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Dear Minzo,

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Yesterday was the end of an age, supposedly; I thought back to the start of the Blair age. I was in Lonsdale hall at University in Derby; I had stayed up all night as an age of optimism and change beckoned. It was the first time I was really into politics; Graham Millichap and I were sat up all night delighting in the Tory collapse. As with most viewers Michael Portillo’s utter humiliation was the crowning glory to a good night. We had mobilised the whole student halls to vote for labour, this was ridiculous as we were in Derby a stronghold if ever there was one. Our MP was Margaret Beckett; a former labour leader as solid as oak but we had to make our votes count. I rushed trough the halls chastising any non-voters; I even managed to rouse several stoners form their drug-fuelled haze with a promised the labour would probably legalise drugs and marijuana definitely.

Most times in life it is hard to know what you want, it is far easier to know what you don’t want. We didn’t want the Tories; the word Tory was a byword for Racist or small-minded or Venal or corrupt and out of touch. We thought that the malaise was caused by something inherent in Tory ideology but now we know different. It is all about the length of time spent in office; a hubris that correlates with how long you have been in power. The Tories were oblivious to the strength of feeling around the country; they were caught in their own bubble of hype, ranting on about issues that simply weren’t relevant such as keeping the pound when it was never on the cards.

The abiding memory of Blair is going to be two things; Iraq and Spin; if the Tories were the one who broke your heart then New Labour was the one who pretended to care and broke it anyway. Spin was the first deadly sin of Labour but there were reasons for this. The political media was vastly right-wing when I came to this country; it was mostly “foreigners taking our jobs and women” type articles, isolationism/Atlanticism meant that Britain viewed the world with suspicion.

Labour masterstroke was that they figured that Political journalists at the time were basically lazy; they sat for hours in the lounges of power waiting for story to break, often their drinking partners were the politicians themselves and a kind of symbiosis was developed. Lazy journalists wanted their stories handfed to them with no need for research, referencing, even spellchecking and so the first half of Blairs government was pretty smooth sailing. He had a vast majority of 160 MP’s, a docile media, a patient public; he could blame everything on “18 years of Tory misrule!” as they still do from time to time.

Blair is a product of his time, but 3 things propelled him to the top and kept him there.

The death of diametric politics – a fancy word for the end of the cold war. This meant the death of true socialism as a viable ideology. From now on socialism would have to be restricted capitalism with a conscience. It also meant a politician could have a wide range of views depending on the given policy such as being conservative on Business issues while being liberal on social issues.

The development of Election as a science – over the last 300 years of democracy in UK we have learnt the political science of daily politics. It used to be an art form, now it is a science. With precise targeting you can achieve the number of votes required within very narrow demographic namely White middle-class voters in swing seats. For East is East and West is West; some will always vote Tory and some Labour but the twain is what determines what is east and west.

The development of 24-hr mass media – Blair went to meet with Murdoch and sealed a deal for his media empire to swing to him. And so his cult developed; he hitched himself to the media and the relationship was cosy for a while, until the Iraq war allowed them to break free. It was a Faustian pact where both parties thought the other was the devil. The media likes to think of itself now not as a reflector of reality but reality itself, that is the first cause of celebrity culture.

So Tony Blair was our first Celeb PM; he will no doubt grace the party circuit and be filmed with all the stars. The legacy of his rule will be substantial, it will be the high water mark of Labour; new or otherwise. He will have destroyed the labour party as a force and I don’t see the Labour party ever gaining power again. The product of his rule will be cynicism; Politicians are by nature deeply suspicious of the public, a necessary evil they have to court from time to time. And the public always think that a new bright young thing will ride in and save the day. From now on everything a politician says is immediately dismissed as cynical and rightly so because campaigning is an all year round business due to 24-hr media.

The best example of why Labour is defunct as a political force is a lady called Hazel Blears. She is the Labour party chairman and has a long history of service in the party. She is a Salford lass; the kind that would put you at ease and probably make you feel really jolly after a meeting. But she has been coached and coached, and that jolly Northern lass is now droning drill in you head. Politicians have lost all their personality, the message comes first and it has to be drilled constantly like a Tibetan chant so the public repeat it like zombies.

RECORD INVESTMENT IN SCHOOLS!
RECORD INVESTMENT IN NHS !
RECORD INVESTMENT IN PUBLC SECTOR REFORM!
RECORD HIGH IN EXAM RESULTS!
RECORD EMPLOYMENT!
RECORD WEALTH!
RECORD (insert word)
RECORD UNPOPULARITY!

THE OTHER SIDE

RECORD VIOLENT CRIME!
RECORD HERPES AND WELL AS OTHER STD'S!
RECORD ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR!
RECORD TEENAGE PREGANANCY!
RECORD FAMILY BREAKDOWN!
RECORD HIGH TAXES!
RECORD HOMELESSNESS!


You name it and Labour broke the record in it, whether it is actually true remains to be seen. The Roman saying of “Lies, Damn lies and Statistics” has never been so true. Labour brought in systems analysis to measure government performance in a way that has never been seen before, this will no doubt continue under any government but will always give us skews view of reality. NHS waiting lists are down, but there is a waiting list to get on the waiting list. Exam passes are up but they are easier now. Employment is up due to a 2 million new immigrants. Asylum claims are down because they are processed as migrant workers. Wealth is up due to unrealistic house prices and the city. Most schools are still waiting to see the true results of extra spending. But for Labour every cloud has a silver lining. I laughed the other day when the Labour housing minister was on BBC2 and she blamed the lack of housing on the fact that people are living longer. So basically all this investment in health has lead to Grannies living longer and clogging up the housing market; can’t they think of the rest of us? Maybe we should decrease our spending on health if only to open up the housing market. Cynical? I don’t know where I get it from. Maybe a focus group can tell me.