POLITICS
In 15 months Mr Blair has achieved something that took the Tories 15 years
BRUCE ANDERSON
Derek Draper is an amusing rascal. When he admits to being brash, cocky and boastful, none of his many friends will con- tradict him; this is a New Labour version of Mr Toad. But before we accept his claim that he was guilty solely of letting his tongue run away with him, one point still needs to be cleared up: a small matter of a quarter of one per cent.
The Observer did tape the conversations with Mr Draper. It records his excitement, because Gordon Brown had announced that public spending would increase, not by 2.5 per cent a year as others had forecast, but by 2.75 per cent, as his firm had told Salomon Smith Barney. How had he man- aged to get it right? 'I'm afraid it's inside information . . . if they [Salomon] acted on it, they'd have made a fortune.' They might also have been breaking the law.
I am certain that Salomon's was not guilty of misusing any information which Mr Draper might have given them, but two questions remain. Was his boast to the Observer merely a self-puffing fabrication, or did he do what he claimed to have done? If so, who gave him the information?
Derek Draper is no economic forecaster; he has neither the training nor the tempera- ment. He is a superb guide to the socialis- ings, rivalries and bitcheries of New Labour; whom Peter is smiling on, whom Gordon is scowling at, who is sleeping with whom, where they like drinking, what they are wearing. On all those topics, whose impor- tance grows daily as this government consol- idates its moral base, Mr Draper's expertise is unrivalled; Mr Toad is also the Jennifer's Diarist of New Labour. But percentages of public spending? Hardly.
It is easy to imagine him swanking around Soho announcing that he had been right and everyone else wrong; Mandy was going to buy his next two suits not from Vermini, but from Bulimiani, as he alone had predicted. No, it wasn't intelligent guesswork: he did not have to guess, he knew, because he had overhead Peter chat- ting on the phone to Carla Powell. If Derek Draper had said all that, we would believe him, but an economic forecast? Dolly Draper would probably think that was a good name for a new restaurant. No one would be interested in Derek Draper's views on the economy, unless he could con- vince them that he had a hot tip from the Treasury stables. Over to the Treasury, for this is not the first time that the present regime has been accused of a casual attitude to market-sen- sitive information. In the past, Treasury junior ministers and political advisers and the chancellor himself — were quickly made aware of the need to avoid leaks which could move the markets. Political advisers knew that they had to be especially careful. If there were a leak, the system's first instinct would be to blame them, if only because it is easier for officials to get heavy with a young pup than with a privy counsellor. Not under Mr Brown, however. His young pups are also among his closest friends. As soon as Ed Miliband and Ed Balls arrived at the Treasury, it was made clear to officialdom that those young men already knew everything there was to be knowed. Secure in the Chancellor's favour, they had no need to listen to civil servants.
There was an early controversy about the money markets and the house of Goldman Sachs — though no suggestion that the firm had acted improperly. But as another min- ister said wearily at the time, the new Trea- sury team 'think they are above markets'.
So if a Labour-supporting lobbyist had wanted information to encourage a poten- tial client, as Mr Draper put it, `to stuff my bank account at £250 an hour' is it incon- ceivable that an old friend at the Treasury might have helped? When the cash-for- secrets story broke, the Brownites were gleeful, assuming that Mr Draper had dam- aged Mr Mandelson's chances of becoming Mr Blair's Cabinet-rank chief of staff. So the Treasury advisers will want to reassure the world of their own innocence. For that to happen, Messrs Balls and Miliband must be questioned, on oath. In the meantime, apropos of Mr Draper's statements, one hypothesis cannot be discounted. When he claimed to have had inside information, he might have been telling the truth.
Because Derek Draper is so colourful, other important elements in the Observer article have been overlooked. The lobbying firm of Lawson Lucas Mendelsohn (LLM) takes its name from its three founders, all of them former New Labour apparatchiks. According to the Observer, Mr Lucas offered examples of 'intelligence which in market terms would be worth a lot of money'. Did he, and, if so, what were they and from whom did he obtain them?
Unlike Mr Draper, the partners of LLM are thoughtful characters, and their com- ments take this story well beyond the indis- cretions of young men flown with wine. Lobbyists are effective under this govern- ment, Mr Lawson tells us, because: 'On big issues especially, they don't know what they are thinking. Blair himself doesn't know what he is thinking.' Thus, any firm which wanted to evade environmental restrictions in order to build polluting power stations would have to ensure that its proposals were drafted according to the New Labour style book. LLM could help, for between £5,000 and £20,000 a month. 'Tony is very anxious to be seen as Green,' said Mr Mendelsohn: 'Everything has to be couched in environmental language — even it it's slightly Orwellian.'
Jon Mendelsohn is an intellectual, so it was fitting that he should construct the gen- eral theory of lobbying under New Labour. The parliamentary 'super-majority . . . means the only countervailing force is the media and business. So when the economy turns soft, as it naturally must, we will make certain they stay with us. If we have business and media, the people will come along.'
Mr Blair may want to distance himself from the lobbyists, but he cannot refute Mr Mendelsohn's version of Labour's electoral strategy, which is the most accurate and succinct analysis we have yet had. 'This gov- ernment likes to do deals,' said Mr Lucas, and given the need to keep big business in Labour's electoral coalition, the deal-mak- ing will go on; favours is as favours does. Whatever Mr Blair now says, and whatever cosmetic restrictions are imposed, the lob- byists will still run the favours market.
At moments, the paladins of LLM may sound like sordid money-grubbers, but these lads are among New Labour's best and brightest. Their cynicism is not a per- sonal aberration; it is an attribute at the core of the Blair project. But this creates dangers, even for such a confident govern- ment as this one.
Whenever there is cynicism in politics, corruption is never far behind. It is no acci- dent that the Tories' problems with sleaze began only after an increasing number of the party's supporters had concluded that the Major government was in office only for the sake of remaining in office. It took the Tories around 15 years to get into that situation. Mr Blair has managed it in less than 15 months.
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