Mark Steel: Blair's downfall: a tale of love and money
Blair's support for Bush was a result of his adoration for the wealthy and powerful
Published: 02 May 2007
Ten years ago today was brilliant. It was a euphoric sunny optimistic morning. It's hard to remember it like that, just as it's hard to recall you had a wonderful romantic wedding day, if it turned out you'd married a junkie who then sold your furniture and smoked your hamster.
But that shouldn't rob of us of that night of joy - Mellor, Hamilton, the ones you've forgotten like Waldegrave - then that glorious awesome sight, containing an inner transcendental beauty like a majestic sunset over the Pacific: the demise of Portillo. It appeared every creep in Britain was being humiliated in public, and I started wondering if Dimbleby was about to say "Now we're going over to Telford, where Noel Edmonds is being dangled naked so children can prod him with stingy nettles."
So despised were the Tories that the task of appearing exciting and radical was embarrassingly easy for New Labour. There was euphoria from many people just because they announced an "ethical foreign policy." How grubby must the Tories have been, for millions of people to shout "Wow - they say they'll be ethical." If Blair had any imagination he'd have made similar announcements in every area, such as "We have decided our economic policy is going to be 'Not Mental'." And millions would have screamed "It's amazing, everything's changed."
And to be fair, the foreign policy did turn out to be different. Because the Tories' had been secretly selling weapons to Saddam, which only came out in the Scott Report. So the Tory policy was to claim Saddam didn't have weapons that he did have, whereas Labour policy was to ... (surely you can see where this is going).
Many explanations are now offered for how that optimism was trashed, the most common being that Blair was fine until Iraq. But right from the start the hope was running up against the reality, such as the promise to stick to the Tories' spending plans. At the time we didn't realise this included sticking to how much you have to spend to get a peerage, but they'd done all they could to dampen hopes for radical change.
Then at some point in the first few years the enthusiasm dissolved, so the election in 2001 boasted the lowest turnout since everyone had the vote. The reasons may be complex, but it's unlikely to be the one offered by New Labour, which was that voters were reluctant to turn out for them because they were "basically satisfied". This was so intriguingly surreal they should have tried out some more, such as: "The low turnout was a result of how most voters are now made of cake. This makes voting much more difficult, as they're worried the polling booth may tip up and crack their marzipan."
Just as spectacular was the decline in Labour's membership. John Prescott announced a drive to double it, following which it halved. No doubt, being a politician, he'd find a way to say that according to some mathematical formula that takes into account the shape of the universe half is actually more than double, but it's another sign of the decay in support for the New Labour cause. And again this happened before the war in Iraq.
So perhaps there's another explanation for the decline of Blair and his project. The joy felt by so many at the fall of the Conservatives was a sense of a new atmosphere; an end to an era in which greed triumphed over all. At least to some extent, there'd now be a challenge to the rule of excessive wealth. And here we are.
As one newspaper fumed with rage yesterday that "this has been the greatest decade in British history for the very, very wealthy. Under New Labour the worth of the 1,000 richest people in the country has soared by 263 per cent. It has indeed been their platinum age." And the newspaper complaining about this was the Daily Mail. The Daily Bastard Mail. Once the Daily Mail is moaning that you're too kind to the rich, it's like Posh Spice coming round and saying "Blimey, you're too skinny", and buying you a Twix.
It wasn't one mistake or one flawed policy that eroded all that initial optimism, it was New Labour's very meaning. In fact, Blair's support for Bush was a result of that adoration for the wealthy and powerful. Iraq wasn't an aberration, it was a consequence of all he stood for. But Iraq is what he'll be remembered for - forever always, no matter how much he tries to orchestrate a "legacy" around social reforms or whatever. He might as well have got Harold Shipman to say: "It's not fair. No one remembers how I helped out Mrs Ambridge at the Post Office with her shingles. Just 'murders murders murders', that's all the bastards go on about. Well, they'll be sorry when I've gone."
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