Friday 26 September 1997

Mark Seddon, Tribune

In the years since the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader there has been a succession of frothy hagiographies and vacuous volumes that have promised to reveal all on the machinations of New Labour, yet managed the opposite.

So, it was a relief to learn that Paul Anderson and Nyta Mann were planning to stir the pot with a book that promised to be "anything but the authorised version of New Labour". And what is promised is largely delivered. Yet their starting point comes not from Blair's election night but the accession of Neil Kinnock as party leader.

This carefully researched record of a party's progress – or a process of ideological surrender on a grand scale, depending on your point of view – not only examines the role of many of the key figures, it also records the policy evolution in areas ranging from defence to Europe. If anything, the authors are a little too understanding of the motives and reasons for those who began the decade opposing nuclear weapons, membership of the European Union and the broad sweep of Thatcherite economic and social policy, but who ended up by embracing it.

The sharper barbs are reserved for Jack Straw and his pre-election playing to the gallery, although Straw the minister is not proving to be as bad as some feared.

Equally, there is an appreciation of the sheer hard work of the much misunderstood Gordon Brown, albeit tied to some healthy scepticism that his supply-side economics will have a lasting impact. Not surprisingly, Peter Mandelson does not emerge smelling of roses.

There is plenty of original background material which sheds light on the tortuous relations between senior Labour figures, as well as the rather disturbing allegation that the leader's office at one point discussed taking over and neutralising the troublesome Tribune, an option that surfaces every so often but has always ended in red faces all around.

One conclusion drawn by the authors is obvious though rarely discussed. It is that New Labour owes rather more to Old Labour than it would care to admit. The new government – especially in areas of constitutional reform – has taken up where James Callaghan left off, but with rather more success so far. The big difference is that any pretence at redistribution for greater equality has been dropped. Whether this still entitles New Labour to be described as a democratic socialist or even a social democratic party, is a question the authors answer only indirectly.

But for those who want to be informed rather than simply entertained, Safety First is a must.

Mark Seddon, Tribune

In the years since the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader there has been a succession of frothy hagiographies and vacuous volumes that have promised to reveal all on the machinations of New Labour, yet managed the opposite.

So it was a relief to learn that Paul Anderson and Nyta Mann were planning to stir the pot with a book that promised to be "anything but the authorised version of New Labour".

And what is promised is largely delivered. Yet their starting point comes not from Blair's election night but the accession of Neil Kinnock as party leader.

This carefully researched record of a party's progress — or a process of ideological surrender on a grand scale, depending on your point of view — not only examines the role of many of the key figures, it also records the policy evolution in areas ranging from defence to Europe.

If anything, the authors are a little too understanding of the motives and reasons for those who began the decade opposing nuclear weapons, membership of the European Union and the broad sweep of Thatcherite economic and social policy, but who ended up by embracing it.

The sharper barbs are reserved for Jack Straw and his pre-election playing to the gallery, although Straw the minister is not proving to be as bad as some feared. Equally, there is an appreciation of the sheer hard work of the much misunderstood Gordon Brown, albeit tied to some healthy scepticism that his supply-side economics will have a lasting impact. Not surprisingly, Peter Mandelson does not emerge smelling of roses.

There is plenty of original background material which sheds light on the tortuous relations between senior Labour figures, as well as the rather disturbing allegation that the leader's office at one point discussed taking over and neutralising the troublesome Tribune, an option that surfaces every always ended in red faces all around.

One conclusion drawn by the authors is obvious though rarely discussed. It is that New Labour owes rather more to Old Labour than it would care to admit. The new government especially in areas of constitutional reform — has taken up where James Callaghan left off, but with rather more success so far. The big difference is that any pretence at redistribution for greater equality has been dropped. Whether this still entitles New Labour to be described as a democratic socialist, or even a social democratic party, is a question the authors answer only indirectly.

But for those who want to be informed rather than simply entertained, Safety First is a must.

Thursday 25 September 1997

Roy Hattersley, Guardian

Blair's Hundred Days by Derek Draper (Faber, £7.99) 
Safety First: The Making of New Labour by Paul Anderson and Nyta Mann (Granta, £9.99)

To publish in September a book which deals with August's events is an achievement in itself. But in the case of Derek Draper's Blair's Hundred Days, it is more a tribute to the technical efficiency of the printers than to the author's ability to write about contemporary events in a way which is distinguishable from overnight journalism.

The later chapters combine the repetition of newspaper reports ('Today, McMaster's suicide note is published. It is addressed to Tony Blair and Chief Whip Nick Brown . . . ') and banal comments ('It is difficult to maintain high standards of conduct in every local fiefdom'). The narrative passages are invariably written in the present tense. No doubt Draper hoped to create the impression of urgency. All the strange technique achieves is confirmation that the book has been put together with more concern for speed than quality.

The early chapters were clearly written with the conscious intention of combining enough 'insider information' to make the book saleable with a public relations gloss on everything that New Labour did during its first three months in office. The result is an account of events on which future historians will not be able to rely. Tony Blair's popularity - probably unique in modern democratic history – is too great to need a hagiographer's gloss. In Blair's Hundred Days, the lily is not so much gilded, but made to appear covered in tinsel.

The book does contain the occasional revelation. John Prescott proved himself a 'moderniser' by making suggestions about how the general election war room should be laid out and thus 'exhibiting impressive techno-credentials'. I suspect that Prescott, like me, thought that politicians were classified according to their ideas, not their keyboard skills. And since it is there on the printed page, we must believe that Tony Blair really did say that, in choosing a candidate to fight the Uxbridge by-election, 'what matters is that we have someone who is thoroughly New Labour and a supporter of mine'. The attitude is not unique: Franz-Joseph, considering the promotion of an Austrian army officer, said 'I know he is a patriot, but is he a patriot for me?'

Safety First: The Making of New Labour does the government the courtesy of examining its origins and ideas seriously. That inevitably involves criticism. But grown-ups' respect for Blair and Blairism is much more likely to be encouraged by real analysis than by facile praise. Do not assume from that modest encomium that Safety First's authors endorse Old Labour. Far from it. They pronounce its intellectual death. 'There is no magazine, web site, think tank or discussion group network that yet looks set to become influential in pushing a credible all-embracing left alternative' to New Labour.

That undoubted fact is made all the more inexplicable by what Safety First has to say about the defining policies. 'The idea that education is about more than providing Britain with a highly skilled workforce and socially responsible citizenry – that it is a way of helping people to discover and enjoy the infinite riches of human culture, develop their intellectual capacities and their creativity, and find personal fulfilment – has been all but forgotten in Labour's enthusiasm for 'investing in human capital in the age of knowledge', as Blunkett put it.' One of the strengths of Safety First is its understanding that New Labour's popularity is not the product of brilliant party management and charismatic leadership, but of the way in which Tony Blair has chosen to go with the mood of his time – particularly the mood of the key suburban middle classes who, these days, make and break governments.

Paradoxically, where inside information really counts, Safety First kicks Blair's Hundred Days out of sight. Its account of John Prescott's emergence as a major political figure - and the parallel development of his super-ministry – is an important analysis of the most interesting metamorphosis in the modern history of parliamentary government. The Chancellor's cautious adoption of 'Euro- keynesianism' – the idea that the European Union can stimulate demand and growth – is charted in fascinating detail. Safety First is not the last word on the making of New Labour, but it is the best so far.

Friday 19 September 1997

Gillian Peele, Times Education Supplement

Safety First: The Making of New Labour by Paul Anderson and Nyta Mann (Granta, £9.99)

On May 1 this year the British electorate buried a Conservative government which had, to its mind, grown tired, arrogant and sleazy in power, and replaced it with New Labour, a beautifully packaged and relaunched product which looks set to dominate the market for some time to come.

Yet Labour's massive victory came after an unprecedented series of shattering general election defeats, the cruellest of which was perhaps that of 1992. Labour's ability to bounce back was the result of a massive reconstruction of the party's policies, leadership and image - combined, of course, with no little help from the Conservatives.

Paul Anderson, a former editor of Tribune, and Nyta Mann, a former assistant editor of the New Statesman, are well-qualified to analyse the politics of the contemporary Labour party. They are not primarily concerned with retelling the miracle of Labour's revival, though they add much colour to the story along the way. Rather they seek to uncover the policy disputes, contradictions and the conflict of personalities that lie beneath the smooth face of New Labour.

Tony Blair's leadership is the obvious starting point of Anderson and Mann's discussion. The authors believe that Blair has not added very much to the substance of Labour's policy changes, and argue that Blair was very much building on policy revamping initiated by Neil Kinnock and John Smith.(They do note, however, the extent to which Blair tweaked many policies in a more populist direction, giving New Labour a distinctly different tone from the party of Hugh Gaitskell and Anthony Crosland.) Blair's contribution was to promote party modernisation through the dumping of Clause Four and then to transform Labour's policy-making through the involvement of the mass membership.

Such involvement may be superficial and smack of plebiscitary democracy; but it is more likely than traditional Labour channels to produce policies in tune with the electoral Zeitgeist. What worries Labour intellectuals in these developments is the extent to which they also strengthen the leader and his circle, and emphasise the presentation rather than the substance of policy.

On one level, Blair's contribution to the scale of Labour's victory was immense. As the authors acknowledge, Kinnock received highly negative responses as leader and Smith, though in many ways appearing more straightforward than Kinnock, also appeared cautious and less than committed to modernisation. Blair's style fitted perfectly the needs of a party that wanted to differentiate itself from "old Labour" and to appeal beyond traditional Labour constituencies to the media-conscious majority of middle England. Yet the authors clearly have their doubts about Blair's ability to realise his ambitions for his government, not least because they see no coherent political philosophy underpinning his approach to government.

Detailed chapters neatly document the process of steering New Labour away from its traditional moorings and highlight the tensions in such fields as education, the economy and foreign policy. The emphasis on communitarianism rather than liberty is analysed in the chapter on home affairs. There is a useful chapter on New Labour and the constitution. This area of policy is, in many ways, the most intriguing, both because constitutional issues have provided the party with its most radical themes and because, if followed through, many of its ideas could produce a genuinely different polity in the United Kingdom. A chapter on New Labour's relations with the trade unions illuminates the schizophrenic nature of a party that remains conscious of its roots and traditions while seeking to deny the most powerful element in its past a privileged role in the present.

Anderson and Mann's discussion of New Labour policy inevitably focuses also on the personality conflicts and tensions within the Cabinet and the wider party, including, for example, the hostility between Blair and Labour's European Parliament contingent. It may be that the divisions and tensions hinted at in this account will end Tony Blair's extended honeymoon with the British electorate and frustrate many of his ambitions.

For the moment, however, as Anderson and Mann note, the sheer size of Labour's majority allows its whips a latitude of which poor John Major's parliamentary managers could only dream. Yet, regardless of whether it ultimately ends in tears, New Labour is hardly likely to unravel immediately. Anderson and Mann have written a highly informative guide book to a political party whose identity and character remain in transition.
  • Gillian Peele is tutor in politics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford