ANOTHER VOICE
Socialism is now 'downshifting' but it hasn't shifted its desire to punish the more privileged
PETRONELLA WYATT
There is a new fashion called downshift- ing, or downsizing, which has come over here from America. It is supposed to mean concentrating only on the things that are important to one by divesting oneself of extraneous baggage. Or, as defined by an American 'trend analyst' with the impossi- ble name of Faith Popcorn, 'We don't want anything more. What we want now is less. More and more less.'
I hate to spoil the luminous clarity of that sentence by any commentary, but it sud- denly struck me that we have been through all this before. Oliver Cromwell was a downshifter; so were Rousseau and Robe- spierre, who certainly favoured more and more less heads. Gandhi's elaborate fasts surely made him the Marco Pierre White of downshifting. Then there was my cousin Harry, who suddenly went a bit queer a few years ago and moved to a pig farm in the Andes.
New Labour is the natural party of down- shifting. When America catches a cold New Labour sneezes. Tony Blair and Gor- don Brown are first-rate downshifters. One can barely think of a policy that has not been shifted. If New Labour believes in anything it is definitely in more and more less.
Many of the party's high-profile support- ers, moreover, such as Melvyn Bragg, are reported to favour downshifting. This may be because downshifting is usually a luxury that only well-off modish types can afford. The rest of us are too poor to downshift. We cannot concentrate only on the things that are important to us because we lack the means to do so.
When you think about it, downshifting is not really an ingratiating proposition; it is an excuse at best for idleness and at worst for self-serving piety and humbug. The most depressing example of the latter fea- tured in a recent story about Gordon Brown. Apparently Mr Brown said that if he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer he will downshift parts of that office. Above all, he will downshift Dorneywood, which has been an official home of senior minis- ters since it was donated to the nation earli- er this century.
Recently, Dorneywood has been lived in by the Chancellor, but Mr Brown would rather the house was opened to the public or turned over to a charity. Actually, nei- ther of these proposals is feasible. When the house was bequeathed to the nation there were strict rules as to its use, which included its not being made a museum. This is also the case with Chequers and Chevening. Nor could Mr Brown turn Dor- neywood over to a charity, for the simple reason that it is already run by one — the Dorneywood Trust.
But let us pass over Mr Brown's apparent ignorance. One is more interested in his motives. According to a friend, 'Gordon thinks it wrong that ministers should have lifestyles more like 19th-century aristocrats than ordinary men and women. One of the Tories' problems is that they have lost touch with the people.'
Downshifting, of course, is all about being in touch with the people — it comes with divesting oneself of extraneous bag- gage. But what does 'being in touch with the people' actually mean? It is a quaintly old-fashioned phrase. In this context it would seem to suggest a mob .or rabble, or at the least an uneducated mass. This is hardly in keeping with the canons of New Labour which regard even the recognition of a working class as a heresy. Nor do I think that Middle England, Mr Blair's much-prized constituency, would relish being described in such terms.
Mr Brown is in error if he imagines that publicly rejecting an advantage like Dor- neywood would make him more voter- friendly. This country is supposed to consist of men and women who are `aspirational', but in order to be aspirational one must have something to which it is worthwhile to aspire. New Labour has finally given us permission to aspire. But to what? To sub- fuse suits? To stripped pine? To more and more less?
A large country house, on the other hand, is part of every Englishman's picture of himself. We cannot pretend that social advancement has nothing to do with mak- ing public service more attractive. We need our magnificoes to be magnificent, or at least to look it, pour encourager les autres. New Labour is threatening to downshift our dreams. If it continues to do so, then our public figures of the future will be lim- Here it is, in black and white.' ited to lunatic activists and mediocrities.
If a leader is to lead he should do it from a position of obvious authority and power, from the back seat of a gleaming, chauf- feur-driven car, from grand drawing-rooms and imposing offices. Not all that long ago we used to build our soldiers and statesmen great estates as tokens of our gratitude. Parliament voted Blenheim Palace for the Duke of Marlborough. Apsley House and Stratfield Saye were presents to the Duke of Wellington from the British public. I am sorry, Mr Brown, but one cannot admire a man who discards such tokens of national favour for a two-up-two-down in Islington or some other modish district of London. That he should wish to do so is not pleasing to the public but downright insulting. Who does he think he is to refuse the gracious gift of an official home? If Apsley House was good enough for Wel- lington, surely Dorneywood is good enough for Mr Brown.
But New Labour has a mean and churlish air about it. John Mortimer, who voted Labour at the last election, once remarked to me that he was a Roundhead with the tastes of a Cavalier. Old Labour had dis- tinct Cavalier tendencies, which is why it is only old Labour MPs who continue to go on junkets. New Labour is Roundhead through and through. Try as it may, it can- not disguise its disapproval of the person who is having a better time. This is now explained, naturally enough, in other ways. Collectivism has become `communitarian- ism% socialism is 'downshifting'. But there is only one real impulse behind it: the desire to punish anyone held to be better than anyone else.
Downshifters, however, are rarely vulner- able to any questioning of their motives, even when, as is often the case, those motives are ultimately phoney. Gandhi once told the British that for reasons of social equity he intended to travel only by third-class rail. Had he been allowed to do so he would almost certainly have been crushed to death. So the British were com- pelled to buy a brand-new third-class car- riage, decorate it to Gandhi's taste and attach it to a special train. Gandhi told his friends that he never really intended to travel third class at all, it was just a ruse to extract more money from the British. Per- haps Mr Brown's sudden desire for the sim- ple life is also a ruse. Perhaps it is just a trick to get his hands on Chevening.
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