The Blair Effect in Britain

...The London Times has observed that "for once the [Labor] party is being led rather than being pandered to" with tired slogans...

...He has suggested to business leaders that the time has come for a "proper constructive dialogue" between them and the Labor Party...

...Not anymore...

...Convincing you there is nothing to fear is fine," he told a meeting of the British Chambers of Commerce, "but we must offer you more than that...

...Michael Hesseltine, president of the Board of Trade, is the current favorite...

...In addition—and insultingly to some of its longtime activists?he has defined Labor as "democratic socialist," not an unabashedly Socialist party-Such utterances would have been angrily hooted down at past Labor conferences...

...Previously the party had said it would return the utilities to public ownership...

...No one here has forgotten that Neil Kinnock...

...The Prime Minister says he will not be deflected from the policies he has pursued...

...In place of Clause Four, Blair wants a dynamic mixed economy that joins "the rigors of competition...

...Among London's newspapers—there are still five quality dailies and six tabloids—the Guardian might have been expected to accuse Blair of betraying Labor's heritage and principles...

...After 16 years of Tory rule, the bulk of the Labor movement is dazzled by the prospect of finally coming out of the wilderness and regaining power...

...Perhaps most tellingly, Blair has made it clear that the trade unions, formerly the bedrock of the party, will now be considered simply another of its supporting arms, like the co-op movement and consumer outfits...

...I want...

...For example, he has turned Labor's once firm dedication to a policy of full employment into a call for an "opportunity for all to work and prosper"—and thus calmed the anxieties of economic analysts in City of London banks and businesses who see full employment as an inflation-breeding ogre...

...The alternative Liberal Democratic Party, generally able to capture up to a quarter of the votes in national and local elections, is fearful that he has stolen much of its thunder too...

...But it promises to have more far-reaching consequences...

...Although a respected barrister, the slender, tenor-voiced Blair does not outwardly seem the sort to bring off so epochal a development...

...That has been Blair's most dramatic single achievement, but it is merely part of a catalog of innovations he has set in motion...

...Lord McAlpine, a Thatcher political intimate and former Conservative Party treasurer, has said publicly what many Tones concede privately—that, all things considered, they have been in power too long and would benefit from a period out of office...

...He convened a special party conference to vote on relegating Clause Four to the history books—and won convincingly...

...In under a year he has skillfully remolded the party's image and potential role in the country...

...Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd has accused the Labor Party leader of "trying to board the Conservative ship...

...He has severed Labor from its long-treasured roots and gotten an overwhelming majority of its membership to accept that this was the right thing to do...

...The loss of over 2,000 seats left them in control of a mere 13 of Britain's 456 councils...

...The party was a self-proclaimed Socialist movement...

...Delegates to its annual conference next fall who continue to use the term "comrade" will sound antediluvian, as will those referring to the martyrs who struggled over the decades against the might and brutality of cold-hearted capitalism...

...To be sure, MP Tony Benn, the doyen of left-wing Laborites, considers it a despicable surrender to Thatcherism, and to some extent it is...

...In the process he has urged the elimination of "the social evil of welfare dependency" and pledged that Labor would deal head-on with crime, drug abuse, vandalism, truancy, and slumping educational standards...

...Blair has responded warmly to such expressions...

...They were even booted out of office in such true-blue Tory strongholds as Hove and Bracknell, where not long ago Labor's chances of victory would have been laughable...

...a new understanding between a party serious about governing Britain and a business community prepared to look to the future...

...That's history...

...No longer...

...Unti 1 now, it insisted these problems all resulted from social deprivation...

...In fact, the comNorman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...Not only in the upper reaches of the government, though, but throughout the country Tories are befuddled and tormented by the Blair phenomenon...

...The person responsible for fundamentally changing the complexion of British politics is 42-year-old Tony Blair, who became the leader of the Labor Party last summer...

...Blair has spoken of his admiration for Margaret Thatcher's "emphasis on enterprise...

...Among other things, he promised there would be no return to what the business community considered the punitive tax rates of previous Labor governments...

...Undeterred, he rejects his party's traditional promotion of collective action, labeling it "outdated," and speaks of the "duties" of individuals, of their "responsibilities lo one another as citizens...

...It had a set of sharply defined objectives...

...During a national tour of Labor groups, Blair shrewdly slaughtered this sacred cow by asserting that the promise of public ownership, made 78 years ago, was an anomaly in the modern world and stigmatized Labor as living in the past...

...But the Bennites are a small minority in the party, isolated in their outrage...

...But whoever the Tories might choose would have two years to rebuild the party's morale and electoral support...

...Instead, it has said that his initiative provides the Left "with a better compass over policy than before," and that he has helped "liberate Labor from the past and turn it toward a future in which it can govern again...

...But he has done the worst damage to John Major...

...Symbols are of crucial importance in politics, and the one Blair tackled to launch his party reform campaign?Clause Four of Labor's constitution?was greatly treasured...

...Nevertheless, what he has accomplished is little short of a miracle...

...Lord Sterling, chairman of P&O shipping lines and another of Baroness Thatcher's closest supporters when she was in office, says that in the present circumstances he would have no trouble working with a Labor government...

...His assurance was warmly received by his listeners, men and women not used to applauding the Labor Party leader...

...Remarkably, across the country local Labor organizations, discussion groups and individual party spokespeople, official or self-appointed, are adjusting to the transformation without much fuss...

...Today they elicit agonized complaints from only a smallish hard core of ideologues who may, in time-honored Socialist fashion, soon feel obliged to split off and form their own party...

...It would rather go down to defeat in elections than compromise on traditional core principles...

...He has also declared that a Labor government would keep public spending in tight rein and carefully judge its cost-effectiveness...

...mitment of that hallowed icon to "the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" was printed on all membership cards...

...As veterans of the class war, they are appalled by Blair's open attempt to win over the British middle classes...

...Characteristically, it is less histrionic than the upheaval that has excited passions and made daily headlines in the United States since last November's Congressional elections...

...INEVITABLY, Blair's strategy has drawn anguished and confused howls from prominent Tories, who resent his boldly hijacking their own political litany...

...His greater worry, however, is that the Conservatives will replace Major, a step that can be taken while they still control Parliament...

...Clearly, Blair has in short order succeeded in seizing Britain's political high ground...

...they dismissed him as a decent bloke but essentially a lightweight...

...Moreover, there would only be close regulation of the recently denationalized utility companies, whose top executives have scandalized the nation by taking gargantuan salary increases and stock options while setting huge profit margins...

...Yet as the local balloting showed, he has failed conspicuously to address the concerns of his party's middie-class constituents: community breakdown, crime, and the shortcomings of the educational system and other public services...

...The Tories are so demoralized that Blair has instructed party functionaries to brace themselves for the possibility of a general election before the 1997 deadline...

...That's hardly surprising, for on May 4 they suffered their greatest massacre ever in local council elections...

...with the forces of partnership and cooperation to produce the wealth the nation needs...

...Indeed, his bland appearance, marked by an almost fixed smile, had deceived a great many people here...

...When a few fossilized union leaders who are used to fashioning Labor's policies vigorously objected to so basic a change in orientation, Blair was ready for them...

...Private ownership of industry, he made it plain, would play a key role in a future Labor Party-run Britain...

...A permanent truce has been called in the class war that motivated a large number of Labor's activists in years gone by...

...who led Labor three years ago—and charted some of the path Blair is now treading?was predicted to be a shoo-in at the last general election...

...On the other hand, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke says Blair is mouthing nothing but "vacuous flannel...