POLITICS
How the death of a princess assisted Mr Blair
BRUCE ANDERSON
There are signs that the cult is in retreat. Twenty-five thousand people had been expected to process along the Princess of Wales's funeral route last weekend. That itself was a modest proposal, given the scale of last year's emotional haemorrhage, but in the event, only a few hundred turned up; the rest were deterred by rain. Feelings that are so easily dampened must be transient, even if newspaper editors still believe that the late Princess increases sales. They will not be so certain next year.
But it may now be possible to assess the broader significance of the Princess's death, and the public reaction to it. At the time, and although the media concealed the fact, the country was divided, into housemaids and traditionalists. There was a traditional Britain, which may have been saddened by the death of a young mother, but which was also relieved by the removal of a threat to the monarchy. Some of the more robust traditionalists went so far as to conclude that this was the best thing that had hap- pened to the monarchy since Mrs Simpson. But the traditionalists quickly retreated into an appalled silence; appalled not by tragedy but by the behaviour of the rest of their fellow countrymen, who had been transformed into hysterical housemaids in the grip of demented mawkishness.
The housemaids won their greatest victo- ry on the day of the Princess's funeral, when even Lord Lambton felt obliged to cancel his grouse-shooting. But by then Mr Blair had become the conductor of the house- maids' orchestra. The death of the Princess not only rendered irrelevant the actual details of her biography; it also enabled Tony Blair to relaunch his premiership.
Though this has now been forgotten, last August had not been a good month for Mr Blair. While he was on holiday, there had been squabbling between John Prescott and Peter Mandelson; it almost seemed as if the government was not just temporarily lead- erless, but directionless as well. Mr Blair may have won his enormous majority; how was he going to use it? The Princess's death taught him how, and confirmed him in a conviction which Peter Mandelson had been trying to implant for several years: that the medium really is the message.
There are two similarities between Mr Blair and the late Princess. He believes, as she believed, in acting before thinking; like her, he possesses a whim of iron. Because she was a princess and not a premier, the consequences of her whims were less destructive. She could only deprive the British army of landmines; he can destroy the House of Lords and break up the Unit- ed Kingdom. Both of them also knew instinctively how to exploit a charitable cause, Aids in her case, the underclass in his, so as to distract attention from the hopeless sufferers to their gracious bene- factors. The sufferings remained unrelieved — but look at the poll ratings.
There is a broader political lesson in this. The Princess derived her potency from being a patron saint: the patron saint of the unhappy. For despite the surface gloss of modern prosperity a large proportion of the population is in a state of near-chronic unhappiness, unfulfilled alike in work, play, sex or friendships. This created an opportu- nity for the Princess, and a vacuum for her cult. The opportunity came from her palpa- ble unhappiness, which seemed to vindicate her fellow sufferers. She, after all, was one of the most beautiful women who had ever lived, with unlimited access to pleasure and luxuries. If she could not find contentment, how could they be expected to?
The vacuum arises from the decay of organised religion, which does not mean, however, that the religious impulse has diminished. How could it, when death is still in the midst of life? Listen to ordinary people on the subject of death; read the tabloids when a popular icon passes. Tens of millions of people in this country do not know the meaning of the words liturgy or theology, but Christian notions of immor- tality are still part of their sentimental architecture. Religion has not disappeared: it has declined into superstition. Archbish- op Coggan has correctly identified the Diana cult as one of those superstitions, but it will take more than a denunciation of potential rivals to bring about a revival of the C of E. Though the Princess's cult may not endure, others will replace it.
Mr Blair has grasped all of this, at least instinctively, so he also understands what many of the governed now want from their governors: circuses, not bread. Most of the chronically unhappy would like to be better off, but they no longer expect the govern- ment to redistribute resources on their behalf — and anyway, most of them are well above any sensibly defined poverty threshold. What they want from govern- ment is show; a public display of identifica- tion with their concerns. In the words of that ghastly Clintonism, which Mr Blair would no doubt have used if the President had not got there first, the voters want to be reassured that those in authority over them feel their pain. That this is as effective a remedy for pain as kissing a small child's bruises better is immaterial.
Mr Blair, a consummate ringmaster, knows exactly how to gratify this circus mentality. The death toll in Ulster's trou- bles has just increased by under 1 per cent, so Parliament is to be recalled to pass new laws. Does this mean that Parliament should have gone into an emergency ses- sion on more than 100 occasions during the past 29 years? Of course not. In Ulster, as in the Middle Ages, there is no shortage of laws, merely of order. What Ulster needs now is not new laws, but more will. Parlia- ment, however, is to perform its allotted role: not to assist in the defeat of terrorism, but to enhance the PM's standing.
This weekend, meanwhile, Mr Blair will be at Balmoral. His decision to find diary problems over the date of the Queen's orig- inal invitation was breathtaking in its cyni- cism, but the voters still seem uncritical. At least Mr Blair will not speak in public; there will be no repetition of his insistence on reading a lesson at the Princess's funer- al. But the photographs will serve his pur- poses; the showmanship will continue. Mr Blair has almost succeeded in concealing the deviousness of the late Harold Wilson in the mantle of the late Princess of Wales.
As for the dead Princess, the mystery continues, even about her remains. There are rumours that she was not buried on the island at Althorp — which would have been difficult, given the water table — but cremated, and that her ashes lie beside her father's. Whatever the truth about the body, the soul is even harder to assess. Was she tempter or tempted; destructive, or a healer; a superb actress, or a genuine possessor of moral depth? Would she have grown in stature if she had lived, or was her death a necessary sacrifice to her reputation?
We will never know, but on one point we can be certain. Anyone who wants to secure the Princess's reputation ought to hope that her cult dies out as quickly as possible, even if that means Mr Blair having to stand on his own two political feet.
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