Haunted By ‘Courage’

Today, Brown's failures are clear for all to see. The rot set in when Brown toyed with the idea of holding a snap general election last autumn, only to step back, again, at the last minute. His most recent error was to equalize income-tax rates at the lower end of the scale, apparently forgetting that up to 5 million poorer people could suffer. In one move, he had undermined his mission—to help the disadvantaged. In other areas he has vacillated as well. One moment he hinted at a change of approach toward the United States. By the time Bush had completed his "farewell" tour of Europe in June, Brown had backtracked to a relationship as obsequious as the one pursued by Blair. On Iraq, the prime minister first floated the idea of a commission of inquiry. Then he refused. He said a national identity-card scheme was a good thing. Then he changed his mind. Then he denied he had done that. He said he would attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics; then he said that had never been his intention.

Brown's fundamental flaw is not specific to him. In a review of Brown's book, Philip Gould, Labour's focus-group expert, wrote that courage has "always been in the DNA of New Labour." In fact, it is the reverse. New Labour was an artificial construct, a political vehicle created by a group of center-left politicians scarred by the failures of their older colleagues during Thatcher's 1980s hegemony. When they did finally make it to power in 1997, Blair, Brown and their team behaved—as one ministerial old-timer described it to me—as squatters. Levy captures this moment delightfully, but also mischievously, by recalling how Blair came to his home within days of winning the election. "He literally jumped up and down, like a small kid who had been let out of school for the day and shouted, laughing out loud: 'I really did it. Can you believe it?' "

They couldn't quite believe they'd got in and were desperate to stay as long as they could. They masked their defensiveness with aggression. Survival—otherwise known as electoral victory—became the one and only goal. Blair and Brown, whatever their rivalry, shared the same value system. Underlying this failure is a pessimistic view of British society, which the party sees as politically and economically conservative. Under Blair and Brown's watch, inequality rose in the United Kingdom. Thatcher's economic settlement was not challenged. Civil liberties have been steadily eroded. Tens of billions of extra pounds have poured into the National Health Service and state schools. While this should be a laudable achievement, the government has failed to convince the public that this money has been well spent.

In the end, they were scared of making the intellectual case on these issues, as well as on the most pressing foreign-policy issue of the day: Iraq. In Prescott's memoir, his assessment of the relationship between Blair and George W. Bush shows a particular lack of intellectual rigor. At a cabinet meeting on Iraq, instead of discussing the policies underlying the decision to back the United States, Prescott admits he "got quite carried away, saying it was vital to stick together." At the recent Hay literary festival, Levy acknowledged that he had in fact been uncomfortable with Blair's proximity to Bush, and to the decision to go to war in Iraq. Why then, did he not do something about it at the time? Levy had no answer. But ultimately, as Brown might say, it comes down to courage.

Kampfner is the former editor of the New Statesman.

© 2008