In all, there have now been six periods of Labour government in British history. The most striking common fact about them is that each has been relatively short-lived. Indeed, as the Blair government approaches the relatively modest milestone of its seventh anniversary this spring, it already has the distinction of lasting slightly longer in office than any of its five predecessors.
This is because, in the lifetime of every Labour government, there has always come a time when the electorate looked at the government, stared into its own soul, and decided it had had enough.
The failure of short-lived governments is one of the repeated realities of Labour's history. If you are old enough to remember any of these years of defeat, you know what they feel like. If you are not, take my word.
The great question of the moment is whether history is again repeating itself this year. Many of the signs are that it is.
Admittedly, the evidence comes more from the intangible chemistry of the overall political situation than from the opinion polls. For a government in mid-term, the polls are not too bad for Prime Minister Tony Blair's party, with three polling organizations putting Labour ahead, while two others have them trailing. It is too soon to say that Labour could lose the next general election. But as (former Blair spin-doctor and Cabinet minister) Peter Mandelson said in a speech last Wednesday, a Labour third term cannot now be taken for granted.
If the evidence for the current crisis is a bit amorphous, it is nonetheless real. It comes in the persistent inability of the Blair government to recapture the political agenda since the Iraq war; the post-Hutton phase being only the latest of several similar failures.
It comes in its corresponding difficulties in creating a sense of domestic momentum, in spite of growing evidence that the government's health and education spending is beginning to bear real fruit. It comes from the enduring and corrosive effect of the rivalry between Blair and Brown and from the general bad humor of large parts of the Labour party about many of the government's main initiatives.
no quick fix
Some of this can be put down to the mass defection of the press commentariat and to the general tetchiness of a bored and frustrated media culture. But it is unfair to place the entire blame on journalists. The media alone cannot account for the current fatalism in Labour circles about what may happen in the European and local elections in June, for the gloom that has crept like a Victorian fog under the door of even 10 Downing Street itself in recent days, or for the widespread speculation about how long Blair can go on. These are bad times, and only a fool would deny it.
History implies that we have therefore reached a huge moment in the lifetime of the Blair government and in the history of the Labour party. If so, it is also a huge moment for Britain. Labour's five earlier ejections from power tell us something about the shortcomings of those governments, but they also tell us something about the fragile conditionality of the British electorate's relationship with the Labour party. This conditionality did not end in 1997.
If we are beginning to live through the sixth Labour ejection, then it is not enough to blame Blair's failings. When (former Labour minister) Roy Jenkins compared Blair's attitude to his general election victories to that of a man carrying a heavy and immensely valuable cut-glass bowl across a marble floor, he was describing the general condition of Labour governments, not merely the idiosyncrasies of the current prime minister.
That is one of the many reasons why Labour member of parliament and supporters should not imagine that there is a quick fix for their problems. And since there is only one quick fix seriously on offer, it needs to be said that a change of leader would not get the government out of its problems.
The leadership question is certainly worth asking: Blair has been found wanting for many months, not only over Iraq. But, as a matter of record, I encounter surprisingly few people, given Blair's failings, who believe that Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown would be a better leader, or would follow significantly different policies on the big issues, or would be a better vote-winner. Bear this in mind: a poll last weekend suggested that Brown as prime minister would be worth just two more points to Labour. And that's in a poll taken at a time when Blair's ratings are at their lowest ever.
No, this is Labour's crisis, not Blair's alone. One of the party's advisers recently put it to me in a striking manner. As an election approaches, public opinion coheres around a big proposition, he says. In 1997, he believes, that conclusion was: "We don't trust them but we will give them a chance." In 2001 it was: "They haven't done much but they deserve another go." The equivalent summation for next year has not come yet, but it will eventually, because it always does.
deep trouble
What will that next decisive popular summation be? The adviser does not know. Labour wants it to be something like: "They're making a difference and they deserve more time." But you would have to be quite an optimist to think that is very likely. Judging by the temper of the times, particularly as promoted in the press, the summation is currently closer to: "We don't trust them and they haven't been very good."
If that is right, then Labour as a whole is in deep trouble. But I think this verdict is an exaggeration, as well as being an incomplete one. As the polls show, Labour's support is down in some areas but it is not in general collapse. If there is a popular summation for next year, it looks to me more like a combination of the two suggestions in the previous paragraph: "We don't trust them and they haven't been as good as we hoped, but they're also making a difference and they deserve more time."
This is quite a complex summation, as well as an undeniably modest one. It is not an easy one to make in a political culture that abhors nuance or balance and that thrives on adversarial melodrama.
It isn't a pretty choice, but it is a serious one. It is also a grown-up proposition, and one that past Labour governments have always failed to persuade earlier generations of voters to accept.
In retrospect, the general election of 2001 was electorally but not politically significant.
The contest did not engage, and was reflected in the slump in turnout.
Politically, the Blair government's real first term lasted right up to US President George W. Bush's Iraq war. Until then, the government was given the benefit of the doubt, as it had been in 1997.
The country is currently doing what it did not do in 2001. It is deciding whether to give Labour a second chance in spite of Iraq.
The election of John Kerry as US president would make the process easier. But in the end this is a decision that none of us will be able to shirk.
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