thus our base – he had added a programme for the party. It was clothed in some modernist language, but was ultimately an attempt to build a left coalition out of
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intellectuals and trade union activists. However beguiling – and he was smart enough to make it beguiling – it was, in effect, reheated and updated Bennism from the 1980s. It was not without its public appeal, by the way, but had no serious prospect of reaching the aspiring middle ground once the policy implications were exposed.

Douglas was and is a very clever guy indeed. I had tried to wean him off membership of Gordon’s inner circle; but to no avail. It was a real shame. He and his sister Wendy, who is a lovely and also very smart person with great integrity, were a classic product of a decent Scottish Presbyterian background. Their father was a vicar and himself very accomplished. Douglas came to Gordon’s attention before Douglas was an MP and had been rightly snapped up. He had a great way with words, a really first-class intellect and could have been (and maybe still can be) an outstanding leader.

But the Gordon curse was to make these people co-conspirators, not free-range thinkers. He and Ed Balls and others were like I had been back in the 1980s, until slowly the scales fell from my eyes and I realised it was more like a cult than a kirk.

Douglas had written this pamphlet that had a brilliant analysis of what was wrong, but the solutions all seemed to me to avoid the hard questions and lapse into woolliness.

I put Hazel Blears, as party chair, in charge of a commission for renewal of the party. I knew Hazel was a strong supporter of mine. She was a great campaigner, an activist with an understanding of the limits of activism. However, though she struggled with great application, the truth is Gordon was strongly opposed to the outgoing leadership deciding the future of the incoming one. This was all totally understandable except for the fact, as I kept saying to him, there was no alternative vision; and in the absence of a clear vision, the party organisation will just go backwards.

All those years ago we thought we had precisely the same perspectives on politics, party and life, whereas in fact we had somewhat different perspectives, shared at points but not an indivisible confluence. There was sufficient cohesion to allow us both to indulge; and by the time we realised it was an indulgence, it had become part of the party’s unique selling point and it was too damaging to ditch it. But myth it was.

The policy process fared better and, in the end, produced some not bad conclusions and analysis. On security, crime and justice, ‘Pathways to the Future’ outlined the progress in tackling crime and its causes, but highlighted the rapid changes affecting society which impact on crime, security and cohesion. The paper argued that the continued reform needed was based on three main elements: more effective prevention; better detection and enforcement; and reform of the criminal justice system by applying the principles of public service reform.

The paper also set out the challenges that Britain faces in a rapidly globalised world, and how Britain’s interests can be best served working together with shared progressive values and in a world where governments work peacefully within international law. It set out how Britain still has influence and power, but now has to use both hard and soft power. Be prepared to intervene where necessary – using military action where appropriate – but also take global action on issues such as poverty and climate change; recognise that Britain’s foreign policy is driven by values – justice and democracy – in a world which is increasingly interdependent. Ensure that everyone has access to an equal standard of life and has certain shared global values, and recognise that climate change is increasingly important and tackling it will only be successful by working on a wider global level.

On families, the paper recognised the important role they have to play in society, whatever their structure. The government also recognised that the success of families is not about their make-up but about the commitment of those who live within them, and that the government still has a role to play in ensuring all families are treated fairly and have access to the same choices others do. The vision that was set out was to: support families to exercise their rights to manage their own affairs while living up to the responsibilities they have; enable a work–family balance, by helping people move from welfare to work, improving childcare and supporting family commitments; and address the hardest to reach families, by tackling the causes and consequences of deep-seated social exclusion.

On the role of the state, the paper introduced the idea of the strategic and enabling state, as a response to the continuing evolution of global and domestic trends. The paper set out the six key features of this state: a strong focus on outcomes; tackling insecurity; empowering citizens; rights and responsibilities; building trust; and a smaller strategic centre.

Finally, the paper drew together the twin challenges of energy security and climate change, outlining a comprehensive policy framework for achieving our goals, including: promoting competitive energy markets; working towards a robust post-2012 international framework; putting a price on carbon that reflects its damage costs; driving the transition to new technologies through standards, incentives and support; removing the barriers to change in behaviours, choice and investment; and ensuring that the UK and others are able to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Indeed, had we simply taken all these elements and pushed them forward, I think they would have evolved to a pretty strong future agenda, in policy and in legislation.

I also decided to make a series of speeches called ‘Our Nation’s Future’, trying to summarise the philosophy behind the New Labour project, what we had done well, what we hadn’t and the underlying rationale for it all. There had always been this notion that it was all a bit of clever marketing and I wanted to set it out as a piece of political thinking. I have to say that, unsurprisingly really, the media were disinclined to report them much, except the one on defence. Their problem was not simply that I was leaving; it was unclear whether my departure was solely a change of personnel, or whether it was also a change of policy. So a series of policy speeches was of insufficient interest unless pitched against someone or something. Of course, you might think it was their job to discover this, but the GB crew had hit on a brilliant device for not exposing any flanks, which was to say that it would plainly be wrong and disrespectful to set out their views while I was still prime minister. To my amusement, this was generally bought hook, line and sinker.

Rereading them now, I think they have contemporary relevance so let me summarise them briefly. The purpose, in each case, was not simply to state a policy but to describe an evolution of my own thinking based on my experience in government.

This comes back to something I said in the opening chapters. In 1997 I had boundless vision, but no political experience of policymaking in government. People sometimes analyse politics as if a new government arrives, it has a programme, it works at getting it done, and succeeds or fails in that endeavour.

However, real-life governing, like anything else in life, isn’t like that. There is nothing mysterious, still less mystical, about ‘government’. It is indeed like any other activity. You learn as you go. You learn facts; and of course events can change them. You learn processes. You learn the art and science of your profession. But because political power is the outcome of a political fight – ‘our’ ideas, platform policies against ‘theirs’ – the inclination is to treat the business of government as the closing of the door on the old home and moving to somewhere new. Actually you don’t change ownership; you change tenant.

It is therefore quite sensible to try to understand why the previous tenant did this or that, what they learned and what they found when living there. Unfortunately that education is inconsistent with the way politics is conducted. In an age in which objectives are often shared and it is policy that is crucial, where the issue is often not right or left but, as I have said earlier, right or wrong, this is a significant democratic disadvantage. You spend several years relearning what the last occupant could have told you from experience.

So in these late speeches I chose policy areas where I thought there was a lesson to impart.

The first was on law and order. It concentrated on what I discovered in the course of trying to deal with crime, a huge issue for the public which always looms larger for the people than the politicians. I had started with the good old mantra ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. Good as far as it goes. What I learned was that the real problem was that in a world of very sophisticated crime – gangs, drugs, people trafficking, money laundering, to say nothing of terrorism – and deep social issues giving rise to a type of criminal underclass, traditional law and order didn’t work. I understand the traditional view: prove guilt conventionally, according to the normal judicial processes. Sorry, but with these people, it doesn’t work. If you want to beat them, you need draconian powers that can be wielded administratively and with instant effect. Hence the antisocial behaviour laws, DNA database, ‘proceeds of crime’ legislation, anti-terror laws and so on. Now you may decide that this is too high a price to pay, in terms of traditional liberties. Fine, but – and this is what I learned – it is the price. If you don’t pay it, you don’t get the result.

The trouble is you can identify those who will say – sometimes with justification – we the accused have been denied our rights. But you can never identify adequately the lives lost or buried by criminality unchecked. They are victims and the criminality could be stopped; but not by conventional means. So choose; but don’t delude yourself that it is not a choice.

Linked to this was a speech on social exclusion. Here I was referring specifically to my own education from the time of the Bulger speech back in 1993. I used to think that the shocking behaviour of some young people – violence, knives, drug abuse – was a symptom of a society that had lost its way. In that sense, I presaged David Cameron’s later claim of a ‘broken society’.

Over time, I came to the conclusion I was making a dangerous error in eliding the behaviour of what is actually a tiny minority with society as a whole. The truth is most young people are fine, good even, actually better than I remember many of my generation being. It really isn’t true that the shocking behaviour is definitive of society. In fact, it is the opposite: it is wholly exceptional, of a different character. Therefore rather than policy being analysed and then prescribed in the context of general ‘society’, it should instead be absolutely, specifically focused on the exception. When you examine the data, this is not about ‘young people’ or even ‘poverty’. It is about families that are utterly dysfunctional. And neither is this about ‘family life’. Most families, despite all the stresses of modern living, are not dysfunctional. They function. Even those that are marked by divorce or separation. A tiny minority don’t. So concentrate on them.

For these families, we need special intervention that again can’t be done by normal social services procedures. For them, the absence of state interference is not a liberty, it is encouraging them to destructive behaviour that damages them and all around them. There is no earthly point in making periodic visits or checking up on them from time to time. They require gripping and seizing. To do that effectively their ‘rights’ need to be put into suspense, including the right to be a parent. These families are not hard to identify. Neither are their children. I’m not suggesting every such situation means children are taken into care and so on; I’m merely making the point that any policy needs to be formed out of the box. Otherwise it won’t work.

Where there is a wider lesson for society, is in the field of personal responsibility for health. In this third speech, I set out why, over time, I had come to the conclusion that a modern health care policy had to encompass strong intervention on diet and fitness.

Normally, I am highly suspicious of regulation. Not in this arena; because the cost of poor diet and lack of fitness is borne by the nation as well as the individual. So I made the case for the smoking ban, for food labelling, and above all for sport. In respect of sport, I tried, not with complete success I fear, to persuade the system that sport was part of the day job, i.e. it should be part of mainstream policymaking. We had increased massively the investment in and priority given to sport in schools. I set out the case for going further but also for making that part of an infrastructure in which we opened up fitness opportunities and dietary advice to everyone, going well beyond the elite. My theory was that there was plenty of focus on healthy lifestyles, and much more advice, but the problem was organising, coordinating and widening access to it. I supported Jamie Oliver’s school dinner programme for the same reason. These issues are no longer an afterthought, a bit of fun at the end of the ministerial day. They are of the essence.

The fourth speech again concerned a quiet passion of mine that was partly the result of missed opportunities at school: science. I had been a woeful student. Failed my physics, gave up on chemistry, scraped through in maths, never bothered with biology and spent the rest of my life regretting it! For some reason or other, I just couldn’t grasp it. I felt a deep stupidity about it, unable to glimpse let alone see fully its principles and elements, in any shape that bestowed understanding. So my early life in regard to it passed in a slough of frustration, incomprehension and indifference.