Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 27 July 2001
One of the most consistently frustrating features of politics in the age of soundbites and focus groups is the almost pathological reluctance of most professional politicians to make any case in public that is remotely controversial.
Of course, politicians have always avoided arguments when they think they are on to a loser. I remember with a shudder the asinine debate on British membership of the Common Market in the run-up to the 1975 referendum, when most of the politicians on both sides preferred to talk about the price of a large white sliced loaf and a quarter-pound of tea rather than the real issues at stake.
But the scale of evasion has grown massively over the past 15-20 years as spin doctors and marketing consultants have become ever more pervasive in politics.
The received wisdom these days is that nothing turns off the punters more than an argument, and that the main result of engaging an opponent or a critic in rational debate is to give legitimacy to his or her point of view. Far better to ignore your opponents and critics, dismiss them as extreme, eccentric or old-fashioned, or silence them by fair means or foul — and simply press ahead with your controversial measure until it acquires the status of fait accompli.
That makes you look strong, which is certainly much better than appearing wise or rational and might even be the perfect state of being in modern politics. As long as you are careful in your handling of the media — all questions agreed beforehand, answers learnt by heart, no interviews with “hostile” journalists et cetera — you should be able to get away with anything short of a poll tax, a devaluation or the provision of passports to dodgy businessmen.
I first came up against this phenomenon in Labour circles when, in the aftermath of the 1987 general election, the Labour leadership decided to drop the policy of ditching Britain’s “independent nuclear deterrent” and removing American nuclear weapons from British soil. The change was pushed through Labour’s policy review process without a single senior Labour politician ever offering a sustained argument for it in public. Afterwards, the best anyone managed to come up with by way of justification was a cynical declaration that times had changed. Because the Russians were more open to disarmament initiatives, we no longer had to be.
The trend became more marked in the Labour Party with the rise to the shadow chancellorship of Gordon Brown, a man who will do anything to avoid explaining his position in public if there is the remotest chance that someone might disagree with him. He refused to justify his silence on the over-valuation of the pound during the sterling crisis that led up to Black Wednesday. He declined to be drawn into defending his enthusiasm for the Maastricht treaty. And he dodged all debate on pensions policy, public spending or taxation.
But it was after Tony Blair became Labour leader in 1994 that the refusal to engage or justify really became endemic. “New” Labour didn’t argue the case for sucking up to big business and the yellow press – it just did it, utterly shamelessly. It was the same with adopting the Tories’ spending plans and promising a referendum on joining the euro.
Since 1997, shirking discussion has been the Government’s norm. No one ever explained why we needed the Dome, or postponement of British entry into the single European currency, or single-parent benefit cuts, or undemocratic reform of the House of Lords, or toothless freedom of information legislation, or the scrapping of student grants — we just got them. And, amazingly, hardly anyone bothered to complain or demand that the government account for its actions.
In the past few weeks, however, something has changed. True to form, no one in government has bothered to justify the two most controversial measures of the second term announced so far — the apparently only half-formulated plans to hand over delivery of more public services to the private sector and Gordon Brown’s refusal to compromise with Ken Livingstone over London’s underground.
But the response, from MPs, press, unions and public alike, has been unlike anything “New” Labour has had to face before. People simply cannot understand why the government thinks the private sector offers a solution to chronic understaffing and poor management in the public services — or why Brown believes the tube could be improved by being split up and run by private companies in the same way as the railways.
Through their unwillingness to account for their actions, Blair, Brown and their minions have managed the considerable feat of appearing at once cowardly and arrogant. And for the first time it seems that their pig-headedness in pursuing unpopular policies could land them with their own poll tax. Which raises the crucial question of who will be the Michael Heseltine and John Major of the Labour Party . . .
