Tony Blair was confident that he could win what he wanted at this year's Labour Party conference. It would be surprising if the conference, after an election landslide for Labour, was very openly critical (it was due to take place as we went to press). So Blair expected to win his 'Partnership into Power' proposals which will weaken the role of the conference and activists inside Labour.
But the clash between the priorities of the market and the desire for social change among most Labour supporters has thrown into sharp relief some of the contradictions of the Blair government in recent weeks. The train crash in west London which left six people dead clearly resulted from the failure to install train protection safety features which could override driver error. This was itself the result of privatisation and the drive towards higher productivity and greater workplace flexibility.
Yet Labour, once vociferous in its condemnation of privatisation, is much more muted in office. And it positively approves the methods by which workers are forced to work harder and more 'flexibly' to increase company profits.
Labour has also announced that the Treasury is to employ eight supposed experts to shake up the Private Finance Initiative - all of whom have previously worked for private companies which will benefit from the PFI. Industry and business are getting the green light to do what they want, while at the same time Frank Dobson has admitted that one of Labour's key pledges before the election - to reduce NHS waiting lists - will not now be met.
In every area the story is the same. So again, it is rumoured that up to 40 percent of the jobs created under the government's Welfare to Work scheme will have to be in the public sector because the 'dynamic', 'flexible' private sector is refusing to provide them, despite government subsidies being handed out. Plans for 'reform' of state pensions involve coercing workers to pay for a private pension as well as their state contributions despite the appalling record of the private pension companies.
It is the belief in market forces, and the need to make British capitalism more profitable, which have led Blair to talk about the need to take some 'tough' decisions over the next few months.
The most publicised of these is over public sector pay. After years of attacks and penny pinching from the Tories the expectations from Labour are high. Yet Alasdair Darling, chief secretary to the treasury said recently, 'We made it clear in our manifesto that we were determined to put the public finances on a firm and sustainable footing... We are not going to repeat the mistakes of the past by conceding pay awards which would undermine Britain's long term economic prospects.'
Yet one of the 'mistakes' the cabinet did make, more or less at the same time as this announcement, was to award its own members pay rises well in excess of inflation. Only when there was a public outcry were they forced to back down. Even so, most ministers appear highly disgruntled that they are not getting their full awards - even though they already earn almost ten times what many low paid workers receive. Blair and Brown had enough sense to realise that they had to back down if they are to have any prospect of holding pay restraint within the public sector. With pay review boards coming up for nurses and teachers in the coming months there is every prospect that the tensions already evident between the new government and many of those who voted them in will turn to considerable anger.
All of which means the coming months for Labour will be anything but smooth. Already there are signs that the initial doubts about the new government are growing. As we report in this month's issue of Socialist Review, Blair's reception at the TUC, just four months after delivering Labour's biggest ever election victory, was less than enthusiastic. And with students returning to the colleges this month the mounting anger over fees and the end of the grant could come to a head.
For socialists this means the audience for our ideas is more favourable than it has been for quite some time. This is a mood on which we can build.
Labour's announcement in July of tuition fees and abolition of the maintenance grant has provoked mass anger. Thousands of students have already joined the Stop The Fees Campaign (STFC) in the first few weeks of term at both universities and colleges of further education - 600 signed up to the campaign at Sheffield FE college, 351 in Bradford FE, 340 at Hackney Community College, 250 at the University of East Anglia, 230 at Liverpool John Moores University and 217 at Sheffield University so far. Several protests have also taken place.
A lobby of the annual meeting of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals at Strathclyde University on 17 September hit the headlines when 70 students surrounded the building, demanding education remain free. Members of the campaign were interviewed by BBC news programme Scotland Tonight, as was Labour MP Denis Canavan, who called the government's proposals 'reactionary' and pledged official support for the STFC.
The approach of the STFC to beat tuition fees and save the maintenance grant stands in stark contrast to the leadership of the National Union of Students, who are opposed to fees but not against the loss of the grant. They believe that we cannot afford to fund education fully and so students should contribute financially towards it. They find it 'appalling' that Labour want to charge £1,000 for tuition and yet are quite prepared to accept students saddling themselves with at least a £3,000 yearly debt for living costs.
The NUS has called for regional only demonstrations on 1 November, well over a month after the start of term for many universities and FE colleges. In spite of this, many thousands of students are actively campaigning for both local and national action. The call made by the Stop The Fees Campaign for an NUS national demonstration is greeted with enthusiasm by large numbers of students. The 1 November demonstrations look set to be huge, with various lobbies, road blockages and pickets preceding them through October as part of the build up.
The EIS teachers' union in Scotland is also backing 1 November and NUT branches in England are expected to follow suit. This is hardly surprising given the chronic underfunding of higher education and increased workload of lecturers and support staff, who are often on temporary contracts. This situation led lecturers and other staff to take one day strike action in November last year in a national shutdown of universities. The issue has still not been resolved, with a £350 million shortfall in funding for this academic year alone. The government's recent response to find an extra £125 million is woefully inadequate. It represents a cynical move to placate staff outraged at the prospect of tuition fees. The fact that money raised from charging fees will go directly into funding higher education serves only to illustrate New Labour's determination to make those least able pay for education.
This year sees the possibility of widespread student protests, national demonstrations and a nationwide wave of occupations. This action can both radicalise the mass of students and win a significant number to revolutionary politics. It can also strengthen the opposition to Blair and act as the spark which ignites workers' struggles.
Most discussion around the talks under way at Castle Buildings in Stormont has concentrated on who's in and who's out. Until 15 September everyone was in - only Sinn Fein was out. When Sinn Fein went in, Ian Paisley's DUP and the tiny UK Unionists surprised no one by walking out. The PUP and UDP, political wings of the murder gangs of UVF and UDA, had said they wanted 'inclusive talks' and would welcome Sinn Fein's entry.
Then David Trimble's Ulster Unionists, looking over their shoulders at Paisley, said they weren't sure if they were in or out. Faced with the prospect of being the only Unionists talking to Sinn Fein, the 'breath of fresh air' Loyalist parties belched stale complaints about the Republicans getting all the concessions and said they would go along with whatever Trimble decided. When Trimble finally entered the talks, his UUP 'fur coat brigade' were firmly flanked by the PUP and UDP people whose support had been built by denouncing the mainstream parties.
The return of most of the Unionists to the talks was expected. They have every reason to be there. Since his election in May, Tony Blair has gone out of his way to reassure them the Union is safe. On the morning of 15 September the British and Irish governments issued a joint statement reiterating the 'triple lock' of the Unionist veto: majority vote at the talks, at a referendum on whatever settlement is reached and at Westminster. The governments also assured the Unionists that they expected some decommissioning of arms in the course of the talks.
In fact, the Unionists had little choice but to return, given the depth of feeling here in Northern Ireland. Three separate opinion polls at the start of September showed a distinct majority of UUP voters wanted their party to participate. A survey by Queen's University and the Rowntree Trust concluded that 93 percent of UUP and 76 percent of DUP voters wanted their party to stay in talks.
According to the Queen's/Rowntree survey, 92 percent of the population of Northern Ireland as a whole want their parties to stay in the talks, while the Ulster Marketing Survey indicated that 71 percent of the population as a whole think their parties should talk to everyone. A Coopers and Lybrand survey found that 70 percent of those questioned believed that Unionists should have face to face negotiations with Sinn Fein. Senior Protestant clergy, too, have been urging the Unionists to sit down with Sinn Fein.
For all their bluster, the deal on the table is as good as the Unionists could hope for. It is being described by some as 'Sunningdale for slow learners'. In fact, it offers Republicans a lot less than the 1973 Sunningdale proposals did. The powersharing elements are similar, but then an elected All-Ireland Council was part of the deal. This time round, the cross-border bodies envisaged are cosmetic.
It is difficult to see how Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness will be able to sell their followers a settlement which will copperfasten the Union and probably include the dropping of the South's claim on the North - 'Articles Two and Three' of the Irish Republic's Constitution. Nevertheless, despite the IRA's insistence that it hasn't gone away, there is no evidence that any but a handful of hardliners want a return to the armed struggle.
Since the first ceasefire, mid-ranking Sinn Fein members have been moving into top jobs and positions in community groups. One community worker in West Belfast commented that 'it used to be a group couldn't get funding if it had former political prisoners involved. Now that's practically a condition for funding.'
It seems Sinn Fein will be willing to accept partition in return for an 'Equality Agenda'. This will aim to get greater rights for Irish language speakers and to redress some of the continuing imbalances between Protestants and Catholics in terms of jobs, health and other social issues. Labour has already committed itself to maintaining programmes aimed at narrowing this gap.
The persistent refusal of the London government to acknowledge the rights of Irish speakers is a disgrace. At the same time as Labour was producing Welsh referendum material in both Welsh and English, a 12 year old boy from the Bogside in Derry was arrested by the RUC for replying in Irish when asked his name. He wasn't being cheeky - his family are Irish speakers, his name is Irish, he has no other.
The RUC is likely to be the biggest problem facing the talks, although it's rarely mentioned. No settlement that doesn't include root and branch reform of the RUC will be accepted by Catholics. But meaningful reform will be unacceptable to the police themselves and the threat of mutiny, especially during the marching season, is always implicit.
For socialists the proposed settlement and the 'Equality Agenda' are a potential disaster. They accept a divided working class and commit politicians on 'both sides' to ensuring their side gets the best share of whatever's going. Competition for jobs, houses and resources will become the new site of conflict.
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There is no denying that millions felt shock and grief at the death of Diana. The very public and unexpected end to the life of a young, glamorous woman led to very public outpourings of emotion.
How do we begin to explain the disproportionate reaction of people, such as the man who claimed that he cried more than when his wife died? Or the fact that the torrent of emotion was directed at a person with whom the overwhelming majority had no connection and whose life could boast no achievements other than the accident of birth?
The alienation of life under capitalism helps provide a general explanation. The Queen of Hearts 'means' something for people denied a meaning by the ordinariness of everyday existence. She was the heart of a heartless world, a being from an exalted sphere who, on occasion, moved among us ordinary mortals to bring comfort to the homeless (those sleeping rough), the helpless (victims of landmines) and the dying (Aids sufferers). This ancient myth was given a distinctly modern twist: she suffered persecution at the hands of the royal family and was crucified by the media - at the very moment when, soap opera style, she had met the love of her life. How could the powerless not fail to feel gratitude to their powerful but kindly benefactor, especially as like them she had known sorrow?
More specifically, everybody could relate to Diana precisely because she was a zero, a glamourous nullity on whom anything could be projected. She occupied a kind of vacuum in the public sphere. She did good publicly without being a politician and so appeared to serve no special interest. Her very lack of any attainment was an asset: there could be no argument about whether she was good at music or sport as there would have been about some star figure. She radiated that vaguest of commonplaces about which she was absolutely sincere: how much better the world would be...if only we were kinder to each other or hugged each other more. Her wealth appeared irrelevant.
If this explains Diana's 'popularity' posthumously (the opinion polls were less favourable in life), the real phenomenon which has to be explained is the way in which media pundits and pro-Blair intellectuals have constructed a 'populist' meaning out of her death.
Who were these millions of grieving people who flocked to sign the books of condolence? The image conjured by the media was that of a cross-section of the British people. Peter Kellner, writing in the Observer the day after the funeral, claimed on the basis of an ICM survey that the mourners were 'slightly more middle class than working class' and that the main difference with the class profile of the country at large 'was the under-
representation of semi and unskilled workers, and people who live on state benefits'. The newspaper reading habits of the mourners backed this up. Daily Mail readers outstripped the Sun and Times readers the Mirror. Kellner also argued that contrary to some impressions minority groups (blacks, gays, disabled) were not disproportionately represented.
That is not to say that workers and their families were unaffected or did not participate in rituals of condolence. But the sense that there might have been less than total unanimity in the degree of grief was ignored by the media. Television in particular went further than this in its saturation coverage and complete abandonment of any sense of critical proportion. Christopher Dunkley, writing in the Financial Times, commented on the way in which 'an axis rapidly developed between newsrooms and the more sentimental and suggestible members of society, those who placed the flowers, the soft toys, and the doggerel messages outside palace gates'. This manufacturing of emotional consensus was a 'frightening exhibition...of how the mass media and the emotional responses of millions of people can feed off one another to create a mood which is close to mindlessness'. He even compared it to Germany in the 1930s.
Of course, the many people who felt that however shocking her death there was no reason for life to come to a full stop were reluctant to raise objections. It is one thing to blow a raspberry, as some clearly did at the hyping of the royal wedding in 1981; another to have done so at the funeral. At the same time, the mildest of criticisms, such as the objection raised by Euan Ferguson, the Observer's comment editor, to the tone of hysteria in the reporting was met by outrage. Yet it is clear that saturation coverage was far from popular - so much so that that the BBC has been forced to abandon its planned two weeks of solemn music and commentary when the Queen Mother dies.
If mindlessness was the self confirming relationship between media and 'people', the intellectuals fell over themselves in their lack of critical spirit and gushing emotionalism. Yesterday's attacks on Diana, as an airhead with more money than sense, became today's celebration of Diana as the model for a new spirit sweeping over Britain, a floral revolution (no less).
Leading the field in fatuousness was the erstwhile editor of Marxism Today, Martin Jacques, who declared in the Observer that here we have a popular revolution, whose language is royal because royalty is the symbol of national continuity. Its immediate purpose is the modernisation of the royal family but its aims stretch much further. Deeper even than the landslide that brought New Labour to power on 1 May, it heralds a fundamental change in the relationship between institutions and the people, a bridging of the gulf between the stuffy institutions of 'governance' and 'the culture of most people'.
This culture is one of 'feelings, honesty, informality, humour, meritocracy, the personal, the admission of weakness and vulnerability, the casual, the female'. In the Thatcher era, says Jacques, this popular culture had been excluded from the institutions of 'governance' because Thatcher denigrated the public sphere. Since the election of a prime minister who reflects that new culture, 'Diana demonstrated that public life could be different, that public institutions did not have to be aloof, male, stuffy, the preserve of the Great and the Good... This was a new kind of leader, who combined the public and the personal, self-confidence and vulnerability, the role of the outsider and insider, mother and public figure, a young woman of our times... Diana redefined the nation, enfranchising groups that previously felt disenfranchised.'
This kind of 'thinking' is now commonplace on the Blairite liberal left. Diana has been canonised as the sacred symbol of Blairism.
Why have these left liberal thinkers moved towards such uncritical adulation? The first reason is that Blairism faces a problem of legitimation. The feeling that it is a break from the past will increasingly come up against the reality that it is not. The Blair 'revolution' is a continuation of Thatcherism by other means. The free market will continue to reign in allocation of resources to health and education and in employment.
The only 'ideological' crusade open to Blair is that of 'modernisation'. In itself it is an empty concept: simply to modernise institutions is to leave social relations untouched. What, after all, does it matter if welfare agencies are modernised while single mothers are compelled to work on pain of losing benefit, or if the foreign office has open days while the selling of arms to brutal dictatorships goes on unhindered? Harold Wilson may have been able to give his modernisation plans in the 1960s a touch of magic by invoking the white heat of a technological revolution - but he did at least (unlike Blair) have a reformist project.
Worse, of course, is that modernisation can intensify exploitation. Streamlining government, making it more efficient and bringing it closer to the people can add to the burden on working class people. The emptiness of modernisation is therefore compelled to find itself a glamorous form. But that cannot be readily manufactured. The emotion surrounding Diana's death and funeral is an opportunity to construct a justification of Blairite modernisation which, elevating feeling, dispenses with any critical examination of what modernisation is really about.
At the same time by accepting as a symbol of the modern such an archaic figure these intellectuals have conceded ground on one of their favourite examples of the need to modernise: the fate of the monarchy. Whereas a year or so ago, because of the antics of the House of Windsor, the debate was whether the royal family would survive at all, now the argument is what kind of royal family do we want? In train is a rehabilitation of the monarchy, to be modernised along Diana lines. At the same time, there are real problems with this. Much of the feeling over Diana expressed itself in criticism of the Windsors, including the queen, who has so far largely been seen as above criticism.
Exploitation of feeling is being used to attack the non-Blairite left as macho, uncaring and interested only in abstract causes. Detachment from the real emotions of ordinary people is offered as proof the left is out of touch with real people. Diana's appeal apparently shows how antiquated class politics now is. This is not true. The idea that the socially elevated can by charity alleviate suffering is an extremely ancient idea which class politics has long replaced. As William Blake, writing in the 1790s, put it, 'Pity would be no more, if we did not make somebody poor.' Get rid of a system which creates rich and poor and you would no longer need impotent expressions of sympathy from the exploiting class -- of which Diana was a particularly parasitic member.
There is also nothing new about appealing to emotion above reason. When Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was under attack during the French Revolution, Edmund Burke surprised his friends by praising her as a beautiful, honourable and vulnerable woman. The republican Tom Paine had the best reply to Burke's refusal to see beyond the grace of courtly life to the rotten system that supported it - 'He pities the plumage but forgets the dying bird.'
The majority and turnout in the referendum for a Scottish parliament with limited tax raising powers exceeded expectations as 74.3 percent voted for the creation of a parliament with 63.5 percent voting to give it some financial say. Yet a week later the Yes vote in Wales just scraped home to victory in the tightest of finishes with a narrow majority of 6,721 votes, just 0.6 percent.
The difference between the Welsh result and that in Scotland is not difficult to explain. The Welsh assembly will have no real powers as was widely recognised. Secondly, in Scotland a disastrous campaign by the Tories, backed up by appeals for a No-No vote by bankers and business figures ensured there was a clear class polarisation. This was reinforced by the virtual complete unity of the labour movement in ensuring the long term goal of a Scottish parliament. Government ministers like Robin Cook and Brian Wilson who campaigned for a No vote in 1979 were out on the stump for a Yes-Yes vote. In Wales, the splits in the Labour Party were there for all to see.
Lastly, of course, there is a difference between Scotland and Wales. The former was integrated into the United Kingdom at a fairly late date, retaining its own separate education, legal and religious institutions. This meant that Scottish nationalism had a material reality. Wales, by contrast, was militarily incorporated into the English state in the middle ages before anything resembling a nation state existed. There was an element of national oppression associated with the Welsh language which has given Welsh nationalism a sharp edge on occasion, but Wales's long term integration into the English state has blunted that appeal.
In Scotland the class nature of the Yes-Yes vote was obvious in the thumping majorities delivered in the four major cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee and in the industrial areas of the West of Scotland, the Central Belt, Lothians and West Fife. The votes were weaker in rural areas.
Much was made of the east-west split in Wales but the one significant feature of the Welsh referendum was the shift to a yes vote in the South Wales valleys, the historic centre of the Welsh working class. West Glamorgan, for instance, delivered a yes majority of 56.9 percent, whereas in 1979 just 18.7 percent cast their vote in favour of an assembly.
The vote for a Scottish parliament seems on the surface to be yet another feather in Tony Blair's cap. But Scottish workers voted overwhelmingly for a parliament because they want something more than what is on offer from Blair in Westminster. In the longer term this promises Blair some problems. It is not difficult to foresee that, three years down the road, when Labour introduces a measure like its current proposal to charge students tuition fees the popular demand north of the border will be for a Scottish parliament to refuse to follow Westminster.
In Wales it was clear that Blair thought his personal charisma could carry the day. In the event he had to cancel a triumphal trip to Cardiff, while John Prescott is backing away from proposed regional assemblies in England.
For the coterie around Blair and Mandelson the general election was won by a mixture of an effective media campaign and appeals to 'Middle England'. They have never grasped that mass hatred of the Tories delivered them a landslide victory. It is not clear what there is underneath the Millbank machine. One senior campaign figure was quoted in the Financial Times (20 September) as saying of the Welsh referendum:
'In some areas the Labour Party clearly can't campaign on the ground. I think the work was not done to talk to people. In some areas Labour no longer has an organisation that can deliver.'
A columnist in Scotland on Sunday (21 September) suggested that when the going gets tough the confidence of the Blairites might evaporate: 'The ashen-faced muted comments of Ann Clwyd provided an instructive insight into the marshmallow centre of Blairism - when threatened with defeat these people are not steady to the tiger.'
For the labour movement in Scotland in particular the creation of a Scottish parliament represents a fundamental test. During 18 years of Tory rule this was held up as the vital demand over all else by the Scottish TUC and subsequently the Labour Party. Uniting all parties and all classes in support of home rule was counterposed to any effective fightback from below.
Many on the left cheered themselves with the thought that a Scottish parliament would be controlled by the left. The truth is that the Labour Party would be lucky to gain overall control and that the Scottish Labour Party is hardly a bastion of the left. Candidates for the parliament are likely to be cherry picked by the Blairites who will hand out seats to their clones.
Others have looked to the Scottish National Party to provide some sort of radical challenge. The SNP leader Alex Salmond has a left wing veneer. But within days of the referendum he made it clear the SNP leadership was committed to support the royal family. Further, rather than continuing to work with Labour as in the referendum campaign the SNP are looking to cosy up to the Liberals.
Scotland on Sunday (21 September) reported, 'Many in the SNP now see the Liberal Democrats as their natural allies in Scotland and there is even discussion of the possibility of a Lib Dem/SNP coalition in the parliament.' This is despite polls before the referendum showing an overwhelming majority of Liberal voters were against a Scottish parliament, despite party policy.
Both in Scotland and Wales socialists have to argue three things. Firstly, we can't wait for an assembly or a parliament to bring change. The fight over free education begins now. Secondly, we can rely on neither body because neither has any real power to bring about change. And lastly we reject the sort of pan-national unity which is so beloved of both labour movements and which underlay both pro-devolution campaigns.
Welsh and Scottish workers' best allies are their fellow workers in Liverpool, Sheffield and east London. Together we have to fight to defend free education, against public sector pay and spending limits, for decent pensions, schools and hospitals and all those hopes which led people to vote Labour on 1 May and which are in the process of being cruelly dashed by Blair