Jenkins, Castle and Baker on Blair

Transcript of discussion between Lord Jenkins, Baroness Castle and Lord Baker on Tony Blair, broadcast on The Westminster Hour 23.12.2001. Chaired by Andrew Rawnsley.

Q. Tony Blair is evidently an electorally successful leader, the most successful in the Labour Party's history, in terms of being the only Labour Prime Minister to win two full terms in a row. But, Roy Jenkins, is electoral success enough to be considered a great Prime Minister?

JENKINS No, it's not enough in itself certainly. It's a necessary qualification for it. I mean, I know of no Prime Minister who didn't serve a full four to five years who even begins to qualify in the great Prime Minister stakes. So you've got to have electoral success and if you have it twice that's an advantage but in itself it does not do this.

Q. Kenneth Baker, has Tony Blair just been really very good at riding his luck, especially the good fortune to face a Conservative party which isn't electorally competitive, rather like Margaret Thatcher prospered in the mid 80's from facing a divided and unpopular opposition?

BAKER He's had a bit more than luck because his great strength in 1997 was to promise a new way. It wasn't just New Labour it was new Britain, it was everything, no sleaze, the Tories were washed up, a new Britain, public service before private greed, and I think the big disappointment is the gap between promise and delivery. In the Blair book we're about half way through now and the action in the first chapters didn't live up to the blurb because he did really promise everything was going to be different and it isn't. Sleaze now is on a worse scale than actually under the Conservatives and the actual promise that everything was going to get better, well the health service today is now eighteenth in the world, so the gap between promise and delivery of Tony Blair is absolutely gigantic and very, very, difficult to close.

Q. Barbara, one of the ironies is that New Labour sold itself as the people's party, the political wing of the British people Tony Blair once claimed, and yet at the last election barely a quarter of the potential electorate put a cross beside the name of a Labour candidate.

CASTLE Well I think that's the most significant thing of all and therefore I would say to Roy that the winning of elections is no guarantee of enduring success. I mean, that people should really talk of Margaret Thatcher as the calamity which in my view she was, after she had had such spectacular victories, was due to the fact that she lost touch. Now we've got Tony who rode to power on the revulsion against the enduring Thatcherism still found in John Major. It was much more a vote against than a vote for, in my view, in the election which swept Tony to power. But no, he'd come with a crusade. He's a great crusader is our Tony. He, you know, apparently was having triumphant successes except that at the last election as you say only a quarter of the people of this country said "we want this man as Prime Minister" enough to cross the road and vote for him.

Q. Let's look at his strengths as Prime Minister. Roy, what do you regard as his greatest strengths as a Prime Minister?

JENKINS Well I think his greatest personal strength as a Prime Minister is that he does have this quality which I would describe as Rooseveltian. I don't think Tony Blair is like Churchill at all, I don't even think he's like Gladstone though he's a bit more like Gladstone than he is like Churchill, but the person he sometimes reminds me of - though he's got some way to go in the greatness stakes - is Franklin D Roosevelt. What Roosevelt did have an ability to do, if somebody saw him for half an hour, if somebody had half an hour with Roosevelt, they went away thinking one, that the world was a better place than when they came in, and two, they were much more important personally then when they came in, and that is a very intoxicating quality.

Q. Did he practise it on you during your dealings?

JENKINS Oh I'm perfectly aware, I'm perfectly aware, I don't think he does it in a particularly Machiavellian way¿ he's got a greater charm than - and this will shock Barbara - any major politician I've known since Hugh Gaitskell. It can be a dangerous quality, partly because it often leads one to do and is to some extent based upon saying to these people whom he charms what he thinks they want to hear, and therefore there is a certain danger of saying slightly different things to different audiences and there's also a danger which again is Rooseveltian of jumping into appointments, giving people jobs to do, sometimes jobs which he's given to somebody else a short time before. I mean, they aren't Cabinet jobs but they're the Tsar of this or the Tsar of what, who are suddenly appointed without very much thought, but he does have star quality.

Q. The danger you mentioned - is the danger of that that people ultimately feel they've been suckered? Roy, I mean, you for instance were asked to produce a report on electoral reform which has been parked into the indefinite future.

JENKINS Yes but you notice with what calm objectivity I talked about him (laughter) in spite of that -

BAKER He charmed you and then ditched your report, but there we are, that's life.

Q. But, Ken, to be fair he does seem to be good at managing people though there may be the most terrific feuding behind the scenes, he's run a broadly united Cabinet in public, no-one's resigned over policy in contrast with Margaret Thatcher who lost Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine for instance.

BAKER Yes, let's see what the future brings because he's been buoyed up with the fact of a strong economy for the last four or five years and I don't actually agree that he's a wonderful chooser of people. I think he was rattled to get rid of Mandelson when Mandelson should not have been sacked -

JENKINS I agree with you -

BAKER and he won't sack Byers who patently should be sacked, Byers is patently a boy on a man's errand. I think he maintains people in jobs when they should not be maintained. I think he's got some very weak ministers. I think he's got these men in grey suits like Hoon and Milburn who are technocrats who should be delivering and who aren't, so I don't actually agree with that. I don't think he's a good chooser of people. I do agree with one thing that Roy said, I think he has great charm and I think that comes over in the television age very effectively and I think it's the thing that sustains him and the government more than anything else at this moment of time quite frankly, because his government is not a strong government, it's not strong like Asquith's government was strong, real giants around, there's only two people -

JENKINS Or Attlee's government.

BAKER Or Attlee. Attlee had some very, very, powerful figures. The powerful figures in this government, the real, real, politicians in this government -- Blunkett, Clarke, Brown, who else?

JENKINS I agree with that. Indeed I think that - Brown and Blair apart - this is a remarkably weak government and when you say that nobody's resigned from it, part of the reason for that is I don't think they've got the -

BAKER They wouldn't be employed anywhere else.

JENKINS - I wouldn't put it as strongly as that.

Q. Let me bring Barbara in.

JENKINS I don't think they've got the vigour, the vigour to resign.

CASTLE Look I agree with everything that's been said about Tony's charm. I remember how, when he was first elected as leader, he turned up to Tribune rallies, money raising rallies, and I remember he came out of his way and sat down next to me and so on and so on, and he knew perfectly well I hadn't voted for him as leader. He had those little social virtues, he knew who was the right person to visit or who's do to be seen at, but how deep it goes I'm far from -

Q. Well can we explore that, Barbara, because I'm sure this government has not been as radical as you would have wished it to be, but what you can say for it is it's introduced the minimum wage, a Labour ambition since Keir Hardie, it's presided over the biggest changes to the constitution in more than a century. He's set the goal of abolishing child poverty. Will you give it some credit for being reasonably radical?

CASTLE Oh yes, I think the thing for which I'd give him most credit is the vast increase in child benefit, non means- tested. Now how far that decision was Gordon Brown's and how far it was Tony's I wouldn't know. I'm not in their confidence of either of them. The thing about Tony you see is that he is always trying to follow what he thinks public opinion wants, and he gets himself landed with the wrong priorities because he's not thinking it out for himself from the basis of a principle. Let me give you to me a glaring example. If I'd have been in a Wilson Cabinet at this time I would have said "look, the one thing to go for is transport". OK, the others are important and we'll increase - we've got to improve the schools and the health service, but that they should neglect transport and put one of the weakest chaps in. That charm wears off when you're strap-hanging or hustling your way home in an overcrowded, smelly and dangerous tube train.

JENKINS I agree with Barbara about transport. I think it's the thing he should have concentrated on much more. I think he should have a very strong Minister of Transport where he's got a very weak Minister of Transport and I think Transport could well be the Achilles heel of this government and I think there's more chance of a government making a difference on Transport than it is on health or education.

Q. One of the oddities Roy is although he can be quite timid domestically when it comes to certain foreign policy things he shows an extraordinary boldness, some people would say reckless. I mean, he took serious risks with his premiership over the Kosovo war. He proved to be right about that, how do you reconcile that?

JENKINS That was exactly what I was about to say -

Q. I am sorry I interrupted you.

JENKINS I think on foreign affairs he is bold, almost to the touch of rashness, and I don't think you could possibly accuse him of weak or following public opinion the way he leapt in in his American support this time, perhaps even more strongly than I would have advocated.

CASTLE I don't think he won a lot of public opinion -

JENKINS - no, but that's not the point, indeed it proves my point not your point - that he doesn't follow public opinion, he tries to lead it rather rashly. I think he is much at his best when he is not dealing with Gordon Brown -

Q. We're going to come to that in a moment.

JENKINS And as Gordon Brown is not very interested in the foreign field, so far at any rate, this gives Tony a sense of sureness of touch in the foreign field which he doesn't entirely have at home.

Q. Ken, one other thing I wanted to put to you: he has a certain suppleness as a leader. I mean, so far he's managed to straddle the Atlantic and Europe and keep both sides - where many people thought you couldn't do it - both sides reasonably happy and we've seen in Ireland he does have an ability to broker agreements between people who were apparently irreconcilable, so that's another strength is it?

BAKER Well suppleness, a certain dexterity. I think on the American situation that was a bold measure that he took to defend it but he's more popular in America than in this country. He became the voice for an inarticulate President, that is what his role in this particular war was. On the question of suppleness, that brings us back to I think one of the flaws in his character. He does, as Barbara said, wants to sort of appeal to everybody, and when you appeal to everybody you have a chance of appealing to nobody. There is this famous minute that was released, you remember it Andrew, I think you've written about it, when he said he wanted an eye catching initiative in which I can be personally involved. Now I think that reveals the inner heart of Blair, he's so concerned with presentation and spin -

CASTLE And it's self-love -

BAKER - and all the rest of it, and it's dominated the government and they're so concerned about sort of trying to put the best face on hopeless things. The Dome is the perfect example, they can't actually now sell the Dome, it's indicative of the man that he does actually grasp at the passing thing that goes through the air.

JENKINS He does do that a bit and I think the government is somewhat too concerned with presentation and has been throughout, but it can be argued the other way round, not in relation to the Dome which I think was a disaster but a minor disaster, but in relation to wider things. The question is has he got a very good sense of timing? That again slightly reminds me of Roosevelt. Roosevelt would keep his counsel to himself, manoeuvre one way and the other, one step forward, two steps back, but he had a very good sense of timing and when he decided to go for something he went in strong. Now I think Tony Blair may have that quality but we will see -

Q. We will see.

JENKINS Over the Euro referendum -

Q. I want to bring Barbara in because the counter-case to what Roy was just saying is that by the time of the next election he'll have had nearly a decade in power and some people already fear that future historians will look back and say Tony Blair was too timid on a variety of things, he had a great opportunity with the Tories knocked out of contention, a great opportunity to be more radical and he squandered it.

CASTLE Well I think his Achilles heel is his self-love.

Q. You really think it's self-love?

CASTLE Oh yes. We've talked about the constitutional reforms that are taking place under this government, the biggest and most glaring is the deliberate destruction of Cabinet government and I think that's a source of great weakness. Because as Roy will remember when we were in Cabinet if somebody put forward an idea, if I put forward an idea, Roy did it to me and vice versa. We used to analyse and tear apart each other's policy suggestions and so something like an objective truth could begin to emerge, and I used to be influenced and I think even managed to influence Roy's hard heart over some of the things I was arguing.

JENKINS I think Tony Blair ought to use the Cabinet more than he does. I think it's wrong and unwise but nonetheless I don't agree he suffers from self-love excessively. In some ways he suffers even more from self-doubt.

Q. What, he wants to be liked too much?

JENKINS No, not necessarily. The time I really first thought that Tony Blair was rather an exceptional man was when he was riding very high in about '96, before he'd won the election but it looked as though everything was going right his way, and I said "you must be very cheerful and happy". He said "no, I'm not. On alternate mornings I wake up early. On one morning I wake up and think I've lost a general election, therefore totally fluffed it - and on the other morning I wake up and think I've won the general election and become Prime Minister and discovered I'm no good at being Prime Minister. Now I cannot imagine Harold Wilson or Jim Callaghan or Barbara Castle -

CASTLE He did say that you say?

JENKINS Yes, he said it to me - or Margaret Thatcher - beginning to express that degree of self-criticism even in a private conversation, and that rather endeared him to me.

Q. One other point I wanted to put to you Roy was whether Tony Blair's actually made himself master of his own government. People go on a lot about so-called President Blair - we were just discussing the Cabinet being sidelined - but isn't the truth in terms of domestic policy, the real Prime Minster is Gordon Brown?

JENKINS Gordon Brown is a very powerful Chancellor and I think Blair does find it quite difficult to deal with him. I mean, given the fact that what I regard as the weakness of the government as a whole, I suppose they're lucky to have two such strong figures at the head of it, though as there's a certain amount of contention, considerable contention, to some extent that strength turns into weakness. I can never quite understand why Gordon Brown is so eager to become Prime Minster, because the record looking back, that people who become Prime Ministers as tail-end Charlies, at the end of a long period of government of their own party almost invariably are a great flop as Prime Minister, John Major above all, compared with Margaret Thatcher -

BAKER No but Gordon Brown as you say is the most powerful person in the government in my view, after Blair and probably co-equal with Blair. I think that he's a more powerful Chancellor than you were in your relationship with Harold Wilson -

JENKINS Yes, I think that's probably so.

BAKER - because Gordon Brown interferes in virtually every aspect of domestic policy.

Q. But on that point, on the big one, Ken, it's absolutely clear to me anyway and I think it's clear to other people who know the Prime Minister's ambitions that he wants to join the European single currency. He's got to the position where the Chancellor actually has a veto over what Tony Blair regards as the historic challenge of his premiership. Is that a sign of strength in the Prime Minister or is it a sign that the government is actually really fundamentally being run by the Chancellor?

BAKER If you wanted to defend Tony Blair's position you would say it's all a question of timing and he's got to play it and get it right, this is the sort of point that was made earlier. But on the other hand basically if you have a great conviction on something like the Euro then you should stand up and be counted and try to persuade your party to do it. You really ought to, and he's not prepared to do that at this moment of time, he's waiting, as I've said, waiting until the clouds move away and he sees a break through the clouds then he'll move. Now that is not leadership, and so I think one of the things missing in the whole of the Blair thing is the lack of vision. It's all very well to say self-doubt and all that, it's a very charming quality to have, but where is the vision? What do we know of the future of the Euro? What do we know of the future of the House of Lords? What do we know of the future of devolved government? Where's the vision?

CASTLE I think that "he's got no vision" is wrong, but it is a very self-centred vision. If you think he's going to be satisfied for very long with just a stage the size of Britain you're wrong. I think he is a presidential type. He is not a democratic Prime Minister on the British type that we're used to, having to work through Parliament and Cabinet. He wants his way and he wants as big a stage as possible and I think if any opportunity arises in Europe, for instance, or even in the States. I think he's got no bounds to his vision of what he could be and it's going to be a world stage thing. He doesn't give a damn about transport in Britain, he's too busy looking at the world panorama.

Q. Roy, I think you'd agree with me that Tony Blair does want to go into the single currency, regards it as the great challenge of his premiership. Crudely speaking has he got the balls to do it? Has he got the guts to both stand up to a Chancellor who's quite sceptical about it and call a referendum even if the polls tell him he might lose it?

JENKINS Well the test of that will be in the next eighteen months, two years, in my view. I've often been rather critical of his two steps forward one step back, or sometimes two steps back attitude to Europe. I'm absolutely convinced that he does want to go in, and he believes it will be the ultimate test of the standing in history of his premiership, but he's got to show guts as you say, but guts and timing, maybe he's always had this slight feeling when the Euro is actually functioning as it will be within two weeks or whatever it is, the British people would come to accept it, and if his timing works out - leadership you know does require a certain amount of vision. I think he's got vision, sometimes it's a bit misty but he's got vision, there was more vision in that Labour party conference speech than we've heard in politics for a long time. You could say it was misty but you can't say it wasn't visionary. He's got vision and I think he's got timing and I hope and believe he's got guts, but for leadership you need timing as well as guts.

Q. You're listening to a Westminster Hour special assessing the premiership of Tony Blair with Roy Jenkins, Kenneth Baker and Barbara Castle. Now, at this point, I want to remind everybody of our poll of experts a couple of years ago when we discussed and decided on who was the greatest Prime Minister of the past century. Churchill was the winner by quite a margin, Lloyd George and Attlee were the runners-up, then came Asquith and Thatcher. Kenneth Baker, Andrew Roberts, though coming from a Conservative perspective, said that Tony Blair was knocking at the door of the first rank of Prime Ministers. Do you agree?

BAKER I think that he's a bit lower down than that. I certainly don't think he's in the first rank of the five that we've talked about. He's somewhere in the next rank. I'd put him somewhere round about Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, at this stage, but I think the next few years, we're halfway though the book, the next chapter's going to be decisive, because at the moment you've got tremendous political cynicism in our country. You know the public are turned off, they're turned off because people don't trust the government and he has got to emerge as a deliverer, he's got to be able to show that the transport system of our country runs well, that the health service runs well, it's very mundane stuff but absolutely vital, and at the moment he's not that sort of hands-on politician. He loves to go and talk about world poverty and things of that sort, and he likes the world stage, I agree with Barbara, I think the world stage is very seductive for him, whereas in fact he'll be judged by the performance in this country and what he can achieve.

Q. Well most people think that you can't win a place in the very top rank of Prime Ministers, not in peacetime at any rate, unless you've changed society fundamentally, you've made a radical shift in the political landscape in the way that Attlee, Thatcher, Asquith all did. Barbara Castle, do you think Tony Blair has the capacity to be that sort of Prime Minister, absolutely top rank Prime Minister?

CASTLE I think he's probably got the capacity but I don't think he's got the desire to be that kind of a Prime Minister. I think the details of safety on the underground bore him to tears.

JENKINS I don't think Churchill was all that keen on safety on the underground -

BAKER He had a couple of wars, Roy.

CASTLE They had a war under way you see, and that helps as you say Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War saved her, she was the most unpopular Prime Minister of the century when the Falkland thing - and it does take a certain flair and guts I admit, but it's the sort of field that she was interested and I think he is interested. I remembering hearing Tony Blair explaining how he was going to manage his Cabinet. He admired Margaret Thatcher immensely, incidentally, and he was going to take her sort of methods of divide and rule. Nobody could put forward a policy til he had put forward his version and called together the minister concerned and the Permanent Secretary of that department, thrashed it out with them, got them in agreement and then they railroaded it through Cabinet. Well, you can't have a successful government, certainly as far as any change in the social order or domestic scene is concerned, if you're going to tidy it up like that.

Q. Our top five in the poll of the best Prime Ministers in the last hundred years were Churchill, Lloyd George, Attlee, Asquith, Thatcher. Roy Jenkins, do you think Tony Blair is yet challenging for a place in that company?

JENKINS Well I always regard it as a rather sensible adage that you don't tip the waiter until the meal is over and the meal is not yet over - nearly probably -

Q. - but what sort of tip were you thinking about for waiter Blair?

JENKINS I think at the moment, unless he runs into some disasters that can happen to anyone and they can plunge down, I think he's earned his place in about the top seven. Now whether he gets into the top five, the top three or four, will depend on what happens in the next few years.

Q. What's he got to do to get in the top five?

JENKINS Well you know what I would say to that. He's got to face the European issue and try and settle Britain's relations with Europe which nobody has done at any rate since Ted Heath. They've all shied away from it and it's all damaged their premierships enormously.

ENDS