15 May More on Blair’s Legacy
There is a thoughtful piece in the New Republic by David Fontana, Alex Massie, and Oliver Kamm on the legacy of Tony Blair. I think it adds some real insights on Blair’s contributions that were neglected in my previous post. Here is a key excerpt:
What, exactly, is Tony Blair’s legacy? With Iraq at the center of the news, much of the coverage of his decision to step down as prime minister next month concluded that his legacy is nothing too substantial. Indeed, The New York Times reported that Blair is not widely considered to be “one of Britain’s greatest prime ministers” and is instead in a “secondary tier” of British leaders.
This is only half right. Blair has done as much to change the policy and constitutional structure of his country as any British leader in several hundred years–and more than perhaps any other Western leader in the past generation. But, because it appears that he did not realign the political and electoral life of his country behind his Labour Party, his legacy will be that of an important policy transformer–but not a political transformer.
Blair was in power for only ten years, but the changes he pushed through during those ten years make your head spin. The United Kingdom has been, for several hundred years, one of the more centralized countries in the Western world. Led by Blair, Scotland now has a Parliament, and so does Wales; Northern Ireland exercises more self-government than it has in some time; and cities like London now govern themselves much more than before, with their own elected mayors. For hundreds of years, Britain has had a substantially hereditary second branch of the legislature, the House of Lords; Blair led the process of reforming the House of Lords by removing almost all hereditary peers. Blair changed the way that health care and education operate, by creating market mechanisms and other similar systems of quality control. The United Kingdom has for the past several decades been one of the few democracies in the world without a written constitution enforced by courts; so, in 1998, Blair pushed through Parliament the passage of the Human Rights Act, which creates a de facto written constitutional regime, with a new Supreme Court at front and center.
Regarding reform of the House of Lords, I posted the following comments over a PrawfsBlawg a few months ago: The bulk of my comments come courtesy of a chapter by Dawn Oliver from Jeffrey Jowell and Dawn Oliver, eds., The Changing Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 5th ed., 2004). First of all, after the Salisbury convention, the government is ‘entitled to have measures that were promised in its election manifesto given a fair wind in the House of Lords….’ Secondly, it is the sole prerogative of the House of Commons ‘to withdraw confidence from the government so that a general election or resignation of the government followed by appointment of a new Prime Minister charged with producing a new administration should take place.’ Finally, it is also the sole right of the Commons ‘to grant or refuse supply to the government, so that the Lords are not entitled to amend or delay—beyond a month—the passage of a money bill.’ This is clear evidence that the House of Lords plays a secondary governance role vis-à-vis the Commons, and this is no doubt a function of the latter’s democratic legitimacy. It would seem that having elected members in the upper house… Read more »
erratum: over at PrawfsBlawg…
media coverage concluded)“that his legacy is nothing too substantial”
I’d say his legacy is very substantial, indeed:
655,000 Iraqis dead, the once-proud middle-class destroyed and professional classes forced out of the country, 15% of the population either internally displaced or having fled, several civil wars raging within the country, the infrastructure of which, including health and basic services, has been utterly destroyed, the poisoning of Iraq with DU weapons, the squandering of what was left of the world’s good will toward the U.S. and Britain, the destabilization of the Middle East and the ‘radicalization’ of God-only-knows-how-many Muslims (and others) who burn with the lust for revenge (including our own homegrown terrorists–e.g., the ones who planned to attack Fort Dix, who incidentally were quite secular in their lifestyles), thereby endangering our security…let’s see, have I forgotten anything? –Oh yes, and of course, the precious blood of over 3400 of our brave American killing-machines, who will be envied by the many thousands who have returned with traumatic brain injuries (which will no doubt result in more murders–of Americans, this time).