Monday 5 January 2015

Let's Call It Blameronism

Peter Oborne writes:

Through much of his nine-year period as leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister, David Cameron has copied Tony Blair’s political strategies and emulated the Blairite system of foreign policy alliances.

This is deliberate.

At a private dinner party during his leadership campaign, Mr Cameron reportedly said that he considered himself the “heir to Blair”.

It is said that Mr Cameron and George Osborne both refer to Mr Blair as “the Master”, asking each other “what would the Master have done?” when in difficult situations.

The Unfinished Revolution: How New Labour Changed British Politics Forever, written by Tony Blair’s late political strategist Philip Gould, is regarded within the Cameron circle with the same awe and veneration as a Bible.

It is not widely known that Mr Cameron often seeks advice from the former prime minister.

For instance, Mr Blair (so his allies tell me) played an important role in talking David Cameron into the calamitous Libyan intervention four years ago, overriding the advice both of then foreign secretary William Hague and General David Richards, chief of the defence staff.

Mr Blair also urged intervention in Syria, though 2013’s House of Commons vote made that impossible.

David Cameron in this sense represents the survival of Tony Blair through other means: let’s call it Blameronism.

This is defined by support for foreign intervention, political modernisation, government by clique, withering contempt for conventional party structures, and unquestioning support for the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

However, Blameronism also serves a political purpose.

Mr Cameron and his strategists have carefully studied the connection between Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

Mr Blair played to Thatcher’s vanity and manipulated the very lively resentment she felt against John Major and her political assassins within the party.

It worked.

During the 1997 general election campaign, Mrs Thatcher refused to come out fighting for the Conservatives, while quietly letting it be known that she thought well of Tony Blair.

Stories of rifts between Mr Major’s supporters and the Thatcherites played an important role in weakening the Conservative Party.

As the 2010 general election approached, Mr Cameron deliberately set out to charm Tony Blair, just as Mr Blair had charmed Margaret Thatcher.

He played on Mr Blair’s resentment against Gordon Brown, just as Mr Blair had played on Margaret Thatcher’s bitter hostility to John Major.

This Blair/Cameron alliance persists.

From time to time stories emerge that Mr Blair has doubts about Ed Miliband.

When questioned by The Telegraph during the summer, Mr Blair was reluctant to say either that he backed Mr Miliband or whether he would win.

His eventual declaration of support hardly inspired confidence.

Blairite elements in the media are less guarded.

They make no secret at all that they regard Mr Miliband as a hopeless case and consider David Cameron the inheritor of the Master’s crown.

This means that the Labour leader will go into next year’s general election fight with an important section of his own party against him, just as John Major did in 1997.

Meanwhile, Downing Street support has proved vital for Tony Blair’s business interests.

I’m sure that there is nothing so undistinguished and grubby as a formal arrangement between Mr Blair and Mr Cameron. We are talking about nothing more complicated than a bit of mutual back-scratching.

Mr Cameron’s tacit support is essential for the success of Tony Blair Associates.

Never before has a British former prime minister been allowed to operate as a plenipotentiary across continents in pursuit of private gain.

Yet a few quiet words from the British Prime Minister could put an end to Mr Blair’s unedifying career in international consultancy.

David Cameron helps Tony Blair in other ways.

Take the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. In opposition, Mr Cameron was one of the first to call loudly for an investigation. In government he has allowed matters to drag.

Publication was delayed by objections to the publication of private correspondence between George W Bush and Mr Blair.

These objections would never have got anywhere if they had not been supported by his successor, David Cameron.

Now comes word of a fresh delay.

Those criticised by Chilcot have hired (at taxpayers’ expense) hugely expensive lawyers to challenge the conclusions of the inquiry.

Bear in mind that Chilcot is the first major investigation into a political/military fiasco since the Gallipoli disaster 99 years ago.

Its purpose is not to protect reputations, but to get at the truth and enable lessons to be learnt for the future.

Some 11 years have now passed since the Iraq invasion and five since Chilcot started hearing evidence, with the promise of publication within 18 months.

Progress has stalled because politicians, in alliance with the Whitehall establishment, have been determined to stop it.

Scandalously, David Cameron has sided with Whitehall.

This is part of a pattern of behaviour.

When in opposition, Mr Cameron loudly demanded a full judge-led inquiry into allegations that British officials had been complicit in torture when Tony Blair was prime minister.

With less than five months to go to an election, we are not a jot wiser. No questions have been asked, let alone answered.

Mr Cameron’s failure to get at the truth has now been put into embarrassing relief by last week’s US Senate report on CIA abuses.

I have to admit that I have always found David Cameron and George Osborne’s admiration of Tony Blair upsetting, and their adoption of his methods distasteful.

Yet even I could understand that an element of guile and political calculation lay behind the admiration. I am now starting to wonder whether that still applies.

There is a comparison to be made with the connection between David Cameron and the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

In their early days in power the Chancellor and Cameron, in yet another example of Blameronism, sucked up to Mr Murdoch and the media executives who surrounded him.

In the short term this connection proved highly advantageous. In the long term it was disastrous.

The hacking scandal, and the jailing of Andy Coulson, Mr Cameron’s director of communications, inflicted an irremediable stain on the reputation of the prime minister.

The Blair connection may prove more damaging by far.

As time passes it becomes ever more clear that something went wrong with the British state during the Blair years.

There is no doubt that the Iraq invasion was a terrible mistake and that the preparations made ahead of the invasion were hopeless.

Evidence produced by Lord Butler proves that there are deep question marks over Tony Blair’s statements to parliament ahead of the invasion.

Increasingly there is reason to believe that some of the brave and patriotic people who work in our intelligence services entered some kind of ethical black hole thanks to British tolerance of kidnap and torture.

David Cameron had a duty when he became Prime Minister to clear up the moral squalor he inherited. He has not done so and it is reasonable to ask why.

Mr Cameron would be very well-advised to ensure that there are no more delays to the long-overdue Chilcot report into the Iraq war disaster.

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