REPUBLICAN BLAIRISM
Sion Simon on why it should not be assumed that in the long run the monarchy is safe with Blairites
A House of Commons Select Committee on the Monarchy should oversee this simplified system for funding the monarchy. The level of expenditure on the head of state should be determined in the same fashion as all other items of public spending.
Tim Hames and Mark Leonard Modernising the Monarchy, 1998 When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.
Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867
THERE is a difference of opinion between this week's pamphlet from the Blairite think-tank Demos and Walter Bagehot, the writer whom Richard Cross- man described as 'one of the greatest political journalists of his — or indeed of any — age, equally skilled in the crafts of reporter, leader writer or editor'. As Crossman went on to point out in his famous introduction to the 1963 Fontana edition of The English Constitution, 'it was in the course of describing the contempo- rary political scene, as he actually saw it, that [Bagehot] hit upon the secret of British politics — the difference between myth and reality.'
It is fitting, in which case, that the most potent contemporary myth about the monarchy should be exploded by the near- est thing we have to a modern Bagehot, Professor Peter Hennessy, and that the author of the myth should be Bagehot himself. In his 1995 book on the British constitution, The Hidden Wiring, Professor Hennessy convincingly disproved the notion that modern Britain is what Lord Hailsham called 'a democratically gov- erned republic with a wholly admirable head of state'.
Hennessy argues that the political cum constitutional powers of the sovereign are real, live and significant. To attempt to summarise his thesis here would do justice neither to the subtlety of his argu- ment nor to the breadth of his knowl- edge. Suffice it to say that he makes an overwhelming case that the sovereign still has a powerful, indeed pivotal position at the centre of political life which goes far beyond the ceremonial. As the era of proportional representation approaches, Hennessy's discussion of the monarch's role in dissolving Parliament and appointing prime ministers should be required reading for everyone involved in politics.
The first and most basic point to draw from Hennessy is that the future of the monarchy is not the question about the kind of Britain we live in that it is usually assumed to be. The sovereign remains a uniquely important political actor. It is for that reason that bien-pensant opinion is wrong to dismiss, as it is wont to do, the debate about the future of the monarchy as a lot of fluff and flim-flam about anachronistic finery and flags. It is not. The sovereign is so tightly woven into the fabric of high politics that usually percep- tive commentators are unable to see the royal lips move as they whisper their way around Westminster.
The second area to examine is what, if anything, should be done. Conservative opinions on the future of the Windsors are quite logical: the monarchy is A Good Thing; it is unique; it works; it glorifies the name of the nation; if it aint broke don't fix it, and so on. Even I, who do not sub- scribe to this analysis, think it is a shame that one so rarely hears it put forward with any real vigour by senior members of the Conservative party.
There is an equally logical left-wing analysis: the royal family are nothing more than blue-blooded leeches on the body politic; the hereditarY principle is absurd, immoral and a disincentive to meritocratic striving; the divine rule of kings is an un- sustainable anachronism; monarchy is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and so on.
We regret that in the heading to Ms Clare Short's article last week a comma was omitted after the word 'no', thus making the heading say the opposite of what Ms Short wrote. The heading should have read: No, better than the previous 500. Lurking in the long grass between these two perfectly reasonable arguments we find, as ever, the Blairite position. As usual, there is some confusion between the Blair view and that of the Blairites; and, less conventionally, some interesting ten- sions in the mind of Blair himself. The official position is that the Prime Minister bows to no one in his support for the insti- tution of the monarchy, nor in his affec- tionate respect for our beloved Queen and the dear old Queen Mum. He is only hon- oured to be able to serve, however humbly, in helping them with the difficult but cm- cial task of modernising the monarchy, just as he has modernised Labour. The People love the Queen. Blair loves the Queen. QED.
Blairites, on the other hand, do not love the Queen at all. More than anything, New Labour types are meritocrats. It is often remarked that the circle around Blair is made up of southerners who went to Oxford. While it is true that there is nary a working-class accent to be found in No. 10 Downing Street, it would be a mistake to infer from Blair having been to a well- known public school that his followers are in any way posh. None of them are that. The Blairites are the children of the ambi- tious, professional middle class. With one or two social-climbing exceptions, they are meritocrats to the very centre of their beings.
Blair himself is more complicated. He is a more conservative character than the ideological junk-bond dealers who sur- round him. He is more rooted in the mid- dle class of the Fifties and Sixties, more deferential, more quietly and convention- ally ambitious than the young modernistas. Furthermore, adaptiveness to the public mood and the distancing of Labour from anything which could be interpreted as socialistic are two key strands of Blair's political credo. There could be no more powerfully symbolic a piece of class poli- tics than undermining the monarchy. It also fails the classic 'is it really a priority' test that Blair always uses to counter left- wing ideas.
So there is no chance whatever while Blair is Prime Minister that the status of the monarchy will be altered other than of its own volition, from within. But the inheritors of Blairism will yet see the King of England on a bicycle. The logic of meri- tocracy, modernism and progress is so remorseless that the next generation of Labourites will be bound to make serious efforts to disestablish and depoliticise the monarchy. Even Blair himself lacks any sense of conviction when rehearsing his defences of this unique British institution. If you doubt for a moment that the next wave of New Labour will bring down the monarchy, just ask yourself this: what else are they going to do?
Sion Simon writes a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph.
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