Chris Burford
London
Editorial comment: A second term for Blair
- Jun 05 2001 00:00:00
On Thursday, Tony Blair's UK government seeks a second term. In considering Labour's claim for another mandate, the FT believes that three issues are central to the election: Europe, economic management and public services. On this basis, Mr Blair receives our endorsement.
In 1997 we identified Europe as a decisive issue in the contest between John Major's government and the then Labour opposition. Under the Conservatives, Britain had moved to the margins of European decision-making. This newspaper judged that a British government could, and often should, oppose indiscriminate European integration. But the nation's prosperity and security depended on its making the case from the inside.
The same choice presents itself four years on. This is not to say that Mr Blair's European policy has been perfect. Far from it. Too often grand rhetorical flourishes abroad have been matched by embarrassed timidity at home. Winning Britain's argument in Europe requires the government to make Europe's case in Britain.
Even now Mr Blair tiptoes in the shadow of the Eurosceptic press. He is right to say that British participation in the euro must depend on the economic conditions. But he has yet to prepare the ground for joining. The Treasury's five economic tests seem designed as much to give a personal veto to Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, as to offer an objective analysis of economic convergence.
That said, William Hague proposes disengagement. It is not just that the Conservatives oppose joining the euro during the next parliament - though a raucous "Save the Pound" campaign suggests that he would never join. Rather, the underlying assumption of Mr Hague's European policy is defeatist.
Pledges to disown the Nice treaty and to "ring-fence" Westminster's sovereignty are inherently implausible. They speak to a state of mind that sees the European Union as a zero sum game of winners and losers rather than a mutually beneficial enterprise. This approach undermines Britain's national interest.
Labour's luck In its conduct of macro-economic policy, Mr Blair's government has had plenty of luck. It inherited a stable economy in an international environment that favoured growth and low inflation. Here again, the record does not match the self-congratulation. The performance has been in line with the rest of Europe - and the British economy has yet to show the underlying dynamism apparent in the US.
For all his emphasis on productivity, Mr Brown likes to meddle. Ministers often regulate first and think later. Business has borne much of the immediate burden. But the government has also made its own luck by handing control of interest rates to the Bank of England and creating a fiscal framework that constrains spending. In rejecting the prof-ligacy of the past, Labour has come to terms with the market economy.
After the famine There are risks. Big increases in spending on health, education and transport are affordable in the short term. And after the famine of the government's first two years, there is a strong case for a step change in resources for these services. But spending cannot run ahead of economic growth indefinitely without higher taxes or more borrowing.
For all Mr Blair's bland assurances on tax rates, the government will not spell out where the money will come from after 2004. Voters are being asked to take on trust the government's assurances that it will inject private sector expertise and disciplines into these services. Meanwhile, the prescription offered by Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats - new increases in taxes - is one of a party certain that it will not face the responsibilities of office.
The FT's instincts are for smaller government, less tax and more market solutions. Committed to no particular party, this newspaper believes that if Britain is to have first-class schools and hospitals as well as a vibrant market economy, it will need before long to rein back the boundaries of the state elsewhere.
A strong Conservative opposition would have presented this alternative. But Mr Hague's party has preferred populism to the task of remaking the intellectual case for smaller government. Its tax and spending prospectus does not pass the test of credibility.
There is much that is unappealing about Mr Blair's government. It has been arrogantly dismissive of those who challenge it. It has colluded with the Conservatives in a grubby, illiberal approach to crime and asylum. In many respects it has lost the goodwill of voters. But elections pose a choice. Labour has governed with competence. Mr Blair has earned his second chance.