The Blair Legacy - more than Iraq?

The hot topic of the moment is Tony Blair's legacy. What will he be remembered for? What would he like to be remembered for? Everyone's talking about Iraq - will it be the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister's defining moment? Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson argue in their book Fantasy Island that Tony Blair should not be remebmered solely for mistakes made over Iraq. Instead light should be brought to the countless other mistakes he has made, leaving behind him a seedy dreamworld mired in debt, drifting into a crisis of unemployment with a diplomatic and military role it cannot afford.

Here is an article written by Fantasy Island authors Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson:

HE was the Prime Minister with the Scottish surname and the posh English voice, a man with a touch of the actor and a reputation for slipperiness who presided over a consumer boom, committed Britain to buying American missiles and hankered after deeper British integration in Europe.

For his critics, he was someone whose reputation for creating a balmy economic climate came at a price to be paid in the years to come.

But enough of Harold Macmillan. What of Tony Blair’s legacy?

Funnily enough, the era of ‘Supermac’ may provide intriguing parallels with the Blair years beyond those mentioned above. In both cases, it was the pundits and the grand personages of politics who tutted about the corrosive effects of consumer debt (hire purchase then, credit cards now), of workplace rigidities (trade union restrictive practices then, employment rights now), of gambling (Premium Bonds then, super-casinos now) and cosying up to the US president (John Kennedy then, George Bush now).

By contrast, in both cases, it could be argued, ordinary working people have experienced a golden age. Like Mr Macmillan, Mr Blair came to power in the second half of a decade in which affluence took the place of austerity and rationing (early 1950s) and of unemployment and house repossessions (early 1990s).

The public is rather less impressed by high-minded criticisms of Britain’s low moral tone.

But Mr Blair is unlikely to be satisfied with a domestic legacy dominated by surging house prices, a consumer boom and some modest redistribution from rich to poor. Furthermore, from the Scottish perspective, it would appear unlikely that he would wish to be remembered primarily for the Scottish Parliament, given his ability to keep his enthusiasm for that institution firmly under control.

Unfortunately, to venture beyond this, as Mr Blair and his apologists are wont to do, is to leave the real world for one of fantasy. On this strange planet, ever-increasing levels of personal indebtedness are nothing to worry about, prices can fall while earnings rise, wars can be fought on a peacetime budget, a ‘knowledge economy’ can emerge from an education system marked by low standards and workers can be urged to be more ‘flexible’ while paid employment becomes ever more legally protected and regulated. And that is without mentioning the costly bureaucratic restructurings that have passed for ‘reform’ in the public sector, or the illusion that environmental protection is entirely compatible with limitless economic growth. Scotland, of course, has experienced a subsidiary, tailor-made Tony Blair fantasy of its own, in which the devolved parliament was simultaneously an essential constitutional reform and a development of no real importance.

But then, that was the essence of the ‘third way’ that its critics rarely grasped. It was not a question of splitting the difference, but of pretending there was no difference to split.

Of all Mr Blair’s illusions, this was the greatest.

By Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, authors of Fantasy Island, ISBN 978-1845296056

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Comments

[Bruce]

I have a very comfortable lifestyle which is down to in part the Labour government so should be acknowledged.

But in a few years if someone ask me my thoughts of Blair I am confident I would immediately say he led us into a war, at the behest of the American president, based on lies and cover-ups.

Where I would agree with the article is that once I step back and think a bit longer I would probably still be unlikely to get my first step on the property ladder and still be paying tax for grand, but poorly conceived projects, like the 2012 Olympics and the shiny new NHS computer system.

[Themis]

Aside from the war, it's the constant overspending and ever-increasing debts that are a worry. Although Blair may be officially resigning, the effects of his atrocious public spending record will be felt for years to come. Not only that but the constant barrage of stealth taxes, especially in London, cause people to borrow ludicrous amounts of money, on top of the insane state of the housing market. Constant borrowing and offsetting seems to be Blair's tactic, and he's forced it on us too.