In Praise of John Rentoul (he won't like it)

Sometimes , during my solitary struggle to point out the blindingly obvious to a deluded multitude, I receive help and solace from unexpected quarters.

 

One such, among the most perceptive writers on the Left, is the Blairite (and Blair biographer) John Rentoul, whose chiselled, famished features I occasionally glimpse as we go about our rather different business in the mighty building that houses Associated Newspapers and the Independent stable. Occasionally we even exchange a friendly jeer or a wan smile, across the gulf of ideology which lies between us.

 

Mr Rentoul is updating his Blair biography, and last week published an extract in the ‘Independent on Sunday’ which some of you may not have seen. It can be found here :

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-poster-boy-or-cartoon-villain-8660465.html

 

The extract which I like most opens as follows : ‘ [Blair’s] main domestic monuments were the improvements in education, the health service and cutting crime.’

 

This of course is what Mr Rentoul calls these actions. Others might describe them as a huge increase in the size of the state sector, and a brilliant exercise in propaganda and the manipulation of statistics.

But here comes the key part : ‘The greatest acknowledgement of his achievement was the change in the Conservative Party. This is a true measure of a leader's historical significance. Just as the Tory party accommodated itself to Attlee's postwar settlement, and Blair himself marked Labour's accommodation to Thatcherism, by 2005 he had forced the Conservatives to put public services before tax cuts. Even in trying to close the deficit five years later David Cameron and George Osborne protected spending on the NHS and schools.

 

‘The Conservative Party. has abandoned the idea that people should be encouraged to opt out of the NHS; and who would have thought that the Tories would now be opposed in principle to extending selective state education? ‘

 

Quite. Though the ‘acceptance of Thatcherism’ is much more a matter of the post-Cold War Left finally understanding that state ownership was no longer important to their project. Mr Rentoul does not discuss (who except me does?) the immense significance in modern egalitarian politics of the ban on selective schools. But he instinctively knows that it is very important indeed, and that the Tory surrender on this is likewise very significant.

 

In fact it is far *more* significant than Labour’s noisy abandonment of Clause Four , a tactical alteration and admission of a long-extant reality, without any change in fundamental aims. The Tory embrace of absolute egalitarianism (of the ‘equality of outcome’ type) is a colossal surrender of principle and revolutionary in effect.  Egalitarianism has now replaced both Christianity and national patriotism as the principal basis of belief an action in this country.

 

STOP PRESS – in today’s ‘Independent , Steve Richards, another acute commentator of the Left, underlines the same point. Mr Richards (with whom I hope to be sharing a platform at York University on Sunday morning), amusingly points out the political interchangeability of certain columnists keen on what I would call the Blair-Cameron project.

 

My favourite passage is this : ‘…this particular reform agenda commands wide support from followers of the two rulers. It is easy to imagine some of Cameron’s advisers working for Blair and vice versa. Take a look at a quartet of brilliant columnists. The writer Julian Glover gave up a column to work for Cameron. The former Blair adviser Philip Collins became a columnist. Daniel Finkelstein entered the world of commentary from the Conservative Party. All three could join my esteemed colleague John Rentoul, the world’s leading Blairite and fan of Cameron, for a glass of wine and would agree on most matters. As well as being brilliant, I always find them to be cheerful. No wonder, they and their ideas have ruled for decades.

 

‘Blair rationalises this consensus by arguing that the era of the left and right is over and that the only split is between “open and closed” – protectionism vs free trade, interventionism vs isolationists, immigration vs strict controls. This rather loftily elevates Blair’s own politics to an entire global trend. Finkelstein got closer to it when he wrote approvingly that Blair had moved towards the centre right. Cameron astutely noted this, too, and, in his very smart early phase as leader, recognised that the best way to undermine Blair and Labour was to support him. The support also happened to be sincere.’

 

 

Of course, as columnists, they are not forced to choose a direct party allegiance. There are many politicians who would be in a similar position if the rules of tribal loyalty were not so strong – and many BBC figures who could be included in the list if they did not have to assert their ‘impartiality’ whenever they are specifically questioned.

 

 

Mr Richards’s article is here

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/intervention-too-much-of-it-abroad-not-enough-of-it-at-home-8665263.html