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What was New Labour for? In May 1997, even many Conservatives would surely admit, the country was desperate for change. There was a sense, as Tony Blair swept to power, of being on the cusp of something exciting, something affirming that might improve this nation of ours for the better.
That was certainly how I felt. I'd never been tied to one party. But there was a youthfulness, a vigour, a compassion and a decency about Blair and his colleagues that I found appealing. Thirteen years on and where are we? Blair is due to appear before an inquiry to explain why he took us into a war and he's just landed a six-figure sum to be adviser to a hedge fund, to go with the other fees he's collecting. But that doesn't go to the heart of the matter.
Which is that his movement has profoundly failed. The proof is here, in front of me. It's yesterday's report, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, by the National Equality Panel.
It's an indictment of pretty much everything Blair, Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman (who commissioned the study) and their colleagues stood for. If there was one thing we took away from that May dawn all those years ago it was that they would strive to rid Britain of inequality and to close the yawning, socially divisive gap between rich and poor. A year before he entered Downing Street, Blair said: “If the next Labour government has not raised the living standards of the poorest by its time in office, it will have failed.”
Once there, he subjected us to slogan after slogan, from “Britain deserves better” in the 1997 campaign to “forward not back” for 2005. There were the ringing phrases that resonate still: “education, education, education” and “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”.
Yet 13 years on, the very first sentence of this report begins: “Britain is an unequal country, more so than many other industrialised countries and more so than it was a generation ago.”
On page after page, this thumping document explodes the New Labour myth. The “large inequality growth of the Eighties has not been reversed.” It was a movement that had — still has, if they're to be believed — as one of its dearest tenets, the need to redistribute wealth. Today, says this study, the members of the richest 10 per cent of households will have accrued wealth of £2.2 million by the time they reach retirement; for the bottom 10 per cent, the figure is less than £8,000.
Why does this matter? Says the report: “Wide inequalities erode the bonds of common citizenship and recognition of human dignity across economic divides.” Such inequalities “are associated with societies having lower levels of happiness or well-being in other respects” and “the social problems and economic costs resulting from these”. For that, read hoodies, gangs, feral children, teenage mothers and entire families that have only ever known benefit payments.
What's depressingly predictable is the reaction of the Government to the study. Brown says it is “sobering” (it is that, all right) before spinning that it “illustrates starkly that despite a levelling-off of inequality in the last decade we still have much to do”.
Harman says, in the foreword, the report shows “that public policy intervention works. It has played a major role in halting the rise in inequality which was gaining ground in the Eighties. Public policy has narrowed gaps in educational attainment, narrowed the gap between men and women's pay and tackled poverty in retirement.” She is quick to lay the blame on gender — and yes, it's appalling that women still earn so much less than men — but that isn't what this report is really about.
As statements of complacency, of struggling to find anything positive from an overwhelming negative, Brown's and Harman's reactions are hard to beat.
Not that the other side can take much comfort. The evidence is laid bare in clinical detail that Britain's is indeed a broken society, as David Cameron never ceases telling us. But his own creed of putting faith in marriage, and of localised “bottom up” solutions to the nation's social ills, also smacks of massaging. Plus, as the National Equality Panel makes clear, the seeds for much of the inequality we're experiencing now were laid between the late Seventies and early Nineties, much of it during the years of Tory rule.
What changed in that period? It's when Britain underwent a profound shift. Grammar schools were abolished and the lowest-common denominator was made to prevail. I went to a grammar school and recall how we were taught, how the teachers struggled and succeeded, even on limited resources, to provide us (many of whom came from poor backgrounds) with the same education as a fee-paying school.
The pursuit of academic excellence was one of the nation's pillars. Others were community and mutuality. And industry. The language of the City came to the fore. We had privatisations, the share-owning democracy, the disappearance of building societies, council house sales and 1986's Big Bang in the City. New Labour picked up the baton so that every school and hospital must be given a place in a league table, civil servants receive bonuses, and private companies are encouraged to operate public services.
We're now stuck with a nation that is little more than a collection of retail parks, industrial heritage sites and housing estates. I get the same feeling going to parts of Britain that I got on holiday in Greece last year: I don't know what the locals do.
We've handed out welfare like never before, encouraged more pupils go to university (when in the past many of them would have begun apprentice schemes, now being hastily restarted), squandered the profits of North Sea oil, borrowed like mad and relied on a booming — and as is now obvious, deeply flawed — financial sector.
The result is a society that has stalled, that continues to produce inequalities which the panel that compiled the report find “shocking”. Things can only get better, we were promised. They did, but only for a few.
Reader views (3)
"things have not got better"
If you are a politician things got much, much better Chris. Just look at Bliar, Mandelson et all. They entered politics virtually penniless and voilà now they are all multi-millionaires.
Many other politicians now own multi-million property portfolios they built up flipping properties and by fiddling their expenses. Great job, if you can get it!
- John Smith, Londonistan, Bankrupt Britain, EUSSR, 29/01/2010 08:33
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Brownsaurus expanded the State to fix voting lists for Labour. He is an old soviet style socialist.
Brown has made the UK effectively bust. Emergency intensive care is running out of extra blood -QE, and morphine - low interest rates.
Quantative Easing of £200 Billion is near 13% of £1.5 Trillion GDP. QE is running out. When that ends what will keep money flowing?
That will be after an election. Brown will blame others.
Morphine of low interest rates will stop, or UK capital will go abroad. Interest rates will rise and oil prices lift. How much will repossessions, and unemployment rise? Brown will blame others.
Labour says nice words. Really they offer plain bribery for social engineering to hook people into dependency on State support, and build empires of State jobs.
The UK did have a safetynet for disadvantaged people. Labour has turned it into a vast incentive give away scheme to demand taxpayer money. Labour have incentivised couples to live apart, for single people to not work, and State spending to escalate. They conned students that degrees added to lifetime earnings so take loans. Labour hide that only 15-20% jobs need degrees, and now no jobs.
Brown's waste is truely damaging. Frank Field was near tears at the waste, which costs whole welfare programmes.
Brown's decisions as Chancellor and PM will now cost the UK an additional £150 Billion a year extra.
Brown blames others for everything.
- Gerry, manchester UK, 28/01/2010 13:14
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There are more graduates chasing too few jobs. A person has to have contacts. Graduate jobs without experience, is extremely competitive even before the recession. There are too many opportunities in London, too few opportunities outside London. University fees are increasing too fast. What percentage of graduates actually obtain a high paid career related job ?
If a person lives in London, it is possible to undertake an unpaid internship or start at a lower level. Outside London, the costs are huge, the commuting times are large.
Manufacturing an IT has been outsourced. The amount of industry is decreasing. What opportunities are there for graduates ?
Including race, ethnicity, religion and disability, location, social class the barriers can be huge.
- Abdul, Guildford, UK, 28/01/2010 12:45
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