Apropos of yesterday's post, I was fairly confident that the Graun's leader which featured Hazel Blears had been written by Martin Kettle, who used to be one of the main leader writers, and who now fills in occasionally, but because I wasn't completely certain didn't directly attribute it to him. Today Mr Kettle devotes an even more stupendous column to comparing and contrasting Blears and... Margaret Thatcher, which rather does confirm it. His main argument is that Thatcher, having first been patronised, proved everyone wrong. His penultimate paragraph:
Yet if you look at the Labour party today and try to imagine a current minister of either sex with unchallengeably authentic political roots, an aspirational life story that image makers dream of, a clear sense of where she's coming from, an irresistible confidence in her own instincts, a clear set of convictions, and the potential to turn herself into an iconic political figurehead, you don't find many better candidates than Blears.
In one sense, you have to admire both Kettle and Blears: few are so deluded about either their greatness or someone else's potential to be great; that's impressive in its own right.
The problem with this view of Blears is obvious upon watching George Monbiot's eye-opening interview with her. This came about after Blears responded to a Monbiot column, which wasn't one of his best, which attacked politicians as a whole. Blears, for her part, put in an even more poorly argued reply, which brazenly claimed that those who have never stood for political office shouldn't criticise the great work which politicians are doing. After Monbiot ripped Blears to shreds in his riposte, she rather pathetically asked him to visit her constituency to see the great things that she and Labour have achieved, presumably thinking that he wouldn't take her up on the offer. He did.
This took place before Blears' weekend article in the Observer, which set the slavering Kettle off on his Thatcher riff, but after watching it you couldn't possibly mistake Blears for even the most shallow Thatcher follower. Whatever you think about Thatcher, she was undoubtedly a leader. Blears, despite her pretensions to become deputy leader, where she was humiliated by coming dead last, is not a leader. She's a follower. Monbiot dismisses the distinctions between Blairites and Brownites and just describes Blears as a career politician, which certainly also is accurate, but the Blairite description still holds, because she undoubtedly shares Blair's terrifying sense of self-assurance, his ability to believe two contradictory things at once, which Orwell famously called double-think, and also to argue regardless that of any changes in policy, everything they have ever done has been the right thing, even if the right thing at the time turned out to be the wrong thing and the opposite had to be done to make it the right thing. Brownites, for their sins, have never been so self-assured, and have recognised they have made mistakes. Blairites, however, only believe they made one mistake, and that was acquiescing to Gordon Brown's unopposed ascent to the leadership.
There really is no other way to describe Blears's view that despite hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dying, which, she insultingly says, is a tragedy, that it was the right thing to do and that it was made in good faith, as bordering on madness. It has to be asked: what possibly could have made it the "wrong thing" to do if the deaths of hundreds of thousands didn't? The answer is that there is no answer; regardless of whether the entire population had died, nothing could alter the fact that Blears would still defend it. She knows no other way than absolute and utter loyalty, and as Monbiot repeatedly prods her, you can start to see the desperation and even the loneliness of her position in her eyes: secretly, and deep within the recesses of her mind, she knows that she's wrong, but that she can't find it within herself to admit that either she or the party she quite clearly dearly loves, even if it doesn't love her, can be wrong.
Once you understand this, then her Observer article isn't in fact an act of disloyalty, or an attack on Gordon Brown, but rather concern that the party, which is more important than the leader, even if she thinks the party stands for things which the members themselves don't believe in, is in peril. Although Kettle mentions that Blears prior to 97 was a lawyer, that she's been ostensibly a minister or working for one since 1998 suggests that she can no longer imagine not being in government. Blears clearly has no interest in being a politician who has no power, despite her protestations that she's doing everything she can for her constituents, although her belief in that is doubtless sincere and motivates her. Such a situation can lead to what would normally be drastic action.
The only other thing Monbiot gets wrong is that he admires Blears' engagement and the way she answers questions when others wouldn't. This isn't always the case, as an encounter with Jeremy Paxman a few years back showed. The very problem is that the way Blears responds is what turns people off: if you're not prepared to admit that you've ever got anything wrong, that everything you've done even if it subsequently turns out to be wrong was right at the time, and that the party is always right, you're better off not engaging because it just frustrates and and angers. At least with Thatcher you could channel your hatred against her, because she didn't try to be liked; Blears, on the other hand, desperately wants to be loved while being just as obdurate. Thatcher inspired a generation of those who believed there was another politics possible despite there being no alternative; Blears is inspiring a generation who genuinely do believe there is no alternative. In this sense, New Labour is turning out to be far more destructive than the Tories were.Labels: death of Labour, death of politics, George Monbiot, Grauniad, Grauniad bollocks, Hazel Blears, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Kettle, New Labour
