Stuck in a Golf Club Fantasy

Blair has to constantly confirm the prejudices that guide him. Optimism is an essential ingredient of socialism. So last week I spent an afternoon in Edinburgh attempting - without much success - to persuade a group of old friends that after the next election a Labour government, even under Tony Blair, would take a few faltering steps towards a more equal society.Optimism is an essential ingredient of socialism. So last week I spent an afternoon in Edinburgh attempting - without much success - to persuade a group of old friends that after the next election a Labour government, even under Tony Blair, would take a few faltering steps towards a more equal society. I urged them to look on the bright side of political life. At least the prime minister has neither invited Silvio Berlusconi to address the party conference nor been on holiday with Conrad Black.

The discussion - during which I exhibited piety and loyalty in equally nauseating measure - concerned whether it is right and reasonable to judge a politician by his friends and lifestyle. I stubbornly insisted that how Tony Blair spent his summer was none of our business.

Judge him, I said, by the policies he sets out. I now realise that I did the prime minister no favours. For last Wednesday, he entertained a gathering of the faithful with a selection of his extensive repertoire of meaningless cliches. Principal among them was the assurance that he would liberate the Labour party from its "ideological hang-ups".

Twenty years ago, when he worked for me, I attempted to convince Tony Blair that the rejection of ideology is an ideology in itself and that contempt for political philosophy is the political philosophy of the jungle in which life remains solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. However, it must be admitted that, though Thomas Hobbes has passed the prime minister by, John Maynard Keynes has him bang to rights. "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

Tony Blair, whether he knows it or not, is a disciple of Professor Milton Friedman. He imagines that the market is a guarantee of economic efficiency. My friends in Edinburgh would insist that such a belief is incompatible with the leadership of the Labour party. That is at the least an arguable contention. What is beyond dispute is the fact that while the market is right and necessary in some sectors of the economy, in others it is wrong and damaging.

Twenty years ago, when I quoted RH Tawney - arguing that "resounding affirmations of the virtues of free enterprise and socialisation" should be replaced by an examination of "the facts of the case" - I was denounced as an apologist for capitalism. Now, because I still hold that view, I am regarded as a quasi-communist who wants the state to manage decrepit monopolies.

I have never regarded public ownership as the best way to manage manufacturing industry. That is why I opposed the nationalisation of shipbuilding and aerospace - measures brilliantly assisted through the Commons by Sir Gerald Kaufman, now the Grand Old Man of New Labour. But the economic rules that apply to heavy industry do not govern the public sector, which is supposed to provide services, not sell commodities.

The literature explaining the distinction is easily available. Somebody should precis it for the prime minister.

The assumption behind that helpful suggestion is that Tony Blair believes what he says about the virtues of the private sector and that, once presented with the facts, he is capable of coming to terms with reality. The first of those propositions I accept without question. About the second, I am more dubious. Under that famous sweat-stained shirt is a heart that beats in time with country-club opinion. Every speech he makes confirms the prejudices that guide him.

Last Wednesday's address contained a perfect example of his instinctive attitude. He promised to extend "opportunity and security to all hard-working families". There are two possible interpretations of that undertaking. The first is the sentimental implication that the British are, without exception, industrious. The second is that, impelled by the middle-class morality to which Alfred Doolittle took such exception, Blair was making clear that there would be no help for the undeserving poor. My guess is that it was a subconscious expression of his feelings about "scroungers", who play so prominent a part in golf club fantasies. The ideology, which he professes not to possess, is instinctive.

Of course, he represents and articulates the most decent version of the prejudices that guide him. He wants the world to be a better place. That is why, for the sake of his conscience, he has to believe that a system that makes the few increasingly rich will automatically benefit the many who are poor. My friends in Edinburgh would call it the "trickle-down effect". It is the sort of attitude that convinces them that his lifestyle and philosophy cannot be separated. I still disagree. The prime minister's problem is not that he holidays with millionaires but that he pursues policies that benefit them.
© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 9/5/2004