How the apple of the working mans eye became the Thatcher of my generation

For people like myself who were born in the 1980’s, when it comes to conjuring up Thatcher, there is little to be recalled from the minds eye. We remember her waving goodbye to number 10 through misty eyes, and only over time have we learnt the importance of the Iron Fisted Milk Snatcher, and the policies she defended right into the ground of her premiership. The events of her leadership effected our parent’s generation. We can only imagine the fury caused by the Poll Tax or the sinking of the Belgrade. But in 1997, upon the arrival of prodigious Tony Blair to the Labour party, we experienced the growth of a Prime Minister in unison with our own adolescent interest in politics. Opinions were often naïve and yet to germinate, but they were always impassioned and uncomplicated. Simplicity, it seems, was the best way to survive ten long years of New Labour. As if teenage years weren’t hard enough.

The Cool Britannia bandwagon rolled into town, and tired of eighteen years of Conservative government, everyone jumped aboard. As the darling of New Labour, Blair’s speeches inspired hope and optimism in British people. The unions and the working class man, who suffered dereliction under Thatcher, were gasping for a leftist move back towards a socialist administration. His insistence on a ‘new’ labour party, the development of the minimum wage policy, and his delicate handling of the death of Princess Diana turned him into the nations own, momentary, King of Hearts. However, this revelry was a short-lived honeymoon period. His apparent staunch opposition to the conservative regime was a vote-winning façade, and in actuality, Tony Blair’s legacy is one of consistent centre-right policy.

The most extraordinary act of Blair took place in the very early days of his Labour leadership, when he replaced Clause IV of the Labour constitution. The Clause IV text set out the socialist intentions of the Labour government, through common ownership and a fair distribution of wealth. A Clause which sounded pretty appealing at a time when government had been selling off anything public they could get their hands on. This break with ‘old’ labour was a controversial but revolutionary welcome to New Labour. The intricate details of what Clause IV professed were overlooked in favour of the appeal of change. The radical thought that Blair could change an eighty year old text was radical enough to usher it in. In hindsight this was a warning sign of Blair’s presidential leadership style of government. It gave Blair the authority to act as he saw fit, regardless, before he even stepped into number 10.

Immediate independence of the Bank of England took everyone by surprise, and although this was considered an economically smart choice, it reeked of Conservative sentiment. It even prodded Norman Lamont, Browns Conservative predecessor, to speak of his delight that the change was ‘right and should have been made by Conservative governments.’ The move would allegedly put an end to the boom and bust era, one of Labour’s all-time favourite sound-bites. Today though, as we slide further down the slippery slope to recession, people are tentatively looking to the roots of our economic crisis and questioning that very independence. Blair castigated city bankers after the stock market crash of 1987, branding them incompetent and morally dubious. But his objection was clearly not severe enough for him to tighten the reigns on loose lending during his time in parliament. If he had taken more stern action, Labour could have easily curbed the crisis we are now experiencing.

The rhetoric mantras of ‘Education, Education, Education’ and ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime,’ were once banners for a pledge of change, but are now distance memories of empty promises. Blair bemoaned a loss of sense of community. The ASBO phenomenon has done nothing to quell community concerns, and the media have latched onto the recent swathe of London knife crime. Statistics read however that Labour have executed a downturn in most areas of crime. We must ask then, why are the government still seeking liberty infringing ways to ‘protect’ us even further? Increased police presence on the ground is a showy attempt to demonstrate public order, which has resulted in more arrestible offences and a seismic DNA file. Only recently has their 42 day terror detention plan fallen through, but government plans for the ID card (which mirror the Conservatives Public Order White paper which Blair opposed) are moving forward blithely, despite strong public detraction. Social authoritarianism plagues the streets of England, and as the Poll Tax was for Conservatives, the ID card could be the hill to which Labour die on.

The Iraq War was a political awakening for young people in England. Suddenly America was more than just a place to holiday; it was a place we apparently followed blindly at their beckoned call. The one day student strike on March 3rd 2003 stands out as the moment many young people took a stand against our government’s judgement. A lot has happened since the age of fifteen. Five years is a long time when you are a teenager. But much to the dismay of the thousands of other students on that day, the Iraq war has been a mainstay of our adolescent years. For all Labour’s unapologetic attitude to the Weapons of Mass Destruction embarrassment, the unwavering support for US foreign policy, and the many lives lost, we have instead adopted that shame ourselves. Tony Blair had no interest in hearing the objections of a nation, and instead favoured his own imperialist instincts.

As Tony Blair eeked out his premiership to the narcissistic ten year mark, a young generation have been left feeling abandoned. We find ourselves asking ‘what did Tony Blair do for us?’ He was a Prime Minister of contradiction. The tripling of tuition fees alienated many students, despite his call for a record number of University students. There are more graduates than there are graduate job vacancies. Unemployment is almost as high as Thatcher Conservatism. This is before addressing the nationwide problems of transport costs, the impossible property ladder, and the bureaucratic, nightmarish tax and welfare systems. The labour government has created a winner takes all society and Tony Blair’s post-premiership career confirms this notion. He has joined the investment bank JP Morgan, in a ‘senior advisory’ capacity. It sounds just like one of the many ‘created’ jobs available in the financial sector, which is still seeing Lloyds TSB chief Eric Daniels fighting for staff bonuses despite a £37 billion government bail out. He has also signed a lucrative deal with Yale University, which will see him deliver just 5 lectures a year for 3 years on faith and globalization. His prime ministership was one of controlling greed and laziness. Cherie Blair, in a book-promoting interview with the Guardian, called herself and her husband socialists. This is a hard word to swallow when the rich-poor divide in this country is bigger than ever. Blair has washed his hands of any participation in wrenching that gap even wider. The eighties children who could not comprehend the anger towards the Thatcher regime finally have their own doll to stick pins in. And as for Labour, suddenly it seems a very long journey back to erasing the ‘new’ from their name.