POLITICS
The problem is simple: Tony's a pretty straightforwardly devious sort of guy
PETER °BORNE
It is rare for a government's reputation to fall as fast and as far as Tony Blair's New Labour over the past two weeks. Only three comparable cases spring to mind: Harold Wilson and the sterling devaluation of 1967; Jim Callaghan and the winter of dis- content in 1978-9; John Major and Black Wednesday in 1992.
It remains probable that Tony Blair will clamber his way out of his present night- mare, even though the precedents are far from auspicious. Whether he does so or not, the importance of the last two weeks is very great. For the eight years between September 1992 and September 2000, New Labour enjoyed a huge lead in the polls while the Tories jogged along at rock bot- tom, never rising far above 30 per cent. That trading range has now been decisively breached. For the first time since Black Wednesday, voters seem able to own up to supporting the Conservative party without feeling a sense of humiliation.
Three events coincided to make Septem- ber 2000 the climacteric month for the Blair administration. The first was the Millennium Dome fiasco. It is now clear that Michael Heseltine's brainchild is turning into one of the major financial scandals of public malad- ministration since the last war. The refusal of any government minister to take responsibi- lity has created an ugly stench that will get much worse with the publication of the National Audit Office report in November.
The second event was the taxpayers' revolt. This prodigious occurrence demon- strated how far Tony Blair has come in the three years since he entered Downing Street. From tribune of the people to arrogant, out- of-touch and hated. From one of us to one of them. Even now, he and his senior colleague Gordon Brown have not the faintest idea what it was all about. And that is not too sur- prising, because nobody else does either. The voters out there have always been a terrifying mystery to politicians from all parties: after last week they are twice as terrifying and four times as mysterious. It seems clear, at any rate, that they have taken against Tony Blair. It is impossible at present to say whether this strongly felt emotion will persist, and whether, after taking time off to consider, the populace will eventually deem that William Hague is yet more repulsive than the Prime Minister. Both points are the subject of eager debate at Westminster.
The third event of the last week is the seri-
alisation of a book by the political columnist Andrew Rawnsley. Rawnsley has long been viewed with mild suspicion, and sometimes a tinge of jealousy, by fellow journalists. By contrast, Labour politicians have regarded Rawnsley as reliable and trustworthy. This is why so many senior people in Downing Street, Tony Blair included, were inclined to co-operate with his book about the first three years of New Labour, which has been given the ironical title Servants of the People.
It can only be presumed that Downing Street made the fatal misjudgment of talking to Mr Rawnsley because it was felt that he would present the government in a favourable light. Perhaps Rawnsley set out to do just that, and the task proved beyond him, the facts simply too intractable. In any case, it is enormously to his credit that he resisted the temptation to present New Labour as it likes to be seen. Instead he has written a devastating piece of contemporary history: as well-informed as it is lethal.
Rawnsley's most unsettling claim is that Gordon Brown told a lie, while Tony Blair `slipped into mendacity', as they fought to save their skins during the Ecclestone Affair. Mr Rawnsley was being publicly rubbished, and his claims rebutted, by New Labour this week. Privately, it was a more complicated story. It is a sign of the bitter, relentless and vindictive hatred between Downing Street and the Treasury — which Rawnsley has recorded with such loving care — that deep pleasure was being expressed within No. 10 that the Chancellor was bearing the brunt of the flak.
But Tony Blair does not deserve to escape lightly. Rawnsley says that the Prime Minis- ter's 'slip into mendacity' occurred during the famous interview with John Humphrys where he made the cringe-making claim that `I'm a pretty straight sort of guy'. The most generous interpretation does not allow Tony Blair to escape as less than very devious indeed. It is damnable that the Prime Minis- ter should have resorted to telling little fibs while simultaneously claiming to represent cleanliness in British public life.
But predictable enough. A scandal of this sort was always likely to occur at some stage. New Labour has been constructed around deception. There is a particular point where the spin for which New Labour is renowned crosses over into cheating and falsehood. New Labour has never been chary of going beyond that point. One senior Cabinet minister, Peter Mandelson, can give the impression that he lies just for the fun of it. Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of the Sun, says, 'I have told Mandel- son to his face that he dissembles.'
Tony Blair himself has a track record of mendacity and invention. Jon Sopel's sym- pathetic biography of the Prime Minister contains a riveting account of the evasions and falsehoods involved in extracting the information that he was once a member of CND. Tony Blair frequently reinvents reali- ty to suit his purposes. On Question Time a year ago he claimed that he had voted for Michael Foster's anti-hunting Bill and told the audience that it had been blocked by hereditary peers in the Lords. Both claims were false. There is a growing list of further examples.
Before the last election Alastair Campbell was condemned by the judge Sir Maurice Drake during a bitter libel case as 'by no means a wholly satisfactory or convincing wit- ness'. This did nothing to dissuade Tony Blair from making him Downing Street's official spokesman after the election; since when Campbell has done nothing to indicate that Sir Maurice Drake was barking up the wrong tree. Telling the truth comes a long way down Downing Street's list of priorities. Too many Cabinet ministers have been caught out cheating for short-term political advantage. Whether it is Jack Straw and his fictitious rise in police numbers, Gordon Brown and bogus claims on health spending, or Stephen Byers and his press notices that are intended to deceive, it is the same old story.
It was an old Marxist axiom that truth is a bourgeois concept. It has become a Blairite axiom too. Last week's fuel revolt was a symptom of a crisis of confidence in our democratic institutions. Downing Street's culture of deception has played its part in creating the conditions for that cri- sis. It is Tony Blair's urgent task to rebuild that trust, not merely for his own sake but for ours as well.
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