Forget a 'better Blair' and find a new standard bearer

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1106317,00.html

If Blair appears to take his party for granted, it's because it has never given him a single reason to think he can't. He works on the assumption that it needs him far more than he needs it, and it seems to agree. Now that he has made next month's vote an issue of confidence in his leadership, we can expect a steady stream of former rebels to recant their ideological deviations for the benefit of the media. Labour's humiliation in swallowing its own manifesto promise must be as public as possible.

The Labour party is at a crossroads. It has to decide whether this really is as good as it gets or whether a more radical alternative is still possible. It also has to be clear in its own mind that this is more than a choice of short-term electoral strategy; it is a fundamental question of whether social democratic politics has a future in Britain.

A progressive alternative exists, and not in the form caricatured by Blair. It means rescuing Britain from mid-Atlantic ambiguity and locating it within the European value system of public welfare and social solidarity. It means deciding that the gap between rich and poor matters, and using the tax system to narrow it. It means reforming an economy that enthrones shareholder value above all other considerations. It means ditching an electoral system that distorts British politics by handing a veto to Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman. It means challenging the power centres of the right with the same determination that Blair has been willing to challenge the power centres of the left. More than anything, it means having the courage to take risks.

Some have described this as a "better Blairism", but the phrase doesn't fit. To the extent that Blair ever dabbled with these ideas, he abandoned them a long time ago. There is not the slightest chance of them prospering as long as he remains prime minister - and it is fantasy to pretend otherwise. A change of direction will not come until there is first a change of leader.

[roguevalley]

1. I agree. Our story is yours too.