Paul Kingsnorth

So much to say and so little time, because I've left it to the last minute. But I thought it might be good - perhaps to clarify my own thoughts as much as anything else - to try and list, in a more-or-less reasonable fashion, what I see as the highlights, good and bad, of Mr Tony's premiership. It's a partial list, and a personal one, and I bet I've forgotten a lot. But it's a start.

I'd be interested in your views on the Dear Leaders' best and worst moments. Tell me what I'm missing, or what I've got wrong.


Tone's Triumphs

Celtic Devolution
Inevitable, and undoubtedly imperfect, but worth remembering what things were like before. The right thing to do. Now perhaps we can get going on England (see below).

Minimum Wage
Again, stating the obvious, but who can remember what life was like before it? Who can also remember those Tory claims that it would cost a million jobs? Unemployment actually fell by 200,000 in the year after its introduction. Cameron wouldn't dare touch it.

Right to Roam
A biggie for me. The right of everyone in this country to move unhindered across open land, regardless of who owns it, is to my mind a birthright - and one which campaigners have called for for almost a century. The Act could have been bolder, but it was still a great leap forward.

Northern Ireland
To be fair to the man, getting Paisley and McGuinness in the same room, let alone the same government, is pretty impressive. Not all down to him, of course, but he does seem to have taken a lead. If only he approached all armed conflicts like this.

Talking about climate change
Better, to misquote Wilde, than not to talk about it, and it does seem to have knocked some international heads together.

Tone's Disasters

Transport
First they cancelled the Tory roadbuilding plans of the 1990s. Hurrah. Then they talked about the need to reduce car use and improve public transport. Hurrah. Then they refused to re-nationalise the railways. Well ... OK. Then they dropped the fuel duty escalator tax after some hairy-arsed lorry drivers went slowly on some motorways. Hang on ... Then they went all Clarkson on us: scrapping targets to reduce car use, allowing public transport prices to rise as the price of using a car fell - and, to cap it all, announcing the construction of 2,500 miles of new roads - almost precisely the same amount as the previous Tory plans. The ones they scrapped. All in all, a total shambles. They had a decade to transform our attitude to transport. We needed tough love. We even wanted it. They caved in. Now we have to start all over again.

Iraq
Obviously.

English marginalisation
Since 1997, England has become the least represented country in the UK. There may be some Scots smiling at this, but it's not very funny - and it stores up trouble for all of us. England is now the only nation in the UK without any form of democratic devolution. The creation of the Scottish Parliament, in particular, has led to a situation in which Scottish MPs can vote on English matters, but not the other way round. It was Scottish MPs voting with the government which tipped the balance on the law imposing tuition fees on English students. Scottish students don't pay them. Neither do they have foundation hospitals - another measure which Scottish MPs kindly gave us. Scottish and Welsh devolution was needed and right - see above. English devolution is now just as necessary. Blair has been hostile to it for a decade. Don't expect Mr Broon to be any better. Do expect his resistance to it to play right into the hands of the SNP, though. Prepare for some interesting times.

The NHS
What went wrong? A massive, unprecedented cash injection, the goodwill of all the staff - and the thing falls apart. Doctors are bitterly angry with Blair. Believe me - I'm married to one. Part of the problem has come from mismanagement, and the use of PFI to build hospitals - many of which are now owned by private companies, including supermarkets, who will be collecting cheques from the taxpayer for decades. It's a complex situation, but there is no doubt that it has gone badly wrong, and that the government is largely responsible. The neoliberal right can now argue comfortably that a publicly-run NHS, no matter how much money you pump into it, can never work properly. Quite an astonishing Labour legacy.

Faith schools
Talk about a ticking timebomb. Here we are, a nation already having some problems with our creaking 'multicultural' ideal, wondering how to bring people together, how to forge a common purpose, how to ensure that we can all live together, regardless of colour or background. So what does Blair do? Aggressively pushes the expansion of religious (and therefore, inevitably, racial) segregation in our schools. To add insult to injury, he hands a few of them over to creationists and private companies. This has more potential to cause communal strife in this country than almost anything else.

The countryside
Our generation could see the final, long-predicted end of traditional family farming in this country. Thousands of years of accumulated rural knowledge, gone - to be replaced by barn conversions and second homes. Rural pubs and shops are falling like ninepins. It's easier to get planning permission for a Wal-Mart warehouse than a low-impact dwelling. Does he care? Does he fuck. He holidays in Umbria, not Cumbria. Farmers smell and throw eggs at him. And they never vote Labour. The sooner they're gone, the better.

Liberty and freedom
One CCTV camera for every 14 people. 3000 new laws. Restriction of the right to protest, gather, express your views in public. A law outlawing 'religious discrimination.' 'Crackdowns' on personal vices (fag with your pint, anyone?). 28-day detention without trial. Deportation without trial. Insane Health and Safety laws. Britain, contrary to mythology, has never been a 'free country', but it is less free now than for a long time, and getting worse. The most illiberal prime minister for 75 years.

America
Why has Blair been determined to ape the worst of the US? He could have aped the best - their powerful local democracy, for example, or their written constitution, or their ingrained and sometimes effective tradition of holding power to account. But no - the bits Blair likes about America are the bits that drag its name through the mud. Cosying up to billionaires, 'cracking down' on crime, appointing 'Czars' to sort out everything from education to roadworks, handing the country's public services to multinationals, invading the middle east. Have you noticed, incidentally, how male all this stuff is? All these Czars and wars, all this toughness and thrusting business aggression? All very John Wayne. I hope Tony enjoys the US lecture circuit. They still love him over there, and he does like to be loved, the poor dear.

Inequality
While I was researching my book, I did a lot of travelling around the country. I found out a lot of things, but there was one which genuinely surprised me, and worried me too. It was the extreme inequality that's growing all over the country: the gap between the extremely wealthy and everyone else. I sense, in fact, a new class war brewing. The rich, whether they be individuals or giant corporations, are sucking up everything from high street shops to farmland to top jobs. House prices are roaring up partly as a result (see below), and it's increasingly hard for people on perfectly normal salaries to survive in parts of the country. The Guardian is running a good series this week on the 'new rich', and it's worth reading. For a long time, this has been something that only bothered hoary old lefties. But inequality is more prominent now than for decades, and it is proving increasingly divisive. That it should have happened under a Labour government should pull Blair up short, but I don't expect it will.

Property prices
I don't want to sound like a Daily Mail editorial, but this is massive. Another revelation from my book research (you'll have to buy it for the details, kids) is the impact property prices are having on the cloning of the nation. Everything from the disappearance of small shops to the closing down of pubs to the killing off of villages by second homes is down to our absurd and increasingly unreal property market. Blair responded, belatedly, by proposing massive housebuilding all over the greenbelt. So much easier than tackling inequality, corporations or the super-rich. And when you have several homes yourself, and many CEOs in your address book, so much more appropriate.

Talking about climate change
And not doing much else. If you're going to build three new airport runways, 2500 miles of new road and the country's first coal-fired power station in three decades, whilst jetting about the place on private planes giving high profile speeches about the need to reduce emissions, then ... well, you're full of hot air. To put it politely.


I've noticed that the second category is rather longer than the first. Politics: it's a rough business. Where's the justice, eh? Where's the gratitude? We didn't deserve you Tony. But you know that, I'm sure.