POLITICS
Mr Tony Blair has learnt a valuable lesson from Colonel Sanders and Anita Roddick
BORIS JOHNSON
Any businessman rolling the Labour- Party's new improved Clause Four about his mind will instantly recognise the kind of texts that have inspired Tony Blair. Harp- ing as the new constitution does on words like 'quality', 'service', 'endeavour', `achieve', 'community' and 'prosper', it belongs unmistakably to a modern literary genre: the US-style corporate Mission Statement. In deciding to revamp the char- ter of Labour Plc, Mr Blair is mimicking the world's most successful companies.
For instance, in 1952 one 'Colonel' Sanders of Kentucky dipped a chicken drumstick into salty batter-mixture and (allegedly) pronounced: 'It's finger-lickin' good!' Ungrammatical, likely to encourage bad table manners; and yet the founder's words have been inscribed on countless boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Recent- ly, however, the strategy men in Kentucky have decided that this sentence is no longer enough, alone, to uplift the workforce and to convince an apathetic public of the moral dimension to selling fried chicken.
After what one can only assume was a full process of consultation with fran- chisees, Kentucky Fried Chicken has a new Mission Statement. Like the words of Sid- ney and Beatrice Webb, the honest excla- mation of Col Sanders has been updated and blurred. KFC's goal in life is, I can reveal, `to provide families with affordable, delicious, chicken dominant meals'. Notice the adept insertion of the hot-button word `family'. 'Families' also appears, for the first time, in the new Clause Four.
In the development of their Mission Statements, the Labour Party and top cor- porations have converged from opposite directions. The 1918 Webb formulation has been junked essentially because Labour has so crushingly lost the argument about the role of commerce in society. Commerce, on the other hand, has understood that the public likes capitalism to sound caring. By 1995, both the Labour Party and Big Busi- ness have adopted identical methods of selling themselves. Both have produced Mission Statements in which the strategy is, within a few honed words, to achieve the smooth yoking-together of antithetical ambitions; or, to put it another way, to have one's cake and eat it.
Compare the 'Corporate Mission 1992- 2000' of McDonald's Hamburgers, which strikingly resembles Blair's effort in Ian- guage and tone. Perhaps conscious of accu- sations that they employ student hamburg- er flippers on Third World wages, McDon- ald's says: 'The company will be led by the needs of our customers and committed to the welfare and development of our staff.' See what taut equipoise is achieved between (a) the 'needs' of customers, chiefly for cheap food, and (b) the duty of McDonalds to its wretched staff. One might compare Labour's new balancing act, in which 'the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe'.
Like Blair, commerce has understood how valuable the Mission Statement can be for fudging a failure to stick to principle. One thinks of Anita Roddick's breathtak- ing assertion that the Body Shop's mission is `to passionately campaign for the envi- ronment and for the protection of human and civil rights, against animal testing with- in the cosmetics and toiletries industry'. Brilliant, eh? On the one hand the Body Shop is (a) in favour of animals. On the other hand, it must, like Labour, deal with the world as it is, so (b) like the rest of the cosmetics and toiletries industry the Body Shop has to use products tested on animals. Just such a recognition of reality lies at the heart of Tony Blair's new Labour Party constitution. The Fabian goal of public ownership is still there. But a future Labour Britain in which 'those undertak- ings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them' must face up, Blair admits, to the existence of 'a thriving private sector'.
Statements of this kind give an opportu- nity for a delicate adjustment of stance. Remember KFC's wonderful new aspira- tion to provide 'chicken dominant' meals. Yes, even as the menu at KFC is no longer in thrall to chicken, so Labour is no longer dominated by the Unions. Just as a KFC Family Feast now consists of additional fries, coleslaw, BBQ beans and Sara Lee apple pie, so New Labour will also co-oper- ate, says the revised constitution, with 'vol- untary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies'.
Not least, the Mission Statement is an opportunity for rhapsodising. Take the sweep of ambition of Ben and Jerry's ice- cream, which is apparently intended to `improve the quality of life of a broad com- munity, local, national and international'. Just so is Labour committed to working with 'international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy' and so on. A mission statement can say what the firm does not want. Pret A Manger, the fashionable new sandwich chain, says, 'We ruthlessly avoid preservatives, additives and obscure chemi- cals.' Tony Blair's new-look Labour is still hostile, we gather, to the wealthy few.
The similarity between Labour's new Clause Four and the most right-on com- mercial Mission Statements is uncanny. I don't know whether John Prescott is the sort of ex-sailor to make use of the Body Shop. But I could swear he has cribbed Roddick's vow `to courageously ensure that our business is ecologically sustainable, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future'. Labour's new Clause Four calls for a `healthy environ- ment which we protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations'. The new Labour Party speaks of 'solidarity, toler- ance and respect'. The Body Shop offers `honesty, fairness and respect'.
It would be dangerous, though, to mock. My purpose is not necessarily to debunk Labour's new constitution. After all, these companies whose guff-filled Mission State- ments Mr Blair imitates are phenomenally successful. If Anita Roddick can persuade millions of people to buy her delightful coconut oil shampoo or taramasalata facial scrub, then why should identical techniques not persuade us all to vote Labour?
Where is the Tory Mission Statement? One thing is certain: more people will buy Big Macs in 1997 than will vote Tory. The time is approaching when the Tories may have to consider following Blair's lead, sacking Mr Hanley, and putting Colonel Sanders in charge of Central Office.
Boris Johnson is assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph.
Previous page
