Joseph Dinnage has a useful CAPX reminder of the damage done to UK politics by Tony Blair and our inability to make any serious political attempts to tackle it.
The Right needs its own Tony Blair
Say what you like about him – and I often do – but Tony Blair remains inescapable. Perhaps that is why, almost 30 years after he first entered No.10 as Prime Minister, Channel 4 has a new three-part series following his journey from Fettes to Iraq...
Through a comprehensive package of constitutional reforms, Blair utterly reshaped the state. It was he who established the devolved assemblies of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, stoking the disunity that now characterises our kingdom. In 1998, he passed the Human Rights Act, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law, thus outsourcing our ability to control inward migration to judges in Strasbourg. Not content with handing over decision-making to unelected officials abroad, he formalised this arrangement at home with the creation of the Supreme Court and a thicket of quangos.
- Tony Blair is Britain's worst constitutional vandal – but you have to marvel at his effectiveness
- Voters are crying out for a new constitutional settlement
- Despite 14 years of Tory rule, the legacy of Tony Blair remains inescapable
Say what you like about him – and I often do – but Tony Blair remains inescapable. Perhaps that is why, almost 30 years after he first entered No.10 as Prime Minister, Channel 4 has a new three-part series following his journey from Fettes to Iraq...
Through a comprehensive package of constitutional reforms, Blair utterly reshaped the state. It was he who established the devolved assemblies of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, stoking the disunity that now characterises our kingdom. In 1998, he passed the Human Rights Act, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law, thus outsourcing our ability to control inward migration to judges in Strasbourg. Not content with handing over decision-making to unelected officials abroad, he formalised this arrangement at home with the creation of the Supreme Court and a thicket of quangos.
The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that without an explicit and comprehensive reversal of Blair's vandalism, the UK has no worthwhile political future. Reversal may be politically impossible of course, there is no evidence that enough voters have any idea of the lasting damage Blair inflicted.
Both Badenoch and Nigel Farage could do worse than to watch Channel 4’s Blairite love-in, because voters are through with tinkering. Over the coming months and years, it will be up to either leader to prove that they have a plan to overhaul Blairism once and for all, and rebuild the state in a way that unlocks growth and opportunity through conservative means.
Both Badenoch and Nigel Farage could do worse than to watch Channel 4’s Blairite love-in, because voters are through with tinkering. Over the coming months and years, it will be up to either leader to prove that they have a plan to overhaul Blairism once and for all, and rebuild the state in a way that unlocks growth and opportunity through conservative means.
2 comments:
I watched parts of the series and came to the conclusion that Blair merited as much criticism as Thatcher ever did. The only difference is that various governments since then have chosen to rewrite parts of Thatcher but not Blair.
My conclusion was that Blair successfully seduced the clerisy (the Judiciary, the Blob, the Great and Good) by awarding them much more authority - and that has made undoing Blair much more difficult. Yet the downsides of Blair's reforms are now showing greater and greater adverse consequences.
Tinkering around the edges will never be sufficient as new clerisy oozes in to fill the gaps. So yes we need a new constitutional settlement, and that will need a new party with an outright majority and a game plan to avoid all the obstructions that will be thrown in their path.
DJ - I agree, tinkering around the edges will never be sufficient. To my mind, the Blair approach to reform was feckless in that handing out power to receptive people and institutions was politically easy, much easier than a more constructive approach.
Blair's was a primrose path approach to politics, sold as a path to reform while casually weaving a power network which was bound to resist and be in a much better position to resist more genuine reform.
It won't end well because it was never designed to end well, Blair never did look that far ahead.
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