Blair’s lack of ‘process’

What is really wrong with the Blair government? The unease it excites is at least as strong on the articulate political Left as on the Right. Indeed the grounds for anxiety may overlap across the political spectrum. Until now it has been difficult to verbalise this sense of malaise. The citation of particular policies that are disliked, or even of the Downing Street style, is not sufficient.

It is only after looking at Amartya Sen’s new book of essays that the penny suddenly dropped for me. Unlike his earlier book, Development as Freedom, which I reviewed here on 31 January 2000, this is a technical volume containing some of the papers for which he received his Nobel prize. It is concerned with major issues of freedom, welfare and human achievements, but at the rarefied level where political and economic theory and formal philosophy all meet. Yet unlike so many writers in this field, who are mainly concerned with their reputation among academics, Sen never forgets the more general reader looking over his shoulder.