POLITICS

A chronicle of negotiations between

a spider and a fly

BRUCE ANDERSON

Paddy Ashdown has never been much of a thinker. When he speaks, there is a note of tension in his voice as if he is straining to say something important. But he never suc- ceeds. He merely sounds as if he is suffer- ing from constipation. Sir Paddy's politics are easily summarised. He wants to change everything, but he has no idea how or why.

This made him the first modern Liberal leader to be in sympathy with the party's activists, who have the same instincts and defects. Not only is Paddy Ashdown often photographed in an anorak; like most Lib- eral foot-soldiers he is always wearing one, inside his head. There is a great bond which connects Paddy Ashdown to his party: naivety.

. That makes him an excellent diarist. To Judge by the extracts from his forthcoming book, he is what the anthropologists would term a 'naive subject', and, as such, a valu- able source as he chronicles his Pooteresque blunderings around Westmin- ster and Islington in the months before the last election. The then undubbed Mr Ash- down — has there ever been a more benighted knight? — wanted radicalism, and change, and, sort of, radical change, and he thought he had met someone who would give it to him. But it was Mr Ash- down's misfortune to pin his hopes on a man whose many faults do not include naivety. Paddy Ashdown's account of his dealings with Tony Blair read like a fly try- ing to negotiate a coalition with a spider.

Mr Blair's attitude is equally easy to sum- marise. Until the evening of 1 May 1997, he thought that he might need Paddy Ash- down, so he was trying to buy him as cheap- ly as possible, although he was prepared to have him in his Cabinet. (Imagine sitting in Cabinet with Paddy Ashdown, and having to endure all that endless chuntering and earnest waffle: Tony Blair would have got his deserts.) Instead, however, the electorate gave him rather more than his deserts, so suddenly it was 'Bye bye, Paddy — don't worry, we'll call you, when we get round to the next stage of the project. What's that? Oh yes, "radical change": absolutely. We'll call you, Paddy.'

Sir Paddy records some ineffable Blairisms, including the biggest whopper yet recorded: 'I have looked back at hist- ory,' claims Mr Blair. This, from a Prime Minister who has read less history than almost all previous occupants of No. 10 and has probably thought less about history than any of them. There has never been a more ahistorical Prime Minister. Mr Blair divides recorded history into three eras: Ante-B, Limelight-B and Post-B; he is sole- ly concerned with the middle phase.

He went on to tell Paddy Ashdown the conclusions he had drawn from his pro- found historical retrospect: that the division of the Left had enabled the Tories to domi- nate 20th-century politics and it was up to the two of them to ensure that this did not happen again. But that was not a conclu- sion drawn from long study; it had been dictated to him over the dinner table at East Hendred, by Roy Jenkins. The voice is the voice of Tony; the history is the history of Roy.

Sir Paddy quotes a further Blair observ- ation, which enables us to vet the PM's claims to historical wisdom. Tony Blair thought that he could swing a referendum on proportional representation during this Parliament, tut I don't want to say so beforehand because it will open us up to the attack of being more interested in con- stitutional reform than [in] real things that matter in Britain'.

Admittedly, this ought not to come as a surprise. In view of the frivolous manner in which Tony Blair approached Lords reform and devolution, we should have known that he regards the constitution as a trifling mat- ter. If he had really looked back at history, he would have understood the meaning, derived from Latin: a constitution is some- thing that helps us to stand together. He might also have realised that there are advantages in having a substantially unwrit- ten constitution. The experience of history — at least outside the USA — is that writ- ten constitutions, being on paper, are easy to tear up. Tony Blair thinks that the British constitution is not real; he is cer- tainly trying to make it so.

Mr Blair may devote negligible mental energy to history and to the constitution, but there is one topic which never exhausts his attention-span: elections. 'I have become convinced of the need for electoral reform in Britain,' he declares, but 'I don't want it to be discussed during the election at all . . . [that] . . . would be bad for us and good for the Tories.' An exasperated Paddy Ashdown then asks what Mr Blair would say if asked a question about proportional representation during the election cam- paign. 'I would respond to questioning along the lines of "If I was asked in a refer- endum how I would vote today, I would vote no" and leave it open as to whether I might change in the future.'

There we have it: a Prime Minister who takes it for granted that he should be enti- tled to prevaricate in order to mislead the voters. Sir Paddy is fortunate in his timing, for Mr Blair has just tried to repeat the trick over the euro. The tabloid headlines highlighted the 'today I would vote no' ele- ment; the subsequent reporting in the broadsheets concentrated on the Downing Street small print, to the effect that the PM's position remained unchanged. But the 'no' will have had more impact on less thoughtful voters.

Over PR, Tony Blair did have a plan. He would set up a commission, to be chaired by the Nestor of electoral reform, Roy Jenkins. Needless to say, the Jenkins report would recommend PR, at which point Mr Blair could assure the voters that having started with a neutral, nay sceptical, atti- tude to electoral reform, he had been con- verted by the brilliance of Lord Jenkins's reasoning: 'I need the commission's cover to change my mind.'

On the euro, it is Gordon Brown's five tests which will provide the cover, available whenever the PM wishes to use it. But there is a problem.

In his straightforward-kind-of-guy mode, Mr Blair complains to Paddy Ashdown. 'I don't understand why you guys aren't pre- pared to accept that we have come a long way in committing to a referendum. After all, it could have been kicked into touch.' But touch is precisely where PR has ended up, along with Paddy Ashdown himself.

This is nothing to do with Paddy Ash- down's credulity. The credit belongs to those current guardians of the constitution, the Tory press. have to deal on a day-to- day basis with this ravenous beast,' says Mr Blair, using his private code for the Tory press: not a term he employs when its edi- tors are at dinner in No. 10. 'They are out there waiting for me.' Well, so they are, Tony, and you will not fool them as easily as you gulled poor old Pantsdown.

Which is just as well for anyone who believes that this Prime Minister cannot be trusted on the constitution. Or on anything else.