Fisking Polly Toynbee – Part One

Polly Toynbee’s article Ten things Tony Blair should do before he is 55 has provoked much sneering in our corner of the Blogosphere. As has Margaret Drabble’s I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world. Commenting on Drabble’s article über-blogger Stephen Pollard was moved (or rather not moved) to write: "I don't really care."

Well I do care. Especially about Miss Toynbee’s article. I think it is one of the most powerful and seductive arguments for social democracy I have ever read. I also think it is profoundly wrong. Because it is so good, lampooning it or ignoring it are simply (as Peter Cuthbertson has recently pointed out) not good enough. No, this is an article that deserves to be taken at its own estimation of itself and then taken apart line by line, in minute and forensic detail. A mega-fisking, so to speak.

So, that’s what I am going to do. It’s going to take a while, hence the Part One. And there may be long gaps between the parts, and, Hell, I may never actually finish it but never mind, let’s give it a go and see what happens.

This is how she starts:

Tony Blair has had a warm welcome to the wrong side of 50. A life so frenetic may ward off existential tremors - if it's Tuesday it's Belfast, Wednesday it's foundation hospitals - and keep intimations of political mortality at bay on a manic treadmill…

Actually, there’s quite a lot in this vein. Not particularly controversial stuff, merely preparing the terrain and providing a hook to hang the article:

…man of destiny…political longevity …blah, blah, blah

Until:

So here are 10 things to do before he's 55. Ten things to shape the nation radically and permanently, more than Mrs Thatcher did. These will stretch his powers of persuasion, test his political art and try his warlike bravery. But so far he has not done much that cannot be undone. Here is his manifesto for 50:

And then:

1 Bang the drum for social democratic values.

Boom! And we’re off. "Bang the drum for social democratic values." Now, what can that mean? Not bang the drum for social democracy. But it’s values. And what might they be? At risk of attempting to nail jelly to the ceiling I am going to guess that she does mean bang the drum for social democracy. As in it’s a good thing. In which case: what is it? I suppose what it means, and I am no great expert here, is the mixed economy with the state running health and education while regulating everything else (where necessary) in order to ensure equality of outcomes.

If that is the case then with the exception of the equality bit I fail to see what the difference is between social democracy and what we actually had between 1945 and 1979. Dammit, what ended in 1979? Certainly not the health or the education. No, I think you could argue that we have been governed on social democratic lines since 1945. The question then being “Was it any good?” and “Was the outcome better than if we had not gone down that path?” both of which are absolutely enormous and way beyond the scope of this blog posting.

Give up pandering to the language of Thatcherism, of markets, individualism, consumerism.

What on God’s Earth does this mean? How can you pander to a language for heaven’s sake? OK, let’s try to decode it. I think what she means is that markets, individualism and consumerism aren’t all that. In other words they could be good they could be bad but there are other things (-isms) out there that are more important. Now as a libertarian I do regard this as something of a challenge. To me markets, individualism and consumerism are the hallmarks of freedom ie what I want.

To be continued…