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June 4, 2001, U.S.
Edition
The Politics
Of Post-Affluence
Tony
Blair's winning formula in Britain: half Alan Greenspan, half Oprah Winfrey.
By
Fareed Zakaria
It's been a rough election season for Britain's ruling Labour Party. On the day that it released its campaign manifesto, televisions were buzzing with a more vivid image: Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punching out a protester who had thrown an egg at him. Then Tony Blair himself was accosted at one of his carefully choreographed photo ops by a woman who complained bitterly about the National Health Service. (More recently he squirmed through a tirade from a student about high tuition bills.) Another senior Labour minister, Jack Straw, was jeered while addressing a group of police officers. And after two weeks of these assorted embarrassments, the party's lead in the polls rose slightly.
That the Labour Party is certain to be returned to power on June 7 is not surprising. A competent government presiding over peaceful and prosperous times is usually given a second term. What is striking about this election, and important beyond Britain, is the Conservative Party's utter helplessness. Whatever it says--cut taxes, cut spending, curb immigration, stay out of Europe--either backfires or somehow doesn't gather steam against the juggernaut that is Tony Blair.
Blair's success is rooted in New Labour's steadfast move to the political center. "Frankly, we are nothing like the Labour Party of old," said Peter Mandelson, one of the politicians most responsible for this shift. A senior Tory put it more bluntly: "We are running against a Labour Party leader who is essentially a conservative." Its new manifesto moves Labour one more big step to the right: it suggests privatizing the delivery of public services. It's good policy but even better politics, since it becomes even more difficult for the right to outflank it.
But Blair utterly dominates the scene for another, broader reason: he is the politician perfectly attuned to the age we live in. Political scientists distinguish between two kinds of issues, "positional issues" and "valence issues." The first are ones on which the public has sharp, divisive and incompatible views. (Think of policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1980s.) The second are ones on which voters broadly agree on goals and simply want to figure out the best way to achieve them (good environment, health care and public services). The mood of the British public--and, indeed, the public in most Western nations these days--is defined almost entirely by valence issues ("valence" means the ability to unite). With both sides embracing the market and no great foreign-policy divides, people want politics to be about pragmatic solutions to problems, not ideological blood feuds. Blair appeals in this atmosphere, because he governs and campaigns not by engaging in political divisions but by transcending them.
Not so William Hague. The young Tory leader is a diminutive, balding bull terrier of a politician. He is disciplined, energetic, intelligent and genuinely eloquent. A superb debater, he has won almost every encounter with Blair in the House of Commons (which is why Blair won't debate him during the campaign).
Hague is a great politician--a great 19th-century politician. All his skills make him thrive in the traditional Westminster model of leadership. Some of his friends believe that Hague is by nature more open, inclusive and modern. But somehow, perhaps because he is so good at the fiery partisan battle, he has chosen to run a campaign that emphasizes divisions. He is emulating not George W. Bush's touchy-feely campaign but Bob Dole's angry, defensive one. (Memo to William: Dole lost, Bush won.) Except on Britain's future in Europe, none of Hague's pounding seems to be having much of an effect. (And if Hague makes the final week of a losing campaign a referendum on Europe, since he will lose the election, he might also discredit the anti-Euro line.)
Tony Blair's sanctimonious, postpartisan approach is easy to laugh off. In the wicked British rag Private Eye, the prime minister is parodied as an Anglican priest, the vicar of St. Albion, an earnest prelate who always seems somewhat pained that his congregation doesn't plainly see that he is doing wonderful things for them. But the last laugh may be on Blair's opponents, because this very attitude may be the key to his popularity. Blair's politics are important, but so are his atmospherics. "He is the first Labour Party leader to be able to sound reassuring to the south England bourgeoisie," said Charles Moore, the editor of London's high-Tory Daily Telegraph, ruefully explaining Blair's appeal even in the rich, traditional, conservative heartland.
We live in an age of affluence, and our politics are shaped by that reality. People demand good economic management, but beyond that they also want their politicians to sense that they are grappling with softer issues of quality of life and values, issues that require not ideology but empathy. If the cold war required a Churchillian model of leadership, what people want now is competence and caring--half Alan Greenspan, half Oprah Winfrey. Clinton, Blair and Bush all understood this--though Bush seemed more conscious of it during his campaign than in recent weeks.
Mathew d'Ancona, one of the brightest young columnists in Britain, put it this way: "The old question for politicians was, whom do you trust with your pocket-book? The new question is, whom do you trust with your kids?"