02 March 2017
Political Teflon
The contribution Mr Blair ought to make.
By John Watson
A week is a long time in politics and, from the commentator’s point of view, things quickly move on. In this column, a week ago, I was talking about Mrs May’s good luck, instancing both her ascent to the leadership of the Conservative party and the withdrawal of the Kraft offer for Unilever. Now the focus is on Copeland and the Government’s remarkable achievement of adding to a majority by a by-election victory – something not done for many years. Is it luck this time as well? The answer is both “yes” and “no”.
At this stage you and I both know that I am about to quote Napoleon, so we might as well get it over with. As always, the mot juste comes in more than one form. According to one website it referred to a particular officer: “I know he is a good general, but is he lucky?” the great man is reported to have asked. In another the approach is less specific: “I would rather have a general who was lucky than one who was good.” It doesn’t really matter which version you take. Either way the question is the same. Exactly what did Napoleon mean by “luck”?
Luck can of course be simple good fortune – a fall of the dice, or being dealt the ace of trumps. But there is another type, too. Often someone seems lucky because instincts which it is hard to pin down normally bring them out on top of events. People like this produce good results when those who just follow the rules would succumb to the apparent logic of the situation; this is the type of luck to which Napoleon was referring.
Let’s jump now to Copeland. What sort of luck created that? Well, there were two sorts, really. The first was the sheer good fortune that a winnable seat should fall vacant at this stage. The Government may thank its stars for that. But there is also something else. How is it that Mrs May, a dry-as-dust Conservative, has managed to generate support in a constituency where her party would not normally have a prayer? Has there been a mass conversion on a scale not seen since the Crusades?
Of course, there has been nothing of the sort. The electors of Copeland have not changed their politics and I do not suppose that there has been a long-term shift in political loyalties either. They simply realise that the Government has a difficult job on hand and that it needs the country’s support to do it. Everything else is secondary. That is why people who disagree with Mrs May on many issues (for example those who find the toughening of the Government’s stance on child refugees particularly distasteful) will hold their fire and wish the government well. There must have been a similar feeling during the war.
The effect of this is to give the Government a teflon-like skin. They may get things wrong. In fact they undoubtedly will, but provided that they appear to be gripping the main issue of Brexit everything else will slide past them. There was a similar effect in the early years of Mrs Thatcher. Everything else bounced off while she was struggling with the unions. Her administration was like a ship riding into a storm. It might get buffeted by those opposed to her key reforms, but, while they remained the centre piece, the lesser issues would slip away rather than build up into the network of barnacles which slows and ultimately halts the progress of less purposeful governments.
It is into this curious political climate that Mr Blair has suddenly emerged. He regards Brexit as a fundamental mistake. He may be proved right or wrong about that. Unfortunately he also sees himself as a focus for those who would like to see the decision reversed. There is no reason why he should not do that, of course, but it seems likely that he is wasting his time. It is simply too late. Even Remainers like myself now recognise that the decision has been taken and believe that we must all work together to make the best of it. If Mr Blair thinks that he can change that political reality he is deceiving himself. Still, that doesn’t mean that he has no contribution to make.
When history comes to be written there will be two interconnected stories to be told. One will focus on the efforts made to keep the EU together in the light of the pressures to which it is now subject. With Dutch, French and German elections in the offing, it would be a brave man who predicted how that will end. The second story, however, will be the more interesting one and will deal with the way in which proposals to reform (or even to replace) the EU evolve against the changing political position. If the current model for cooperation between the peoples of Europe has not carried those peoples with it, then a new model is urgently required. There are many things which, as a continent, we need to do together and it would be folly to let the breakup, or partial breakup, of the EU lead to a wholly fragmented Europe. That means that as the first story unfolds those who have experience of how to create international cooperation should be quietly writing the second. This is where the talents of a man like Mr Blair should be engaged, not in looking back at a world which might have been but in devising and perhaps participating in the next generation of institutions.
If Mr Blair took this course he might find a collateral advantage as well. He is out of fashion as a politician at the moment and what he says is often unfairly discounted. If he were to embrace the job of devising and helping create the new basis of European cooperation which we so badly need, he would be doing work the importance of which would be widely recognised. It would be his turn then to wear the teflon skin and much of the carping at his record by media and the public would just become an irrelevance. That way lies greatness and a great contribution to public life. Let’s just hope that he will take it.
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