Institutional revisions

The following points illustrate the reconfiguration of historical political institutions undertaken by Blair; they are considered as political performances:

• On 6 May 1997, without cabinet consultation, Blair’s chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced that the Bank of England would operate independently from Government.

• Throughout 1997 Blair carried out the following reforms: modernisation programme of the House of Commons: a change in the format of prime minister’s questions, from two 15 minute slots taking place on Tuesday and Thursday to one 30 minute slot on Wednesday. Increasing ministerial accountability which included the prime minister’s appearing before the Liaison Committee twice a year, this 2.5 hour slot allowed for prime ministerial scrutiny, although topics for discussion were known well in advance.

Rectifying the under-representation of women in public life: five women were part of Blair’s first cabinet in 1997: Clare Short, Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam and Ann Taylor.

• Local and regional governments were given greater powers and control of budgets.

• Towards the end of 1997, devolution Bills for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were introduced to Parliament and became law in 1998.

• Throughout 1998 and 1999, Blair reformed the House of Lords, mainly, the substantial reduction in the number of hereditary peers in favour of appointed peers on a largely party political basis not unconnected to party political funds. The institutional revision of Parliament’s legislative second-chamber was criticised heavily and seen as a failure. Blair was seen to have weakened the second chamber by screening out governmental opposition and scrutiny;

and, “its supposed ‘packing’ of the Lords with ‘cronies’” (Cowley, 2007, p. 32).

The House of Lords reforms were problematic for Blair as they were proposed at the beginning of his premiership and were still ongoing in 2007 when he left office; this affected Blair’s image in that it appeared that he had not thought

through the reforms, was hasty and had acted incompetently without regard for the history of political institutions. Instead of the traditional scrutiny function of the second House, the House of Lords was organised and structured around a transactional purpose; for some, it was as if peerages were given out in return for financial donations and/or media influence (see Cowley, 2007).

• Centralisation of government: at the beginning of the Blair premiership The Ministerial Code was published outlining the creation of the Prime Minister’s Department as the central machinery of government; centralisation and government control were exercised as MPs and Ministers had to clear any media appearances with No. 10. An increase in special advisers was evident in the Prime Minister’s Department, the Policy Unit, Research and Information Unit and Strategic Communications Unit (see Hennessy, 2001, chapter 18).

• In relation to cabinet government, Blair had revised the notion of collective government, for example, “a decision of momentous importance for the future of the nation’s economic policy [Bank of England] and arguably the sovereignty of parliament had been taken [without cabinet consultation]”

(Rentoul, 2003, p. 331). Moreover, the visibility of special advisers in government further detracted from the notion of collective cabinet government. Hennessy states that “bilateral rather than collective dealings with his ministers remained the preferred way of doing business” (2001, p.

520). In an interview with BBC Radio 2’s The Michael Cockerell Show on

‘Blair’s Thousand Days’, Blair makes reference to bilateral ministerial relationships:

“people often say in relation to Cabinet government, look I would be pretty shocked if the first time I knew a Cabinet minister felt strongly about something was if they raised it at the Cabinet table. I would expect them to come and on my door and say, “Look, Tony, I’ve got a problem here. I disagree with this” or “I disagree with that”” (Blair, 2000 cited in Hennessy, 2001, p. 520).

• In 1999, the Greater London Authority Act introduced the principle of an Elected Mayor. In 2000, Ken Livingstone, former Labour leader of the Greater London Council won as an independent candidate after the party, as it were, replaced him as its candidate with Frank Dobson. The Ken Livingstone scandal is very complicated; we retain one point on how this affected Blair’s image. The fact that Livingstone was replaced by Dobson highlighted Blair’s negative shadow persona and the perception that politics was characterised by transactions and even vindictiveness, in this case. The initiative of elected Mayors was not widely introduced on a regional level.

Kuhn notes that during Alastair Campbell’s tenure as press officer from 1994–2003, New Labour government’s strategic approach to media management was characterised by three key features:

• Centralisation: co-ordinated government communications so that a single message, top down, was presented; ministers were locked into contracts with the government communications arm as any media interviews or appearances had to be pre-booked.

• Professionalisation: sound-bites, whose utilisation also saw the favouring of journalists that gave New Labour sympathetic coverage over unsympathetic ones.

• Politicisation: Campbell became more partisan with the press; non-partisan civil servants acting as ministerial press officers were weeded out; and the number of politically appointed special advisers rose, several of whom fulfilled a proactive partisan media relations role. (Kuhn, 2007, p. 124), (see also Franklin, 2001, p. 130-144).

Centralisation, professionalisation and politicisation as indicated by Kuhn contributed to a fourth feature, namely, the projection of Tony Blair to suit political purpose. One of the caveats of stressing the personality of the leader is that if character and personality exist at the centre of politics then these are the issues which become central to politics itself, with a whole series of consequences.

Having outlined Blair’s performances in relation to political institutions, we make one point on the relationship between performance and political persona. In terms of character traits, the institutional reconfigurations that Blair carried out can be characterised in terms of centralisation versus dispersal of power. This demonstrated opposite character traits, centralisation illustrated Machiavellian style power politics;

in contrast, power dispersal (devolution, Bank of England, Local government) softened (and justified) government centralisation and illustrated pragmatism, courage, boldness, conviction, a modern executive unconcerned with the concentration of political power. However, reform of the House of Lords e.g.

substantial reduction in the number of hereditary peers in favour of elected peers and as referenced earlier “supposed ‘packing’ of the Lords with ‘cronies’” (Cowley, 2007, p.32) began to foreground previous negative character traits that expressed themselves during the Ecclestone scandal e.g. possible corruption and dishonesty.

The institutional revisions carried out by Blair all involved ‘character’ and elements of personalisation which had some positive and controlled, and some negative and not controlled, effects upon his image and persona.

Despite the developing paradoxes in Blair’s character traits, his persona remained as a popular, young, modern prime minister until 2003, in part informed by a sympathetic and largely uncritical media. We make one additional point on political popularity as formative of the acceptance of institutional change. Setting the Bank of England free from Government was an unprecedented move in 1997 in recent British

political history. This reflected New Labour’s wider embrace of neoliberalism as a form of governance which embraced markets and capitalism. Rentoul states that post-election euphoria and “a fresh face and a basic level of competence was enough of a contrast to induce a heady change of national mood” (2003, p. 331). The widespread acceptance of this institutional reconfiguration (although announced by chancellor, Gordon Brown) can in part be owed to Blair’s personal popularity, and his ability to use it to political effect.

In this chapter, four performances of Blair as prime minister have been analysed (Cool Britannia and Blair’s use of celebrity, the statement on the death of Princess Diana, the response to the Bernie Ecclestone scandal, and institutional revisions).

The conjuncture of all four performances highlighted – and in some cases even created – a range of character traits: calm, poised, unafraid to express emotion, approachable, brave, yet powerful, as well as the beginnings of others: (just possibly) corrupt, (just possibly) dishonest. However, a largely sympathetic media did not exploit the possible negative traits and Blair’s positive political persona remained more or less unchanged overall.

Blair’s performance in Northern Ireland politics and the Good Friday Agreement are analysed in the following section.