Two years after his historic election victory, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair remains his country's
most popular leader since World War II. Blair's
New Labour government is on equally solid footing: His
government leads the opposition Conservative Party by
record figures in the opinion polls.
Yet in November 1994, at roughly the same point in
his own first administration, President Clinton's
approval ratings were sagging and the Democrats had
handed control of Congress to the Republicans for the
first time since Dwight D. Eisenhower was in office.
The midterm fates of Britain's first Labour government
in 18 years and the first Democratic president in 12
years are intimately related -- and highly instructive.
While the American public in 1994 chastised Clinton,
fairly or not, for failing to govern as the New Democrat
he campaigned as in 1992, Britons are rewarding Blair
for remaining true to the pledge he delivered on the
doorstep of 10 Downing St. two years ago: "We campaigned
as New Labour, and we will govern as New
Labour."
Clearly, New Labour has learned an important lesson
from Clinton's early miscues: Always govern as you
were elected.
The rise of New Labour is closely bound up with the rise
of the New Democrats. Like the Democratic Party of the
1980s, the Labour Party was shipwrecked on the rocks of
the electorate's disapproval. Like the Democrats, Labour
in the 1980s was perceived as weak, divided, and extremist.
As Philip Gould, a senior adviser to Blair, remarked
recently: "Labour had not merely stopped
listening or lost touch: It had declared political war on
the values, instincts, and ethics of the great majority of
decent, hard-working voters."
Too many voters believed Labour could not be trusted
to run the economy; that despite its well-intentioned
desire to reduce unemployment and poverty, its inability
to control spending, taxes, and inflation would ultimately
prove disastrous. Labour's tax and welfare policies
suggested an indifference to the value of work and even
an inability to understand that most of its working-class
supporters aspired to a middle-class standard of living.
Labour's support for unilateral nuclear disarmament
was ruthlessly exploited by the Conservatives, who suggested
that the party was unpatriotic and unwilling to
defend Britain against the Soviets. Labour's weakness
on defense also found a parallel on the home front:
Would the party stand up to its allies in the labor movement
and prevent a return to the strike-ridden days of
the 1970s?
Like George Bush's election in 1988, John Major's in
1992 provided the impetus for change within Labour's
ranks. Faced with weak opponents and an underlying
desire on the part of many voters for change, Labour
should have won in 1992. That it did not reflected the
fact that despite party leader Neil Kinnock's attempt to
haul Labour back to the political center, many British
voters continued to harbor deep fears about the party.
For Labour's modernizers -- led by Blair and Gordon
Brown, now chancellor of the Exchequer -- Labour's defeat
coupled with Clinton's 1992 victory provided irrefutable
evidence of the need for renewal. Slowly under
the leadership of Kinnock's successor, John Smith (who
died suddenly in 1994 after heading the party for two
years), and then at breakneck speed under Blair, Labour
has learned the lessons not only of its own defeats, but
also of the New Democrats' early victories and setbacks.
Blair's political instincts would always have led him in
the direction of modernization. But Clinton's victory in
1992, the Democrats' difficulties in 1994, and the
President's return to his New Democrat roots and re-election
in 1996 validated Blair's beliefs.
The modernization battle has not been easy. Clinton's arrival
in the White House was met in Britain by warnings
from the old left that Labour should not go down the
path of "Clintonization," which they deemed all shadow
and no substance. Moreover, having denied that Labour
could learn anything from Clinton's victory in 1992,
many on the British left were keen to prove that there
were clear lessons in his stumble in 1994: Try and govern
from the center and you'll alienate your traditional supporters,
allowing your opponents to triumph.
Blair disagreed. Throughout the 1992 presidential election
campaign, Clinton was able to back his claim that he
would deliver change by pointing to the way he had
changed his party's platform. With the slogan "New
Labour, New Britain" emblazoned behind him, Blair's
first speech to the Labour Party conference as leader in
1994 was a variation on this theme. As the speech drew to
a close, Blair signaled his determination to rewrite Clause
IV of Labour's constitution. For 80 years, that clause had
committed the party to "the common ownership of the
means of production, distribution, and exchange."
In practical terms the clause was meaningless: Few in
the Labour Party seriously believed that a pledge made
in 1918 was either deliverable or desirable. But symbolically,
rewriting Clause IV was crucial. If Blair could
slaughter a few of Old Labour's sacred cows, he would
not only demonstrate his seriousness about change but
also remain true to his belief, expressed by Gould, that
"if a political party is not founded on ideas which have
the power to dominate the political agenda, it is unlikely
to win a convincing or sustainable electoral victory."
The new Clause IV adopted by the party in 1995 was
in many ways the equivalent of the 1992 Democratic
Party platform drafted by New Democrats. In place of
government ownership, Labour promised "a dynamic
economy" built upon the "enterprise of the market and
the rigor of competition." Under Blair, Labour was now
committed to building a "community in which power,
wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many,
not the few." The language of community and opportunity
had long been popular on the left -- and rightly so.
Less popular, however, was a new theme reflected in
Blair's rewritten Clause IV: "The rights we enjoy reflect
the duties we owe." Opportunity, responsibility, community
-- the mantra of the New Democrat movement
-- had become the battle cry of New Labour.
Critics suggest that Blair and Clinton's talk of a Third
Way is a recent development designed to give their policies
the cloak of intellectual respectability. In reality,
their search for a new political model began well before
they rose to power. Like his American counterpart, Blair
long ago rejected the "false choices of left and right," as
the Democratic Leadership Council, with then-Arkansas
Gov. Clinton as its chairman, phrased the matter in its
seminal 1991 New American Choice Resolutions.
The view that "political dividing lines were put in
place entirely to suit [the right]" is at the core of the
prime minister's beliefs. The challenge for the left, he argues,
is to "place the dividing lines in better and more accurate
places. ... The divide on the market is not that the
right believes in it and the left doesn't, but between the
laissez-faire market approach of the right and the left's
commitment to investment in industry and education. ...
On tax the dividing line is not between high and low
taxes, but rather fair and unfair, coupled of course with
the central tenet that 'tax and spend' questions cannot be
divorced from the state of the economy."
On both sides of the Atlantic, progressives face the
challenge of an electorate that simultaneously desires
and fears change. American and British voters feel insecure
about the effects of rapid economic globalization
and technological advancement. Yet they know it is neither
possible, nor desirable, to reverse those trends. In
the face of such changes, voters in both nations have
recoiled from the chilly winds of the "every man for
himself" philosophy of conservatives. They want government
to do more to help them cope with economic
uncertainty, but mindful of liberal follies in the 1970s
and '80s they remain deeply distrustful of robust public
activism.
These contradictions are not irresolvable. As Clinton argued
throughout his 1992 campaign, it is the duty of
those who believe in government to show that it can
work.
In the lead-up to the 1997 general election and in its
first two years in power, New Labour sought to re-establish
public faith in the efficacy of government -- and in
itself. Taking a leaf out of the New Democrat book, New
Labour recognizes that it will not be heard on education,
health care and other issues on which it holds the political
advantage until it first achieves credibility on crime,
welfare, and other issues that voters have distrusted it
on in recent elections. Although the party's promises to
invest in education and training, reduce youth unemployment,
and bring down National Health Service
waiting lists resonated strongly with voters, they do not
explain the landslide victory of 1997.
Like Clinton in 1992, New Labour in 1997 expressly
rejected "tax and spend" economics and pledged a
tough line on crime and welfare reform that would instill
values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency.
And just as Clinton attempted throughout 1992 to
demonstrate independence from Democratic core constituencies,
New Labour moved decisively to show that
labor unions could expect fairness but no favors from it.
A Labour government, pledged Blair, would "treat [the
unions] in the same way that [it] ... treated business."
By Election Day, voters not only trusted Labour more
than the Conservatives to make the right decisions on
health and education, Labour also led on the crucial
questions of taxation and managing the economy.
Labour's landslide victory demonstrated powerfully
that a modernized progressive party can assemble the
kind of electoral coalition of which the DLC has spoken
for years -- those in the middle class and struggling to
stay there, and those in the working class aspiring to get
there. In public opinion polls in 1983 the Conservatives
led Labour by 8 percent among the skilled working
class. By 1997 Labour had turned that around into a 21
percent lead over the Tories. Furthermore, for the first
time ever Labour beat the Conservatives in the battle for
middle-class and home-owning voters. More important,
even as Labour gained seats in traditionally Tory suburbs
and the rural areas of southern England, it also increased
its traditionally large majorities in inner-city and
working-class northern constituencies.
Since taking power, New Labour has attempted to reinforce
this new "working middle-class coalition" by
avoiding some of the pitfalls of Clinton's first two years
in power. This year, the government begins a large three-year
boost in public investment in schools, health, and
other public services. The popularity of these new
spending commitments -- hinted at, but not promised
in 1997-- reflects not simply the fact that New Labour
has targeted investment in areas where there is a wide-spread
public consensus on the need for more money.
Just as important is the fact that the government has
spent the last two years proving its commitment to fiscal
discipline and embarking on a classic New Democrat
"cut and invest" strategy. The budget deficit inherited
from the Conservatives has been turned into a surplus,
while this year the government began a two-year program
of tax cuts for lower- and middle-income families.
At the same time, business has been reassured by New
Labour's early decision to give the Bank of England control
over setting interest rates and by the government's
surprising cuts in corporation tax rates since 1997.
But the government's popularity is not simply due to
the fact that it has attempted to steer a Third Way course
of boosting public investment while eliminating wasteful
spending and holding down taxes. New Labour has
also recognized the importance of seizing the political
initiative on issues such as crime and welfare. Crime legislation
has sought to speed up the punishment of young
offenders and crack down on antisocial behavior.
Spending on the police has been increased.
Having pledged to make welfare reform a priority in
1997, New Labour has adhered strictly to the reciprocal
responsibility agenda developed by New Democrats. On
the one hand, the government has sought to "make work
pay" by cutting taxes for low earners, introducing a
Working Families Tax Credit (modeled on the American
Earned Income Tax Credit), and increasing spending on
child care, training, and education. On the other hand,
welfare reform legislation announced earlier this year
makes clear that, in the words of Social Security Secretary
Alastair Darling, there is "no unconditional entitlement
to benefits." The prime minister speaks of a new
contract between state and citizen: "We will help you get
into work, but in return you have to help yourself." To
the consternation of the left, the government is docking
the benefits of young unemployed people who refuse to
obtain job training, and it proposes to make the benefits
of single mothers and other welfare recipients conditional
upon their attendance at job center interviews.
Two years after George Bush's crushing defeat, few
outside the DLC could have imagined the calamity that
befell the Democrats at the hands of Newt Gingrich.
Today, New Democrats can take comfort from the fact
that their key message -- govern as you were elected --
has not fallen on deaf ears in New Labour.
