England's Dreaming
Gordon Brown
There's no future in England's dreaming, sang the Sex Pistols in 1977. Even so, in his most fevered imaginings John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon never conjured up something like the coming Prime Ministership of one Gordon Brown. Brown, the present British finance minister, is widely considered the most likely successor to Tony Blair as head of the UK Labour Party and the British government. Whereas Blair modelled himself after former U.S. president Bill Clinton, Brown publically praises Margaret Thatcher's fiscal policies. Unlike Thatcher, however, Brown's objective is not to curb government influence but to consolidate and expand it. Like Blair (and Clinton), Brown has mastered the art of policy larceny, stealing a position from the opposing party and claiming it as one's own - and thus framing one's self as a "new" type of candidate. Blair follows closely the example of his American mentor, taking purportedly tough stances on crime and instituting a more aggressive foreign policy; Brown, as Chancellor, has argued of late for a "competitiveness test" for future business regulation, leaving the Conservative Party to meekly point out that they, as well, wish to curb Britain's regulatory state.
Nevertheless, Brown's invocations of Thatcher (additionally ironic from a man who in 1989 authored a book titled Where There's Greed : Margaret Thatcher and the Betrayal of Britain's Future) and talk of regulation reform are meant only to stem the likely flood of businesses (and their associated tax receipts) out of Britain once he gains the Prime Ministership. Brown, while often considered one of the prime movers of the New Labour movement is in practice a scion of Old Labour, a true believer in the state as provider and benevolent social overseer. To that end, Brown has taken up the notion of the state as representing "the community," arguing that human society is not atomistic in nature, and as such, it is proper and necessary for the government to be the solution to all social problems.
The future of England under a Brown administration can already be seen in northeast England, Wales, and Northern Ireland - where government spending accounts for around sixty percent of the local economy (in Ulster, nearly seventy percent.) This level of government influence has accurately been described as "Soviet" by Professor Doug McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research - although perhaps a better analogy would be the moribund region of Germany once known as the German Democratic Republic. The current level of government spending in these regions resembles levels last seen in the former communist states of Eastern Europe as they retreated from socialism in the early 1990s.
In the near term, it is likely Blair will leave office some time between 2008 and 2010, leaving Brown in charge of the Labour Party. Brown will then be free to build his communitarian fantasy of Britain - a nation of high, confiscatory taxation where government handouts represent a larger share of the economy than manufacturing, and the only legal source of many services will be the state. The rise of Brown suggests that while Margaret Thatcher remains an important symbolic figure in British national politics, the policies she enacted to revive the crumbling British economy and her potent efforts in support of individual liberty have largely been forgotten.
12.31.2005 © ljr