Rant: Gordon Brown and Blair's legacy
11 Jan 2005 by Paul Davies
The one thing that Tony Blair desires above all else is genuine popularity and adulation – to go down in history as a great leader of Britain. He wants to be Thatcher without the image problem.So far, he's the man that's made Labour electable – no mean feat, and one for which he deserves a lot of credit. However, it's not enough. Over the years, the public perception of poor old Tony has slipped towards sleazy. As Boris Johnson so eloquently put it: "Tony Blair is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall."
Even his triumph of (presumably) three terms of Labour rule will always come with the caveat that New Labour were only so electable because the Tories were so useless. It wasn't all Blair – Kinnock was a hair or two away from victory in 1992; Tony could be seen as merely being in the right place at the right time.
Much as he has tried to champion his Third Way, as Francis Wheen summed up: "What was the Third Way? No one ever knew, but it was somewhere between the Second Coming and the Fourth Dimension." Rather than trying to unjumble the doctrine of Giddens and Campbell, it is easier to remember Blair as a cross between Thatcher and the Cheshire Cat – not the best legacy.
Therefore, if Blair wants to enshrine himself into the upper echelons of British political history, he needs to do something risky, daring and ultimately sacrificial: he needs to destroy the Labour party.
Pollsters have shown the root of Blair's popularity and success lies in his perceived position on the political spectrum. The majority of the populace align themselves with Blair, at just a little right of centre. Gordon Brown and the rest of the Labour party are off to the left with the Conservatives that people still recognise thought to be a bit too far right.
If Blair leaves the party in the hands of Brown and the theories of Old Labour, the Tories (assuming they can find someone who isn't instantly off-putting as leader) will be free to take back their traditional ground.
There is no reason to expect that Labour will achieve anything over the next four or five years that demands further re-election, by which time people will be ready for a change. If Labour loses its previously iron-grip on the reins after the second man in the New Labour revolution takes over, Blair will go down as the sole reason behind Labour's success; his position in history secured.
Now, if we can just get Boris (or his dad) to take over the Tories...
