Clarke: “Stop abusing Blairites & Cherites” – What’s THAT?

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• IRA report – ‘no longer operational‘ -  A year after Tony Blair’s historic settlement in Northern Ireland, after 10 years work on the issues, it still amazes me that it can be mentioned by the so-called “Labour-leaning” BBC, as well as many others, without even a nod of thanks or recognition in Mr Blair’s direction. Well I, for one, DON’T FORGET SO EASILY. It was Blair wot dun it! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr Blair.

Comment at end

3rd September, 2008

Clarke says: “Time to End Just William politics”

Have no doubt, this New Statesman article of Blair’s former Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s is a withering assessment of Brown, however they dress it up.

He’s been quiet for some time, but this article will re-ignite tensions, undermining Brown’s “re-launch”, already damaged by the chancellor’s gloomy diagnosis/prognosis of our economy, which he described as the worst for 60 years.

And what exactly is Mr Clarke’s remedy? Yes, we know it has something to do with “change” – either changing the present PM or his ways, whichever comes first – so we know the answer to that. But if they DO change the PM prior to the next election, and Labour gets way with regicide a second time, who are we looking at to lead Labour and in which direction?

I am still at a loss.

In one article Clarke has attacked Brown and he hasn’t pulled his punches.

• He has applauded Alistair Darling’s deep concerns over the state of the economy.
• He has insisted there is no Blairite plot.
• He takes on those who abuse the word “Blairite” (and even complains about “cherite” a new one on me!
• He accuses many of traducing David Miliband.
• He says that Brown’s last budget as chancellor was “disastrous”.
• And above all he warns that Labour is heading for disaster.

He adds menacingly – “We will not permit that to happen”

Not that any if this is really new. In January this year, Mr Clarke said that once his close ally Tony Blair announced he would not contest another election in October 2004, questions about the party’s leadership had dominated Labour He said then that debilitating uncertainty about policy directions were weakening Labour.

Article follows from the New Statesman

As various commentators consider Labour’s prospects, the term “Blairite” is being deployed to characterise the policies and personalities of some who question the party’s current direction and urge Labour to face the future. Like “That cherite”, the word is not used kindly. “Blairite” (even “über-Blairite”) is a lazy and inaccurate shorthand. It is intended not to illuminate but to diminish, marginalise and insult. It was, for example, the stock phrase used by the Brown political briefing team to traduce David Miliband’s Guardian article in early August.

Moreover, this misleading language damages the vital need for Labour to move on to new, post-Blair ground. Those journalists and politicians who use it are fighting the last political struggle, the War of the Tony Blair Succession, in a way that owes rather more to Just William and the Hubert Laneites than to the challenges of modern British politics.

In the newspapers this summer, I have read about “eye-wateringly ‘Blairite’ gospels”; about “Blairites” “thumbing their noses” at progressive politics; about “Blair privatisers” and how “Blairites” are the “business wing” who “play the markets against the ‘progressive wing’ of the party”. Some argue David Cameron is now more progressive than new Labour and that Labour under Blair became a party of the centre right.

This deceitful nonsense has to end. Everyone in Labour needs to stop obsessing about the past and to start obsessing about the future.

Central achievement

We should recognise that Tony Blair was an outstanding Labour prime minister who has now departed the British political scene and has no future part to play. His legacy, on the basis of what we inherited in 1997, is historically important, but it does not define the way forward from 2008 onwards. It is worth summarising his approach to government.

In international affairs, Blair stood for a liberal interventionist strategy in our increasingly interdependent world. This attracted fierce criticism in relation to Iraq, but general support on the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. It led him to work with the power of the United States rather than join the anti-American claque, even when George W Bush demonstrated crippling incompetence or opposed British policy. And in the European Union, Blair’s good intentions turned to dust, so that Britain is now more remote from the centre of European power than ever.

Liberal interventionism must be underpinned by military force, but its moral authority was undermined by the glacial progress in preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the ill-considered determination to renew Trident. The rise of terrorist atrocities, including London in 2005, identified Tony Blair with tough efforts to strengthen security, sometimes at a perceived cost to liberty. In some circles, this damaged his reputation, despite the series of progressive constitutional reforms that modernised Britain. As for the economy, the achievement of the Blair-Brown leadership was to demonstrate, for the first time ever, that Labour could run the economy well and promote general prosperity. The contrast with their crisis – encircled Labour predecessors is stark.

This enormous success was accomplished by insulating economic decisions of long-term significance from short-term political pressures. In monetary policy, the institutional means was Bank of England independence. The fiscal method was creation of, and adherence to, the various “golden rules”.

Tony Blair saw this achievement as central, the foundation of his political success. Indeed, he wanted to reinforce this long-term economic rigour by locking the British exchange rate in to the euro, though disagreement with his chancellor made this impossible when joining would have been feasible.

Economic “Blairism” was also defined by opposition to increasing taxes. This reflected the Reagan/Thatcher economic consensus, reinforced by Labour’s 1992 shadow Budget, that tax-raising political parties lost elections. This belief underpinned the disastrous and unfair basic-rate cut, financed by abolition of the 10p rate, of Gordon Brown’s 2007 Budget.

Political tensions

Social policy is the area in which the adjective “Blairite” is most widely and pejoratively used – often inaccurately linked to the word “privatise”. In fact, Blair believed that divisive private alternatives would spread within education and health unless the quality of public services and public life was significantly improved.

This meant prioritising the interests of public-service users and strengthening the state in some areas (for instance, antisocial behaviour). Empowering schools and hospitals, and extending user choice, would maximise public-service efficiency and help prevent the incursion of profit-driven alternatives.

This approach challenged some vested interests and it certainly created political tensions, not least with his deputy prime minister and chancellor. In the end, social change did not come quickly or consistently enough and, despite very major successes, reform in some areas was patchy.

This past week, Alistair Darling rightly said that the “coming 12 months will be the most difficult 12 months the Labour Party has had in a generation”. Blairism as a concept offers little by way of rescue. It is certainly not a guide to action. Equally, however, it is inaccurate and misleading to dismiss as some kind of Blairite rump those who fear that Labour’s current course will lead to utter destruction at the next general election.

There is no coherent Blairite ideology. Many of us who were proud to be members of Tony Blair’s government had differing approaches even then, and certainly propose differing prescriptions now.

Similarly, there is no Blairite plot, despite rumours and persistent newspaper reports. There is, however, a deep and widely shared concern – which does not derive from ideology – that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are, combined with a determination that we will not permit that to happen.

Charles Clarke is MP for Norwich South and a former home secretary

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BBC report on this: Charles Clarke fears Labour ‘destruction’

Labour is “destined to disaster” and “utter destruction” at the next election if it does not change, former home secretary Charles Clarke has said.

But there was not any “Blairite plot” to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he writes in the New Statesman magazine.

He says comments by Foreign Secretary David Miliband had been misrepresented by the “Brown political briefing team”.

Mr Clarke, sacked as home secretary 2006, said there was a “deep and widely shared concern” among Labour MPs.

In his article in this week’s New Statesman, he calls Mr Brown’s decision – in his last Budget as chancellor in 2007 – to abolish the 10p rate of income tax “disastrous and unfair”.

The comment comes a day after the government announced several new economic policies – dubbed by many as the start of a “relaunch” for the prime minister.

‘Not a guide’

Mr Clarke, MP for Norwich South, said Tony Blair had been an “outstanding” prime minister, but added: “Blairism as a concept offers little by way of rescue. It is certainly not a guide to action.

Blairite” (even “über-Blairite”) is a lazy and inaccurate shorthand Charles Clarke

“Equally, however, it is inaccurate and misleading to dismiss as some kind of Blairite rump those who fear that Labour’s current course will lead to utter destruction at the next general election.”

He said there was “no Blairite plot, despite rumours and persistent newspaper reports”.

“There is, however, a deep and widely shared concern – which does not derive from ideology – that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are, combined with a determination that we will not permit that to happen.”

‘Stock phrase’

The former home secretary goes on to say the term “Blairite” (even “über-Blairite”) is a lazy and inaccurate shorthand. It is intended not to illuminate but to diminish, marginalise and insult.

“It was, for example, the stock phrase used by the Brown political briefing team to traduce David Miliband’s Guardian article in early August.”

That article warned against “fatalism” ahead of the next general election and failed to mention Mr Brown once when discussing Labour’s future.

This was interpreted by Labour’s opponents as setting the platform for a possible future leadership bid, which Mr Miliband denied.

Mr Clarke, seen as a leading Blair supporter, has been critical of Mr Brown on several occasions.

In January, he accused Labour of suffering from a “debilitating” lack of direction under him.

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Newsnight headline story was “Re-launch – What re-launch?” They say that the second phase of policy proposals due tomorrow has been postponed due to differences over windfall taxes within Cabinet. A fuel pakage is also due out next week.

Charles Clarke is expected to be all over the airwaves tomorrow.

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My thoughts:

IT CERTAINLY LOOKS LIKE CHARLES CLARKE IS FIGHTING MANY IN HIS OWN PARTY, even though many agree with him that Brown has to change or be changed. Trouble is they have no idea how to change and in which direction.

But he is probably right to point out that there is ‘no Blairite plot’. That is an easy way for Brownites to portray those complaining as having another agenda. The plot or plots, if there are any, are across the whole party.

There is little doubt that Mr Blair is now British political history, sad as that is to some of us. But many who complain about Mr Brown are to the Left of his party without a Blairite cell in their bodies.

That is actually more worrying for Mr Brown as that direction leads only to another generation or two in the political wilderness.

In contrast, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former press chief, insisted Labour could win a fourth term and called on the party to “get out there and start fighting the Tories, taking them on properly and defeating them in argument”.

I can’t help feeling that Alistair Campbell’s comments are hardly going to help. This is now NOT the party that Blair held together in his own imitable way by being the winning glue that bound. Campbell’s remarks may make that even more clear than have Clarke’s.

And whether he is tempted to return to help out his party I can only guess. I guess “no”. Especially when such as The Independent is still intent on running him and Mr Blair into the ground over “doctoring up” the dossier over Iraq, despite several inquiries proving that this was not the case.

Still, the Indy has to do something to justify its value and retain its dwindling readership.

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Tags: 1. Tony Blair, Alastair Darling, Alistair Campbell, über-Blairite, Blairite, Brown (Gordon Brown & his Labour Government, from June 2007), Brown should go, change, change direction, Charles Clarke, cherite, David Miliband, disastrous defeat, Foreign Secretary in Gordon Brown's government, former Home Secretary, from June 2007, Labour due for disaster, we will not permit that to happen