Will the Labour party go bonkers after Blair? I only ask because the early signs are worrying — or reassuring — depending what view you take of these things. To judge by the attitudes and prejudices manifesting themselves in the transition from Mr Blair to Mr Brown, the party is gagging to put itself on the wrong side of the electorate.
The Blairite attachment to the reformist centre-ground is absolute and has all the binding force of a sacred text. Of course, its potential has not been realised in many areas and there have been what the PM primly calls ‘unhelpful distractions’, like a war gone wrong and the Met at the door. But fiercely guarding that territory is what Mr Blair and his allies have done best through three elections. Because we have grown used to it, not to say bored with it, we take it for granted. Big mistake.
The internal ecology of the party is changing fast, even before Gordon Brown gets to run the show. It is not (yet) a lurch to the Left, but it is a loosening of the moorings as the PM prepares to depart: a sense that it is no longer fashionable to be too enthusiastic about the government’s remaining reforms and that a return to the old comfort zones is fine and even desirable.
Labourworld woke me up on Saturday morning when Fiona Millar, the former No. 10 aide, argued on the Today programme that the problem with education under Mr Blair was that too much back-door selection had crept in. Here is the classic example of a Labourworld truth — an interpretation of the facts widely agreed with in her own party, but absolutely mystifying to almost everyone else. Pretty much all instinctive Tories — except David Cameron and David Willetts in the new edition — think that there is not enough selection and are fretful at killing off a revival of grammar schools.
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