Not Balls, Not Brown, Not Now

To win credibility, Ed Balls needs a new speech that acknowledges that the Coalition is not all-wrong on the economy.

Perhaps the suddenness of Alan Johnson’s resignation caught most commentators by surprise, or perhaps so much has already been said about the new Chancellor of the Exchequer over the past three years, but by the time that Ed Balls was called upon to take Labour’s lead argument against the coalition, the occasion seemed rather flat.

There are two chief topics of discussion about Labour’s new configuration. The first is whether Mr Ball’s unorthodox economics will have an impact on Labour’s political strategy in opposition. The second is whether giving Mr Balls a portfolio in which he will feel all-powerful will affect the chemistry of the Shadow Cabinet. Both anxieties are considerably overplayed.

Firstly, the Shadow Cabinet, including Mr Balls, endorsed the Darling plan for halving the deficit over the course of five years less than two weeks ago. There are also important political reasons for sticking to the course set out by Labour’s last Chancellor, Alistair Darling; the Party is in no mood to admit that it was completely wrong in its handling of the financial crisis, its current leadership does not have the authority or inclination to outflank the Coalition government on the right (either in part or in full), and confidence in deficit-broadening spending plans is flaky among the media, businesses, and the public (although polls show weakening resolve in that area).

The second reason Ed Balls will be required to act cautiously is that his popularity within the Party is fragile. Although he performed markedly better in the Shadow Cabinet election, coming third with 179 votes, than in the leadership election last year, MPs do not rush to worship at his feet. He will be cheered when he performs well – and he enjoys a sort of folk-hero status for his shadowing of Michael Gove – but like Wayne Rooney, politicians can be all-conquering one week and frustrating the next. Then there is the legacy of thirteen years of briefings – notably the blaming of Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband for the election-that-wasn’t in 2007.

These two factors will keep Ed Balls on his toes, at least for the short term.

The Fight to Come

The sad departure of Alan Johnson, who lacked detail but was forthright in his defence of New Labour shibboleths, merely encourages the impression that Labour needs to be more aggressive in attacking the government. But where there are political opportunities, Labour ought to beware of political dangers.

Ed Balls was not regarded as a great Education Secretary, and while his Parliamentary performances may have forestalled the rise of Michael Gove, he also lacked the confidence in people’s aspirations that has allowed the current Secretary to re-establish his reforms based on the curriculum.

Gordon Brown’s book on the financial crisis, densely written and frustratingly self-serving though it is, gives an indication of the traps that Mr Balls could fall into. Brown has several arguments, among them that Britain needs to spend to maintain its educational, technological and financial ability to compete with the rising powers and that companies are hoarding cash rather than spending it. On the face of it, this justifies the Keynesian instincts of Messrs Brown and Balls, and their injunctions to the Conservative Party ‘not to return to the mistakes of the 1930s.’

Mr Balls based his economic pitch to the Labour Party on this message – in his widely acclaimed speech to Bloomberg last year. That speech is still being discussed, and Mr Balls may be tempted to say that the lower cost of borrowing justifies a retreat from the austerity programme. That would be a gamble however. The current crisis in the Eurozone is a result of significantly greater risks in Ireland, Spain and Portugal. The attractiveness of British bonds is cause for celebration, but not one we should be complacent about – the danger of a ratings downgrade in May 2010 was real, and no one knows what the implications of a change in tact could be today.

Furthermore, Mr Balls should be wary himself of making the mistakes of the 1970s. The Bloomberg speech raised the spectre of deflation – in 2011, the rising cost of commodities is causing inflation. Borrowing more would risk exacerbating this tendency, and it is for this reason, rather than the risk of protest that David Cameron has considered cutting fuel duty. Another reason that public spending needs to be restrained is that Britain is ageing and growing – meaning that there is no prospect of holding health and education spending steady without changes.

So while globalisation does require a new form of industrial intervention – one that cannot be provided purely by tax cuts – there is no other way to win business confidence and combat inflation than by reform. Indeed, there is a link between business confidence and public opinion, no matter how anti-business the current mood gets.

Labour sought to defend the interests of the consumer in 2008-10; reducing VAT temporarily and introducing scrappage schemes, and still lost the election. It may be that the unseen dimensions to the financial crisis do not intrude onto the voters’ minds, but it is beholden on Mr Balls not to mislead people on the sustainability of current spending. Given that he will not want to be a Labour Shadow Chancellor suggesting that he will raise new taxes, he will be locked into supporting some cuts.

A Liberal Moment

It is a little over two years since Nick Clegg referred to the Liberal Democrats as ‘very much a national party,’ the only opposition to Labour in the North, and the Conservatives in the South. Now, the Liberal Democrats are in power for the first time, and Clegg holds the office of Deputy Prime Minister, albeit in a state of affairs described by William Hague as the best of their ideas (and people), and the bulk of the Conservatives’. And yet, there is little disguising the extraordinary way in which the Lib Dems have been incorporated into Conservative plans. Although there have undoubtedly been compromises on both sides, the negotiations of these past four days have struck everyone by their seriousness and affability.

The Coalescing of the Parties

Only the most die-hard activist (on either side) would deny that the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have had much more in common in recent years. In the early years of the now historical Labour government, the Conservatives went right under William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, focussing on immigration and cession of powers to Europe, while Charles Kennedy (after Paddy Ashdown had taken the Party closer than it wanted to be to the Labour Party), gave the impression that the Liberal Democrats were the party of the Left with his opposition to Iraq and to Top-Up Fees.

Since then modernisers have risen on both sides and moderators to both leaderships. The Liberal Democrats, intellectually driven by David Laws and the Orange Book Liberals, began the acceptance of the Blairite line on public services – reform led by markets. The Conservative intellectual revival was driven by the young Notting Hill set, but particularly by Michael Gove, the one-time biographer of Michael Portillo and proponent of Burkean Toryism.

The recession has also had a significant impact on both sides. For Cameron, it necessitated the return of Ken Clarke to the Shadow Cabinet and let loose George Osborne’s tax-cutting instincts. The Liberal Democrats had adopted a policy of tax cuts for low-earners and saw the logic of becoming more critical of Gordon Brown’s efforts to prop-up the economy through state-action. Nonetheless, the oracular Vince Cable’s tendency to criticise the Conservatives as much as Labour, their position on Trident and Chris Huhne’s previous advocacy of green taxes maintained the impression that they were a party of the centre left.

Cameron’s Clause IV

That all changed with the General Election of last Thursday. Clegg had said during the campaign that he felt that the winner of the ‘largest mandate’ deserved the first opportunity to form of government in the case of a hung Parliament and that he would find it difficult to work with Brown (who, by Andrew Rawnsley’s account had been particularly patronising to his opposites during the expenses crisis). Accordingly, and despite a disappointing net loss of seats in the aftermath of the election, Liberal Democrat negotiators (Clegg’s Chief of Staff, Danny Alexander, David Laws and Chris Huhne), met with Hague, Osborne and Oliver Letwin to discuss areas they could co-operate on.

It is hard to conclude other than that both leaders were immediately in favour of a coalition, surprising a result though that is. For the Liberal Democrats, it would offer the best chance of their policies being implemented and an opportunity to present themselves creditably to the electorate as a party of government. Cameron arguably had less to gain, and could have opted for a confidence agreement, whereby the Liberal Democrats would back the Conservatives on key votes. That would not, however, have offered the stability that Cameron craved to make a successful fist of reforming the economy and public services.

Even so, Cameron has given a lot of ground. The Liberal Democrats bring with them commitments to tax cuts for middle-earners, increased spending on schools and civil liberties. Admittedly, there are those in the Conservative Party who agree, but those belong largely to the modernising vanguard. Cameron has also sacrificed Chris Grayling for his recent inability to stand up for gay rights, but the most significant concessions involve political reform. Cameron has locked himself and his party into the deal for five years and has promised to deliver a referendum on the Alternate Vote System (although he will campaign for a ‘no’). There is even the suggestion that Proportional Representation will be introduced for the House of Lords.

This constitutional radicalism has earned Cameron comparisons to Disraeli, the Conservative statesman who trumped the Liberals by expanding the franchise further and faster than Gladstone. Cameron will certainly be thinking that the strong share of the vote that the Conservatives have traditionally had in the twentieth century can give them the edge in a more proportional system, and he must be calculating that an alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is a more natural beast than between Labour and the Lib Dems.

It is difficult to say what kind of ideology motivates Cameron. Indeed, he has always given the impression of being a pragmatist – as The Economist approvingly noticed last week. Notably, it was for Clegg to speak at their joint press conference of ‘a radical, reforming government,’ but his affirmation of a common purpose was striking;

This is a government that will last because despite those differences, we are united by a common purpose for the job we want to do in the next five years.

Our ambition is simple and yet profound. Our ambition is to put real power and opportunity into the hands of people, families, and communities to change their lives and our country for the better.

For me, that is what liberalism is all about: ensuring that everyone has the chance, no matter who they are and where they are from, to be the person they want to be. To live the life they want to live.

You can call it fairness. You can call it responsibility. You can call it liberalism. Whatever words you use the change it will make to your life is the same.

(The Guardian bitterly suggested that you might call it wishful thinking).

For Cameron, the government was predictably more about business. His paean to strong government might have come from Hague’s biography of Pitt the Younger, but he also talked of a ‘historic new direction…of hope and unity, conviction and common purpose.’ Cameron has purported to be a One Nation Tory and his government will be measured as much against its social impact as its economic orthodoxy.

For this reason, another significant part of the agreement is ‘the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups.’ This will need to be made accountable and to be properly funded. Margaret Thatcher’s total opposition to local government was at the root of her poll tax and therefore her downfall, but the rumours of a greatly enhanced Office of the Mayor of London and Scottish Parliament promise a more Chamberlainite future.

Will it Last?

Matthew Paris’ sunny dispositon (“I ought to be cynical, I ought to be saying it’s all going to end in tears, but I just sense something good and genuine in the air and it just might work. You almost have a sense of two men staging a coup against the British political system,”) seems typical of the mood at the moment. The two parties have not merged, however, and nor have we necessarily seen a permanent rupture in the British political system. This is a finely negotiated programme for government, as much as a statement of ideals.

Any one of a number of crises or changes in the weather could make this coalition unsustainable. Among the front-running contenders would be a movement for further integration in Europe, war in the Balkans or a breakpoint with Iran. More serious still, perhaps, would be a fall in the standard of living through some further recession or greater unemployment. As a general rule, governments tend to be more unified when they have money to spend, and this Parliament will see little of that. However, Cameron has been smart to ask a Liberal Democrat to be his executioner in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Political factions will also have a role. Labour lost the election because the feel-good feeling had left them and their rearguard in favour of a ‘Future Fair For All’ seemed hopeless. A rejuvenated party could help to suppress dissent within the coalition, but it could also start to tempt Liberal Democrats away from their current partners. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats claimed that their negotiations collapsed on the basis of ‘deliverability,’ although it looks more like Clegg was forced to make overtures when his party expressed doubts about the Conservative offer on Monday evening. Then again, the Labour and Conservative reactions (David Blunkett likened them to ‘every harlot in history’ and Sir Malcolm Rifkind expressed a sense of betrayal occasioned by Brown’s game-changing resignation) will likely dissuade a precipitate withdrawal.

Then there are Cameron’s back-benchers, and indeed certain of the old-guard within his Cabinet. Ian Duncan Smith’s Work and Pensions brief will pander to Tory (lack of) sympathies to unemployment and William Hague is a noted Eurosceptic and realist in foreign affairs. Some activists have been critical of a lacklustre campaign, which they felt should have been won outright and would have been with good old Conservative values, and plenty of leadership rivals (David Davis and Liam Fox) lurk on the right wing of the party.

Ultimately, ideology is a luxury for any government and despite the fixed term, the fortunes of the coalition, the Prime Minister and his Deputy depend on the perceived likelihood of an electoral success for either party. If things are going badly, the Conservatives will want to shift right, and the Liberal Democrats will want to disinvest themselves of responsibility. This government’s ambition to devolve power will depend on whether people are willing to get involved, and whether public services will improve, but an age of prosperity will certainly not harm its chances.

Britain’s Choice

And so the General Election, for such a long time a fixed point in the distant future, looms up. This Thursday the different messages, commentaries and clips are reviewed a final time, reconciled and compartmentalised, signed off and acted on.

It has been a smart campaign, and a very good one, it seems to me. Quite ignoring the continuous coverage of meet and greets and Q and A’s (which I haven’t been able to do, admittedly), there has been rather more focus on policy than British Democracy is usually given credit for. The debates, a focal point, here to stay and in danger of taking over future election campaigns, have enhanced the misleading impression that the choice is between three leaders but they have also brought character into the campaign, have ferreted out disagreements that most people didn’t think were there and given new opportunities for narrative-spinning – the much promoted science of centrality and comprehensiveness of message.

There are three worthwhile points of discussion in any overview of this campaign, and appropriately enough in the spirit of the debates, they all revolve around the leadership of the three parties. The results of the election will change our perceptions from where they stand at this moment but I think it is very difficult to see beyond these three truths – that David Cameron has become the totem for a new, rejuvenated conservative movement, that Nick Clegg’s earnestness entranced the media, and that Gordon Brown is temperamentally unsuited to campaigning.

Nick Clegg has clearly been the leader who has done best out of this year’s political clashes. To be fair, he has earned his spurs over the past three years. The number of victories he has racked up in and out of Parliament – Gurkhas, the Speaker’s resignation and getting Brown in front of the Chilcott inquiry –  as well as his bold performances at Prime Minister’s Questions have given him a solid base from which his critique of the ‘Old Parties,’ however nonsensical, looks justified. His performance in the debates was certainly assured and his tax policies, though not as favourable to the lowest earners as he may think, will probably strike a chord, as will his railing against bureaucracy – quite ill-considered when in the past week he has been talking about how inadequate ‘efficiency savings’ are.

That said, the fetishising of opinion polls and the nationalisation of politics has given the impression that a Lib-Dem surge can deliver a windfall of a greatly enhanced Parliamentary position, completely sidelining the politics of the swing-o-meter and the local constituency. He also therefore has the most to lose, especially when “the sky is the limit.” It all sounds rather ominously like David Steel’s exhortation to prepare for government. The great weakness of the Liberal Democrats is that they are ‘the only national party’ as Nick Clegg has pointed out – they lack a local base and are liable to be squeezed out by the Conservatives when the mood is for lower taxes, and Labour when it is for higher public spending.

Now, when there is little enthusiasm for either, it is natural for Clegg to seek to maximise the anti-politics vote. But the fall-out from this election will determine the position of the Lib-Dems for a generation. If they get traction, such as a coalition or just influence from outside, they will be able to show what they stand for. Their four priorities for government are not a bad indicator, but the Lib-Dems have always been a strange coalition. There is a sense that they are mostly made up of people who left the Labour Party because it was too left-wing and now won’t rejoin it because it seems too right-wing. There is also a section that sees itself as closer to the small-state conservative tradition, and any coalition deal could make the party difficult to manage.

Gordon Brown has been the big loser from this campaign, it seems (or perhaps just the big loser, given the tendency for things to go from bad to worse). It is a rare thing to see a politician who is apparently so reviled. Thatcher’s sin was to tolerate such high unemployment, but it is not entirely clear what Brown’s is.

The damage, I suspect, has been to his credibility and it has come from three areas. The first has been the economy, previously Brown’s great strength. I believe Brown has squandered some of the goodwill – the acceptance that British policy was not the root cause – by rejecting the advice of the hawks in his cabinet. When Labour fought a brief civil war over the importance of cuts in the wake of George Osborne’s conference speech last year, Brown reverted to the politics of left versus right, ignoring the tendency of the British public to vote with the right in times of economic crisis. Secondly, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan has come at an unfortunate time, and a series of mishaps has lost Brown credibility when it comes to treating the army fairly.

Thirdly, the Brown whose poll boost in 2007 was the result of apparent command of government and distance from Blairite spin has given way to a Brown who is not in command even of his Cabinet. It is striking how openly Alistair Darling, previously thought of as an ally of the Prime Minister, talks about Brown’s weaknesses as a leader and moreover, how much he is his own Chancellor. Brown, it seems, is being treated as he treated Blair. And Brown’s character has mattered because his clumsy efforts to deal with the expenses scandal and his tactics in the TV debates have been rebuffed by the other two leaders, who clearly loathe him.

The strength of Labour’s manifesto is undermined by the weakness of their leader, and what is more tragic is that Brown as a thinker is more than capable. In his reaction to the economic collapse, and in a recent pamphlet for the Fabian Society, Why the Right is Wrong, is the germ of a sensible policy narrative. Based on Roosevelt’s New Deal, Brownism consists of investment in skills-based training, a subsidised shift towards future areas of growth and advanced infrastructure. Outside of the economic sphere, he is right to say that public services ought to reach those most in need of them and that they ought to encourage participation and responsibility. This is feeding into well-balanced policies such as personal budgets in health and the option for parents to hold the senior management of their children’s schools to account, without dividing the education budget and without leaving children in failing schools.

David Cameron divides people. Some say that the Conservatives should be further ahead in the polls – when they are effectively forecasting a decline in the standard of living and when the Labour Party, unlike Brown, is down but not yet out – and some simply laugh and call him a toff, or ‘same old Tories’. It is the ‘same old Tory’ platform, but that should not lead people to underestimate Cameron, certainly. The leader of the Conservatives has played a blinder in this campaign, from the Nixonian ‘great ignored’ he spoke of on the day the election was called, to this morning’s performance on the Andrew Marr show, where he batted away the suggestion that 80% of the painful consequences of his manifesto was still unannounced.

The apotheosis of the campaign so far was Thursday’s debate. Cameron knows conservative ideology inside and out and gave a masterful exposition of the central tenets – that the state is wasteful, that welfare is inherently demotivating and that the role of government should be restrained to protecting the poorest and weakest. Who can forget him telling Gordon Brown that someone on £20,000 a year was not rich!

And yet, there was no apology for the inheritance tax cut that is being planned and will almost certainly be carried out in the next Parliament while other services are cut. There is ‘the Big Society,’ which to me sounds like an excuse for the State doing nothing, rather than a productive role, an education policy that suggest that it would divide the weak from the strong, and an apparently destructive attitude to Europe.

This election sees Britain in a peculiar balancing-act. There is a large public deficit, but growth is forecast next year and with the banks already profitable, a windfall can be expected on the sale of their shares. Education, health and welfare are relatively well-served by high levels of funding, but need reforms to make them accountable to the people they serve. What appears to be happening is a kick against the size of the State – a classic reaction of a Gladstonian, property-owning democracy against requisitions and appropriations. At this moment in time that would not be a good idea. The market cannot solve all of the problems with the British economy, public services and the enfranchisement of the poor, the ignored, the dispossessed (as The Evening Standard called them this year). That’s why I still want to see a Labour government next Friday.

Andrew Rawnsley on Labour’s Brown and Outs

The End of the Party by Andrew Rawnsley (2010)

Four weeks is a long time in politics – eight years, in fact, by the time I had finished Andrew Rawnsley’s The End of The Party. The book has had its fair share of attention more because it is the first to shed any light on Gordon Brown’s brief premiership, but it purports to be no less than a thorough history of the rise and fall of New Labour – with a notable emphasis on decline.

Rawnsley is a political animal of the soap-opera school of thinking, and End of the Party bears that motif. His history is more a series of events tracking the rise and fall of different factions like a financial index, but he does seek to explore four things; the conflict between Blair and Brown and its effect on the government, the lack of radical change in policy, the impact of Iraq, and the failure of Brown’s (so far) brief premiership.

The Blair/Brown conflict takes up by far the majority of the book, revelling in the increasing nastiness and numerous short-lived agreements and schedules for the handover. In tandem lies an equally important story of Blair’s political death within the Labour Party – graceful, in hindsight, but driven by the repeated offence caused to MPs by education reforms, support for Israel in the Lebanon war, the Cash for Honours affair and ultimately exploited by Brown’s circle (one of the remarkable things about the book is how large the concentric rings around the key players can be). So much is well known, but in less detail than here.

More important is the paralysis caused by the constant warring between the dual-premiers. On some issues, Rawnsley is happy to call it for Brown (such as his veto of Euro-entry) but public service reform evidently suffered. One thing that comes out of Rawnsley’s is his ability to personify different political positions and he is exercised by the manner in which Alan Milburn was chewed up and spat out twice (he left the Health Department in 2003 after compromise was made on Foundation Hospitals and the Cabinet Office’s overseer role in 2005).

Another ghost over the New Labour legacy is Frank Field, who after being told to ‘think the unthinkable’ on welfare reform, was sacrificed for doing precisely that. He pops up several times, most notably protesting Gordon Brown’s decision to scrap the lowest rate of income tax.

Nonetheless, there are happier stories to tell on Northern Ireland and University Fees. Blair is clearly an impressive figure for the author, in the same way that he was for Adam Boulton in Memories of the Blair Administration. The clarity of times past certainly suggests a more coherent and focused figure than came across. Unfortunately, End of the Party does not nail down a legacy in the same way that Peter Riddell’s much better The Unfulfilled Prime Minister does and it is a real weakness that any assessment of what New Labour means/meant is confined to a few pages at the climax. Expect a longer afterword when the paperback comes out in August.

Iraq is almost too exhausting a subject to consider, but it is actually one of Rawnsley’s strengths. The author gives a good overview of the build-up to the war, where Blair was motivated by the belief that America could not be trusted to go it alone; the fatal lack of planning, mostly the fault of the complacent secrecy of the Pentagon and the ways in which Blair presented it. The whole affair exhausted Blair and made him increasingly vulnerable to being cuckolded by Brown and his Cabinet colleagues, even though successive enquiries have largely failed to criticise the government’s actions.

If Blair is an impressive and attractive figure, Rawnsley’s dislike of Brown is extraordinary. Much as the writers of No Expense Spared (on last summer’s exposé of the ways MPs abused their Parliamentary expenses emphasised Brown’s unresponsiveness and near-fatal handling of the crisis, Rawnsley lacerates the Prime Minister’s political antennae and support. Brown is presented as an intellectual figure, but one who struggles to understand the ramifications of his policies and who above all else, had no plan for power. Beset by a series of unfortunate events (the 10p tax debacle after his last budget, the banking crisis, the recession, expenses, criticism of the Afghanistan war and Brown’s support for the military and the resignations surrounding last year’s council elections), between which came a few successes such as support for industry and the financial sector and the G20’s international response to the crisis.

Mostly, however, praise is bestowed on Brown’s Chancellor, Alistair Darling. Chancellor’s and Prime Ministers almost always clash ands that institutional logic is displayed in the way in which Brown went from constantly denying Blair additional spending to demanding increasingly large amounts from the Treasury. The money had been drying up for years when stimulation of the economy became necessary, so the Conservative’s focus on the politics of the budget deficit was a canny strategy, which Brown seems not only to have not foreseen, but won’t accept (which he should do, regardless of the economic logic).

Rawnsley tells us that New Labour was erected on five pillars that have now been called into question;

• Blair’s instinct for presentation and positioning,
• Growing prosperity
• An unattractive opposition
• Investment in public services
• A promise of change and modernisation.

Labour have certainly lost the first two, or at least so it seems. They still go into this election promising change of a sort and with their stance on income tax largely unquestioned (despite having raised the top rate to 50%, unthinkable just a few years ago). The lack of enthusiasm for public service reform, as opposed to investment, is now coming to bite as the money is not there to promise. As Blair once presciently warned, it is not enough to love the Labour bit. His party had to learn the ‘new’ bit. This election is being fought in the now, but it remains to be seen if anyone is willing to resurrect New Labour, or if it is indeed the end of Blair’s party.

In Place of Strife – Nation Building in Afghanistan

Thoughts on a panel discussion on Future Options in Afghanistan at the LSE. The podcast will be well worth a listen.

According to insurgency expert, David Kilcullen, insurgencies are by far the most common type of conflict that the world has seen since the end of the Second World War (about 80%). The good news is that they typically fail against better-resourced governments. Afghanistan is a finely balanced case, however. While foreign governments are currently investing in the government heavily both economically and militarily, there is an implicit and borderline explicit deadline. Futhermore, the government has not solidly establised its legitimacy, limping through the last set of elections and failing to deliver in so many areas.

The Conflict Between Idealism and Reality

According to Michael Semple – an expert on the so-called AfPak area – the problem is that there is a gap between the ideals and the reality of the regime. Instead of being a common currency, democracy has divided Afghans into disparate interest groups and local strongmen.

Unlike Iraq, where oil receipts are the incentive for Sunni and Shia to participate in the regime, Afghanistan has no source of wealth to hold it together. Instead it has the Bonn Process, which offered a constitution. The London Conference in January this year has begun the process of the handover. If it succeeds it will strengthen the regime, but the Karzai government is still unquestionably weak and with expectations heightened, demonstrable movement needs to happen within eighteen months for Afghans to buy into it.

A similarly realist view is offered by Tom Tugendhat of the British Army. He believes that security is what will deter Afghans from rejecting the regime, and to that extent the improvement of the police force and national army will be the measure by which the Afghanistan government will sink or swim.

Impunity and Justice

The view of the Afghans on the panel was significantly different to those of the Westerners. Wazhma Frogh and Horiah Mosadiq – both human rights campaigners – are sceptical about reconciliation and feel that justice has clearly not been done. ‘Warlords’ have been enriched and empowered, corruption is rampant and the security forces are not trustworthy. This, as Ms Mosadiq says, is without even beginning to talk about women’s rights, so far from the agenda are they.

To these Afghans at least, the coalition forces give off mixed messages about how committed they are to the long term prospects of Afghanistan, to removing human rights abusers from government and to tackling corruption. Strategies are seemingly written in English and discussed only on international channels (which may not be true but is a powerful presumtion). Little money goes through the Afghan government (and what does does not necessarily end up going to the Afghan people. And the prospect of the Taliban returning to exercise even a modicum of power is repellent to the sorts of educated people who suffered under them in the first place.

So you have a government that is widely perceived to have failed in its basic functions, but a future awful to imagine for all concerned. Is that all holding Afghanistan together?

Well, regional power politics may play a positive role in stabilising Afghanistan. As a country with six immediate neighbours and three interested Great Powers in the region (India, China and Russia), Afghanistan’s loss could be anyone else’s gain. That recommends neutralising the country as much as possible – hence the framework of the UN commitment to its territorial integrity. No-one wants to get sucked into Afghanistan, but neither can they quite leave it alone.

In Place of Strife

The outstanding question is what to leave in place of a longstanding military and financial commitment. In absence of wealth or reconciliation, do human rights offer the future for Afghan unity or do strong institutions and security?

Either way, a bleak and largely unfulfilled future is unfortunately quite likely. Suicide bombings will continue even if the security forces improve rapidly, and human rights will not immediately trump stability or political considerations. Abuses will always happen. And yet, all panelists agree that impunity is not an option

The West and the Afghan government must work quickly to redress grievances and offer an even faintly-credible future. Their hope is that the Taliban turn out to be nationalists above all else.

The Great Offices of State

Just as the BBC is busy dismembering itself for the gratification of the political class, it produces a series of programmes that are a perfectly poised mix of investigations and polemic. The Great Offices of State is pithy and insightful, intelligent and utterly polite. No one does reminiscence quite so well, and Michael Cockerell is a formidable interviewer.

The three episodes cover the Home Office, the Treasury and the Foreign Office respectively. Each are delightfully idiosyncratic, and the mix of political and mandarin opinion highlights those problems which are unique to each, but there is also a larger story at work – the decline of these great ministries. Although hardly unremarked upon, the scale of the challenge that is presented by the outdatedness of Britain’s civil service is rarely so well exposed.

The Foreign Office – Diplodocus

The Foreign Office’s attitude to ministerial direction is described by one civil servant as “like an oyster regards a grain of grit… an irritant with a slim probability of producing a pearl.” It has perhaps the most mixed record, with triumphs like the negotiation of accession to the EC in 1972 juxtaposed with Suez and the cathartic end of Empire. It is often said that the Foreign Office lost an Empire and never quite found a role, but in truth it’s fate was to be rather swamped by the weight of European business – to the obvious distaste of those mandarins unused to European ways of working.

Perhaps the biggest downgrading of the Foreign Office has happened under the Blair administration, despite Jack Straw’s recent assertions of his potency (if only he had had a professional interest in resigning, he might well have done it in 2003, as implied here and in the Chilcott Inquiry). Blair has been the most internationally-minded Prime Minister since Eden and his personal involvement in Northern Ireland, Europe and American relations, not to mention Iraq directly, has been at the expense of the Foreign Office. Another factor is that the Office is necessarily diplomatic, which means a limited influence in times of war when contrasted with the forces.

The Home Office – Not Fit For Purpose

The Home Office has long been a political graveyard for Ministers because of its ability (in the words of Roy Jenkins) to spring disasters from the blue. The last ten years have shown that amply in the careers of both Jacqui Smith and Charles Clarke (who still resents his departure). Others have been luckier. Jack Straw told Cockerell that when he came into office the asylum backlog stood at over 100,000 incomplete cases. When John Reid became Home Secretary in 2005, the number was close to 500,000.

It was Reid who set in motion the division of the Office into its current remit and the Justice Ministry, which deals with prisons, the courts and probation, while the Home Office returns to something more akin to its original function of protecting public law and order. Still, it is regarded as a bitterly cynical department. Blair’s Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, remembers a presentation back in 1997; crime would be going up because the economy was growing, which meant more things to steal. What if the economy were to be going down, then, asked Powell. In that case, crime would go up, because there would be more people to steal things!

But the Home Office highlights better than any department just how limited the leverage most Ministers have when it comes to enacting policy. The tools at the disposal of the criminal justice system are far removed from the main offices on Marsham Street. The last Home Secretary to be regarded as setting the tone for his brief, Roy Jenkins, did so almost exclusively through legislation (repealing censorship, the criminalisation of homosexuality and the death penalty – the latter very probably because he wanted to replace the board that charts the progress of each death row inmate with a drinks cabinet). But legislation has only a limited effect on policing, probation, and the administrative nightmare that is immigration processing for example.

The Treasury – Gladstonian Revival

The Treasury is still largely recognisable as the department it was before 1997, with one exception. The decision to grant independence to the Bank of England has meant that control over interest rates has been given up. That means that it is less the Thatcherite department of monetary supply, and more the Gladstonian department of taxation, spending and balanced budgets. As we have seen in Alistair Darling, the Chancellor’s close relationship with the City means that with an element of boldness he can still take on the Prime Minister from a position of authority. The same was true, of course, of Lawson when it came to the ERM, before Thatcher wielded the axe.

The Treasury was also fleshed out by Gordon Brown’s Chancellorship, during which it attempted to play the role of a department for the combating of poverty. Some of that influence has been lost, but the current promotion of tax credits instead of benefits gives it a decided edge over the Work and Pensions brief.

New Labour and the Decline of the Office of State

In several ways New Labour has directly exacerbated the decline felt in these Departments. The first is the haphazard way in which devolution and freedom of information has been handled, depriving mandarins of considerable influence. The second is Prime Ministerial leadership. Blair was a particularly involved Prime Minister in many ways. He would go over the heads of his Ministers to the public, guaranteeing standards, promising targets and focussing on results – David Blunkett remembers his leader promising cuts in immigration without consulting his Home Secretary.

The redoubtable historian of the civil service, Peter Hennessy, substantiates Blair’s influence in his book, The Prime Minister; The Office and Its Holders Since 1945. Blair, he feels, veered dangerously close to both establishing a Prime Minister’s Department on top of the old architecture of Whitehall and of trying to force joined-up government without following the proper route through the Cabinet Office. Indeed, it was only as an audit trail that Cabinet was truly significant – most relationships were bilateral, and largely to the benefit of the Prime Minister. The other factor was that with Brown, Blair had a largely dual-Premiership in which each had spheres of influence.

It is a great shame that Hennessy looks unlikely to update The Prime Ministers beyond the 2001 cut-off. Indeed, there was a rush of good analysis in the early years of the Blair administration, which was never carried through into analysis of the political successes and failures of New Labour.

What seems clear insofar as the three so-called great offices of state are concerned, is that issues like crime, the economy and diplomacy will still be contentious. Indeed, they all look like potential election-winners. Whether New Labour’s reforms will lead to greater efficiency or politicisation of the civil service will see meddling preventing the incubation of policy, the institutional levers Ministers have at their disposal are already under scrutiny. The devolution of public services – Academies and Primary Care Trusts – was a key component of Blair’s last years in office. It may continue after an election, in which case the departments will be further truncated. But it may also depend where the strong Ministers are.

Copenhagen – Among the Rubble, Something Extraordinary

The results of Copenhagen are more substantial than you might think

It seems as though the Copenhagen Accord, barely baptised, has already been dragged below the waves – a precursor to civilisation’s own destruction. Almost no-one has been prepared to praise the outcome of the two-week summit, and least of all, the politicians who contributed to it. I for one (and it seems I am pretty lonely), am confused by this. I can appreciate the frustration of those who were desperate to broker a deal (and particularly those with an election next year), but the political segment of the conference seemed like a great success to me.

From where I was watching, Copenhagen moves the world a good deal closer to a consensus and answers many of the more contentious questions about how the balance of responsibility will be adopted.

Mid-week, we were told that the key to a deal was financial support for developing countries – to help adapt to the inevitable environmental changes and to develop low-carbon economies. $100bn was the price put on Copenhagen and as a Western European whip-round could produce less than 10% of that figure all looked lost in a sea of hypocrisy and recriminations.

Then Hilary Clinton brought good news. In the words of John F. Kennedy, America would ‘pay any price, bear any burden’ to make the deal stick.

Unfortunately, Obama then went and put his proverbial foot in it. Transparency of emissions was essential, and inspections to that end could not be avoided. Of course, he was speaking to an important constituency that would not impose on America what other countries could get away with – the force that wrecked Kyoto over a decade ago. However, he infuriated China and in return was humiliated to find a lowly official was to meet him in place of the Chinese Premier.

American spokesmen could hardly conceal their delight at the way Obama marched into a meeting demanding to speak to President Wen – ‘well, he was on time’ – one said. Nonetheless, as a result, the projected cap on carbon emissions – 80% by 2050 – was left out of the Accord.

After that example of going one step forward only to jump back two, the summit collapsed into chaos. The cause was partially procedural. For a week and a half technical discussions had been conducted, only for a completely different class of politicians to arrive and tear up what had been agreed, until more drafts were floating in the Danish capital than snowflakes. The high-level diplomacy collapsed when the Prime Minister of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, leapt at his chance to push his motion reducing what had been agreed as the highest safe rise in the climate from two to one-and-a-half degrees Celsius.

Obiter dicta, I would love to hear what the left think of Hugo Chavez, who tried to play his disreputable part in ruining such an important cause.

Given the circumstances, it was remarkable that any agreement was made. But there was an agreement. The rich world has agreed that it will have to fork out for the process, and decided the benefits outweigh the costs. Tacitly, the numbers that a successful deal will ultimately be measured against have been floated and have even been the subject of approximate consensus. In a year’s time the world will return to the matter at hand. By then, the UN should have adopted a more sensible procedure. The opponents of a deal have ousted themselves, too late to achieve recognition (making China’s diplomacy look like statecraft) – and early enough to be pressured into falling into line.

The prospects for success are much brighter than you have been led to believe. As we desperately need reminding, few great political achievements have been concluded in so short a space of time – least of all those (like the abolition of slavery) that are comparable with this. Politicians (especially Barack ‘last President to reform health care’ Obama) should restrain from promising the world, even if they can’t help it.

A Classic New Labour Commotion

In many ways, it is a classic New Labour public relations cock up – raised expectations, simplistic targets and demands for immediate success. Most critics will tell you that New Labour’s multi-nationalism has been a disaster. To those on the left, it simply ignored the UN in 2003. To those on the right, Labour has caved in at almost every European Summit it has attended.

The truth is much more complicated. New Labour has deployed a similar strategy in international affairs on more than one occasion, and the Copenhagen Summit bears a striking resemblance to the G8 Summit held in the middle of the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005.

On both occasions, Britain led the world on the terms of debate. In 2005; the Commission for Africa, of whose report 50/90 recommendations were implemented. In 2009; the Stern Report. On both occasions Labour stirred up national sentiment, then took a back seat to the more trustworthy celebrities and notables who we were to accept a hectoring from in place of the politicians.

As a force in multinational negotiations, it has been unquestionably significant. But the flip side is that it almost always results in the government achieving less than was promised. No one is convinced that by joining ‘the Wave’ Peter Mandelson and Ed Miliband are ordinary folk. They were disappointed that 2005 did not see a deal on agricultural subsidies and in 2009 if there is no legally-binding emissions target there is nothing to talk about. Perhaps the one bright point politically is that they have out-manoeuvred the formerly ‘green’ Conservative opposition.

But behind the scenes, Labour politicians have been able to punch above their weight as a result of their moral authority and technical ability. Copenhagen is an exceptional example.

Between them, Brown and Miliband were like a combination of the almost entirely incompatible Gladstone and Disraeli and the 1870s. Miliband was roused from the point of collapse to harangue the Sudanese Premier for his comparison of the Summit to the Holocaust, while Brown laid out the conditions of a deal and was elected to preside over the summit in place of the flaking Danish PM, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

That combination held what was left of the Copenhagen Summit together. Next year, personnel could make a similar difference either way.

So Long, Blairwell

Memories of the Blair Administration; Tony’s Ten Years, by Adam Boulton

For a very brief two years, Tony Blair was almost forgotten in Britain. Gordon Brown’s premiership was the dominant political story and Blair was away from the daily accountability to the media that British politics make unavoidable. Suddenly, Blair’s bid for the EU Presidency and the apparent fatality of Labour’s fourth term have put Blair in the spotlight. The Sky News anchor, Adam Boulton, hasn’t taken his eye off the story, so that his account, though it certainly isn’t the first, and surely won’t be the last, is timely.

Boulton structures his narrative around the ‘Blairwell tour’ – the Prime Minister’s attempt to highlight his own achievements through a departure schedule of speeches, meetings and summits. Unlike most of the public, Boulton was relatively admiring of the Blair’s victory lap. They had been on a long journey together, as the comely title suggests, and Blair had dominated the political scene in a way that did not just play to his strengths as Thatcher had, but had constantly disorientated the opposition.

Moreoever, as Boulton clearly feels, the exit was classic Blair. In a typical display of imperviousness, the Prime Minister shrugged off the constraints that he had placed on himself, and in turn had been enforced on him by backbench rebellions. Further, he did so in a way that genuinely cemented a policy agenda; securing a deal on the EU budget to unfreeze France’s Common Agricultural Policy; keeping troops in Iraq to complement the US surge, and ensuring that Public Finance Initiatives (PFIs) and Academies continued to revolutionise the delivery of public health and education.

The story was, and still is, unfinished. Blair is a Statesman without a State, behind him so many wasted years and the wish he had gone further, and in front of him nothing certain – two well-intentioned foundations, a fragile international role and a reputation that is still to be secured. Boulton gives the impression that Blair is closer to where his instincts are, but pet projects are no substitute for achievement for a man who has held executive office.

A History Yet To Be Written

Boulton is hardly one-sided, but the EU Presidency affair has shown the limits of Blair’s powers. There are a whole host of questions still to be asked of Blair’s career, most of which Boulton serves to highlight, rather than answer.

First, what was the ultimate effect of Blair’s announcement that he would not seek a fourth term? Clearly, it put the third term constantly on edge, and much as commentators have tried to resolve the issue, it has never quite been answered.

Secondly, there is a question over Blair’s style. Peter Hennessy is perhaps the foremost historian of British government today, but he has never studied beyond the wasted energies of the first term. Two things stand out from Boulton’s account. Blair was the most presidential of Prime Ministers. He disliked the legislature and sidelined the Cabinet, though he always kept it well-stocked in ‘Big Beasts’. But given the sheer amount of law that made it onto the statute book, was it really the case that New Labour governed poorly?

The answer may lie in Blair’s upper middle-class penchant for self-abasement, so brilliantly captured by the ‘Yo Blair!’ episode. What is no longer remembered is the more important part of the conversation – where Blair offered to sacrifice his credibility in the Middle East to give Condoleeza Rice the opportunity to make a deal. Blair sacrificed an awful lot in his ten years, and failed to cover his core base. Some commentators say Blair killed triangulation, others interpret his whole career in that fashion. Certainly, the last word has yet to be written about the ‘Third Way’.

Another question that seems particularly resonant today is the degree to which New Labour’s naivety impeded its efforts to govern, at least for the first term. Preparation for government has become increasingly crucial as ambitions and bureaucracy grows. New Labour were underprepared when they came to power, and promised more tangible objects than any government before. The result was a plausibility gap.

The other New Labour preoccupation was the media. Boulton is understandably keen to defend his side and in any case, he believes that it was Alistair Campbell’s one-man-war on the press that so discredited Blair.

Memories of the Blair Administration is unsurprisingly journalistic in style. That need not be an insult. As Timothy Garton Ash has observed, journalists and academics like to use each others professions as insults, but interesting facts need to be taken to their full conclusion. There is a lot of history still to be written about the Blair Administration, something that the Iraq War Inquiry is doing as we speak.

Man on Wire

David Miliband has had a mixed few years, and specifically, a mixed few weeks.  A few weeks ago he made a speech to the Labour conference (the graveyard slot) that most media described as unhinged, and that I heard one Labour member describe as brilliant.  This week he could be lauded as Europe’s saviour, or he could reverse the West’s recently improving but schizophrenic relationship with Russia.

Of all the decisions Gordon Brown has made in his short premiership, two stand out as almost uniquely successful.  Bringing Mandelson back into the Cabinet was one.  Elevating David Miliband to the foreign office was another. 

Miliband was the strongest candidate when Brown faced the prospect of a stalking horse after Blair’s departure.  When Brown’s premiership was on the rocks, it was to Miliband that first plotters, and then James Purnell turned to, as the last great hope.  Miliband betrayed both (persuaded by Mandelson to remain in the Cabinet), and as a result saved the government and condemned himself to be passed over for the Labour leadership.

But Miliband’s inertia within the Labour Party are only a part of the story of his decline.  As significant has been his confinement in the foreign office.  It is a position – perhaps the only one – that does not offer a weapon with which to consolidate support to use against Brown.  Instead, it offers one of the most difficult conundrums in British policy – one that can’t be solved by money, that offers no easy choices and no photo ops; how does Britain deal with Russia?

Miliband is an intellectual, not a conviction politician, which shows itself more in his Russian policy than in anything else.  This week, when Miliband should be making his pitch to be the EU High Representative of Foreign Affairs (the best way to restore his credibility in the Labour Party and ride out possible opposition), he has to walk the high-rope that is a diplomatic visit to Moscow.

Going, Miliband was optimistic.  On his Foreign Office blog he wrote,

“We don’t always see eye to eye with Russia, but we share the same global challenges and it is important that we work on them together.  And as we are both permanent members of the UN Security Council and members of the G8 and G20, there is a wide range of questions where, by working together, we really can make a difference.”

The implication is that Britain is giving up the passive resistance that has been the hallmark of Anglo-Russian relations.  Over the past three years, the Litvenenko affair, the British Council controversy and the Georgian war have been unprofitable.  It quickly became clear that Russia would not compromise, and that Europe did not have the unanimity to respond.

In recent weeks, Russian has shown some receptiveness to the American State Department’s re-setting initiative.  In return for the USA withdrawing its missile defence system, Russia made a vague statement on imposing sanctions on Iran.

I can only assume that Miliband’s visit is part of these developments.  However, it has hardly gone to plan.  The Litvenenko affair has been allowed to resurface, putting Miliband in an impossible bind. 

To be contrary, and go against the mood (very current, unsecure, but potentially powerful), or stand up for individual cases and abstract principles?  Either way, the issues are unavoidable.  Extending NATO or the EU to Russia’s borders could raise the chances of war (probably with Ukraine).  Too much emphasis on business means sacrificing the Russian civil society Miliband said he was keen to hear from to the dictates of the Kremlin.

Wittingly or not, Miliband’s visit has raised two uncomfortable debates at a time when they could least be afforded.  On the one hand, Labour faces a choice between a realist (dealing with the Russian government as is) or ethical (actively seeking to influence the internal balance) foreign policy.  Secondly, he raises the question of Europe’s approach.  Are European interests best served by trying to close the door on Russia, or by engaging with her?

The latter is the most immediate concern (the former is age-old, and still unresolved).  The Lisbon Treaty was designed to streamline European decision-making and maximise Europe’s collective influence.  The argument that Miliband seems likely to provoke could yet be good for Europe, but it is more likely to create divisions than to resolve them.  Britain will be seen as an awkward partner, or European countries simply will not be able to agree.

As for Miliband’s EU prospects?  They will not be helped, although Russia is not the most significant issue at stake.  Whether a diplomat can be an intellectual and still be effective is a serious question that was raised by Bill Clinton’s presidency.  Miliband may answer it.

The Blair Ultimatum

All the words needlessly spilt over this week’s controversy have turned up very few interesting arguments – either for or against – the prospect of Tony Blair becoming the first EU president.  In fact, most have been very bad, and the obsession with a British perspective has only obstructed intelligent debate.  It doesn’t much matter that Blair is from Britain, even though we are at times out of step with some European initiatives, and even though the next British government may be even more Eurosceptic.  Neither should politics be so important.  I’ve heard it said that pressure for a centre-right candidate is behind Merkel’s reluctance.  But what is Blair, if not a Christian democrat? Frankly, both his ideology and his contacts are secondary to his profile and his abilities.

There are two things working against Blair.   One is an almost visceral dislike of him, more as a person than as a professional.  Take this ridiculous article from Jeff Randall;

‘Mr Blair is a fake, a charlatan, a shameless twister. He is not “a pretty straight sort of guy”. Who else would play down his faith lest it be seen as a vote-loser?’

Most accuse Blair of free-loading, or jumping on the EU gravy train, as Randall puts it.  This argument is patently absurd.  If Blair were to take a role in the EU he would inevitably sacrifice a far more significant portion of his current income than he could possibly gain directly from the job, as perhaps the one decent article on the subject has made clear.  For a start, there’s the £2m annual salary from JP Morgan.  Then there’s the speaking engagements and consultancies.  Money has nothing to do with it.

Personal attacks are not rare in politics, but the only worthwhile ones concentrate on a candidate’s suitability for the role.  No one opposed to a Blair presidency has yet faced up to the question of how effective he would actually be.  Some views, admittedly, are based on his actions in office, but almost exclusively examples have little or no relation to the job that he would actually be doing.

This leads me nicely to the second argument against Blair, that he would be divisive.  It is ridiculous that Iraq is still so contentious, especially amongst European socialists, six and a half years after the event.  Blair’s pro-European endeavours – common defence, the social chapter, pro-active engagement – have all been forgotten.  And in a sense, joint military engagement has now been so decisively removed from the agenda that it should be easier to ignore the elephant in the room than it actually appears.

Blair is a natural diplomat.  His engagement with the gritty details in Palestine will only have added to his natural charm.  He managed the transition in British diplomacy from Clinton to Bush effortlessly, so the argument that his appointment might send a hostile signal to Obama is nonsensical.

The trouble is that Iraq exposed how disunited Europe really was, and the concern is that too vigorous a president might do so again.  The question then, is really about the kind of president Europe wants.  There has been some discussion about the two possible ways this could turn out. 

The bureaucrat would chair summits and make sure that the EU was well-administered.  There is no denying that Blair would be unsuitable for this role, and yet the right-wing critics, who seem the most vociferous in this country at least, would be ill-served by this model.  It would almost certainly mean more European government, and the status-quo, including the Common Agricultural Policy.

Blair is suited to the second model.  The virtue of his candidacy is that he could be a diplomat, without being diplomatic.  He would effectively represent the EU outside of its borders, but would also offer initiative.  Critics of his government have often said that there were too many initiatives, but it is a style that would suit the needs of the EU, where balancing interests is a pre-eminent concern.  Inevitably, it would involve banging heads together, but Blair has the right instincts on climate change, aid, and dare I say it, the Middle East to make Europe a big player.

Very few people inside the EU have yet gone on the record about Blair’s chances.  The latest is that Sarkozy and Merkel, who were very keen, are now holding back their support.  Momentum is important in decisions like these, but there is no explicit campaign, so the wider concerns have their place too.  These might still sway the decision-makers.

Still, I find it peculiar that, as the BBC is reporting, a three-man panel is in place to decide.  Bigger names will surely have a proportionate say, but the doubts of one of that panel, the Austrian Chancellor Werner Fayman, put Blair at a disadvantage.

Belatedly and exceptionally, some reasonable articles about Blair from The Economist’s David Rennie;

Blair – a moderate

The politics and the disappointment