Originally published @ 2:39 pm, Wed 1st Sep 2010
"We're talking about the British. They're not allowed to know their own history for 30 years." - American President in "the TV series "A Very British Coup".
Unlike Diane Abbott, I have placed an order for Tony Blair's "A Journey" - we should know what he has to say as we make a decision about the future direction of the party.
(I'm currently reliant on the BBC and newspaper web-sites for an understanding of what the book says - not a good place to be. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-michael-white)
But it transpires that the book is more than a set of memoirs; it is an attempt to influence our thinking.
Quite right too. Our thinking should go beyond notions that the very lovable Neil Kinnock and the not quite so loevable Roy Hattersley have to say. We should be strong enough to consider all from people who care about the future of the Labour Party; and consider the views of a few others too.
I've posted how there is much to be proud about what we achieved in our 13 years in government ( http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/michaeledwards/28353/ ), but I am surprised that in the clips of the TV interview, Tony Blair suggests our fate was decided by going off-track from New Labour, and a presentation of what New Labour was that almost narrows it down to public service reform.
A simplification, but it is a tad irritating, when we can see in our daily lives -
workers becoming more stressed when we hoped an age of computers might liberate us;
people struggling to afford homes;
people out of work because of the failures of the market (or only a part of it as Tony would have it);
families struck by the financial consequences of a family member contracting a disease that will require expensive long-term care, without the support of a national care service;
examples of good development of business and products in some clusters, but not enough in the face of the globalisation and climate change challenges we face;
media coverage unable to portray politics in terms of anything but left-right analysis and personality splits; underwritten by a message of you can't believe in politics to make progress for the people.
We should aspire for more, we can reflect properly on what we achieved and seek to achieve more without dismissing Tony Blair and the New Labour project and we should be able to reflect on this without crude simplifications of what this means for David Miliband who has been striking out for a new way for working.
As it happens, some of the thinking that Tony Blair advocated for the personalisation of public services will continue, if only because we should be working for better ways of supporting for exmaple, disabled children as they reach adulthood.
But the issues Britain has to face are so much wider. And our solutions have got to embrace the values that will build up the Labour movement.