Blair's Sentimental Finale Papers Over Cracks
Evening Standard
Tony Blair bowed out at the Labour Party conference yesterday swept along by a tidal wave of emotion. Labour is an intensely sentimental party and Blair's exit speech touched every button. I have not seen similar emotion in response to a Labour leader's conference speech since Michael Foot bowed out in 1983. In Foot's case he had led us to our greatest post-war defeat. But the party loved Foot and knew he loved them. Noticeably, Blair felt he still had to reassure conference on that point, more than 10 years after becoming leader.
Sentimentality aside, the speech was a closely argued defence of Blair's record and a detailed description of where he thinks the party should go from here. People complained that Mrs Thatcher wanted to be a 'backseat driver' after she stepped down; Tony Blair wants to weld his very own car navigation system to the windscreen, so that, even after he has gone, it will be his voice intoning 'turn right now'. One of the minor mysteries of European politics is how Blair held his party in thrall for so long. One answer is the way he carefully dismantled its democratic structures. The fact that conference can meet this week and there is no debate on Lebanon, when Labour people have talked of little else all summer, shows how far removed the conference now is from being a genuine vehicle for debate.
The truth is that if Labour Party members genuinely supported Blair on the war in Iraq, on Lebanon and on his unquestioning support for George Bush, he would not have been forced to announce that he was going next year. The fact that the conference centre in Manchester yesterday was awash with sentimentality does not alter the gulf between Blair and much of his party. For all the speculation, the party's preference for its next leader is clear: Gordon Brown will be the next Prime Minister. It's partly a question of how the party's electoral college is structured. Trade unions, constituency parties and MPs have a third each of the total votes. No one challenging Brown will win in the trade union section, since his potential opponents, like John Reid, will be even more Right-wing. Similarly, the constituency parties are unlikely to vote for anyone but Brown. That sews up the contest.
But just as important, Brown offers an appeal to the party's heart - and not just, like Blair, at conference time. Brown offers Labour what the Left yearns for - a vision of the good society, a dream. 'A soul,' he said on Monday, 'not just a programme.' It may not be polished. But it still gets us every time.
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