Two nice, young men…

Thirteen years ago, a nice, young(ish) man spent a cheery Bank Holiday weekend grinning over the worst local election results in Tory history. Two years later, he was running the “new, young country” of his dreams.

That it all went so horribly wrong for Tony Blair (politically, at least, for financially he seems to have cleaned up) may have something to do with his treatment of power as the end, rather than the means.
 
Blair came into government in 1997 with no real, clear set of beliefs. “What works is best”, was the managerial, media-driven mantra of the age.

But what works is not always clear. It helps if you know why things work – and having lost one ideology in the ‘80s, the only thing left for Blair’s New Labour was power for its own sake. The rest is history.

Last weekend, another nice young(ish) man no-doubt smiled over the worst Labour local election results in 40 years. He may well come to power in two years. Let’s hope he doesn’t make the same mistake.

Phillip Oppenheim