There was probably a moment when the publishing suits – sorry, the guys in jeans and black-rimmed specs – were gathered around their think tank table, glasses half-filled with mineral water (sparkling, naturally) and the crumbs of their Prêt-a-Manger multi-pack sandwiches drizzled across the veneer, and this book must have seemed like rather a good idea.
Can’t (or don’t want to) put up a big cash advance for the memoirs of Peter Mandelson or Tony Blair, don’t fancy any of the second division names on offer, but want to have at least one heavyweight political tome to show off at the trade fairs and keep the bosses happy?
Thus The Verdict – a promising title, bearing in mind the Downing Street punch-ups. In the blue corner, Blair, and in the red corner… seconds out… round one… and the winner is…
Such hopes are dashed as early as page nine of the introduction when we are sanctimoniously informed: “We do not discuss the internal conflicts in the Cabinet or Labour Party, nor ministers’ psychology…we look away from the Westminster charivari.” Shame.
Did Labour Change Britain? ask Polly Toynbee and David Walker on the cover. Well, did they? Tony Blair rode in on a tidal wave of promises about building a better Britain, a fairer and more honest society, with a more open and transparent form of government. In short, he said, he would wipe away the wickedness of the Conservative reign and re-build our broken society.
The genesis of New Labour – and the reason why we voted for them – was never about checks and balances, more policemen on the beat, more nurses on the wards, more teachers, more lollipop ladies, more firemen, more hoses, more bandages and so on. Gordon Brown never understood that as he threw up his torrent of statistics. It was about building something better, building something special.
So did they deliver? Well, for the majority of those who voted them in, the story of New Labour is about the death of the dream. There was no wonderful new dawn, no social revolution and no sign of a fairer Britain. If proof was needed of the failings of New Labour and the feelings of those who brought them to power, then it came in May this year when voters had the chance to record
their own verdict on New Labour at the last general election.
“Things Can Only Get Better” – the D:Ream song that was first a dancefloor anthem and then a chart success – rang out over the PA during Blair’s triumphant coronation in 1997. Really? New Labour, you were having a laugh. No wonder Ed Miliband tried to put as much green space as possible between him and them during the leadership election.
But such sentiments do not trouble Polly Toynbee and David Walker. Instead, they aspire to far loftier matters; their assessment of whether Labour changed Britain is focused on whether in government they executed the New Labour manifesto.
It turns out that they, too, belong to the world of scoring, measurements and checks and balances. You can rest assured that Gordon Brown has the answers they seek with league tables that demonstrate they made more changes, more adjustments and had a better success rate than any political party before.
But however well intentioned Toynbee and Walker’s objectives, they present a double bind. First, that of a lack of historical perspective. Surely, for instance, it is far too early to measure whether their highly prescriptive and regulated education programme has been a success or not? Or, for that matter, whether the environmental initiatives they rolled out – to use some New Labour phraseology – will make a difference. All the while, the scientists are still squabbling about global warming – fact or fiction?
The other problem is rather more prosaic, that of a lack of resources. I am sure that Toynbee and Walker are hardworking and diligent hacks who worked long into the night after carrying out their day jobs and I dare say they took on a couple of grateful internees or researchers to assist with the project, but if you are really going to find out whether programmes costing hundreds of millions of pounds worked or not, you need to conduct some extremely detailed research and evaluation.
So as we are taken after 13 years through Labour’s end of government report card, examining their performance on education, health, social services, crime, social equality, etc, the thing that is constantly missing is detail. The authors are good with the broad brushstrokes and the paint roller, but not so good at the minutiae. Had Thomas Gradgrind been their editor, he would have been screaming: “Facts, facts, facts.”
What you have here has been harvested from observations scribbled on the back of a fag packet. Thus education, rattled off in 27 pages, skates round a couple of schools in the Greater London area and then, via Sheffield, ends at a college in Middlesbrough, with conclusions such as: “They made us feel we mattered” and “there is a climate of fear about targets.”
The chapter dedicated to the health of the nation is similarly lightweight – it strikes an uncomfortable personal resonance as I recall years ago writing feature reports that were based on half a dozen conversations, a few facts and some anecdotal evidence. In the hurly burly of a daily newspaper, that’s all you can expect, but when you pick up a book you rightfully anticipate something rather
more substantial, something that provides something truly insightful.
Thus the problem with The Verdict is that it falls between just about every stool to be found in the bars around Westminster. Too lightweight and glib for political junkies and anoraks but too dull and musty for those who like a little sparkle and controversy with their political cornflakes.
To return to the introduction – in truth there is no reason to venture any further into this book – they talk to the Hatt family (he is a roofer and his wife works in customer services for a supermarket) and ask for their conclusion regarding the health service. “The care’s not there any more, not like it used to be.” Almost 300 pages later they point out that the family were life long working class Tories; thus Labour could and would never satisfy them. But, if their views can be dismissed so easily, why bother talking to them in the first place?
Of course there were some achievements during the New Labour years. In between giving away our gold reserves, selling our economy to the gamblers and the spivs, they did achieve one thing: peace, for the moment at least, in Northern Ireland. The foundations may have been laid by the Tories and September 11 was undoubtedly a catalyst with the cessation of the flow of money from America, but after Mo Mowlam had finessed the groundwork, it was Blair who banged heads together and drove the deal through.
It was an achievement for which he has every right to be proud. Curiously there is just one mention of the Good Friday Agreement in The Verdict and the entire episode is waved away in a couple of paragraphs. Beyond that, it has to be acknowledged that, for all his failings, like Margaret Thatcher before him, Tony Blair gave Britain a status way beyond its true place in the new world order.
What makes me want to bury these two wretched authors up to their necks in New Labour manifestos, though, is that they give us no real feel or sense of the New Labour years. How can they possibly ignore the embarrassing Cool Britannia party in Downing Street, cash for honours and the vertigo that attaches itself as a disease to those in power?
How can they skip around the treachery of the assembled acolytes, apparatchiks and sycophants in Number 10 as they tried to read the shifting sands of power and position themselves accordingly? No mendacity from Peter Mandelson? No dripping poison from Alastair Campbell? Mandelson warrants just one reference and Campbell only one more than his namesake Naomi!
So the verdict for The Verdict. A disappointing term’s work. Should pay much more attention. Three out of 10.
