The politics column - Martin Bright
Martin Bright
Monday 6th March 2006
When a prime minister himself is prepared to cavort on holiday with a man as morally dubious as Berlusconi, that does not, to put it mildly, set a good example. By Martin Bright
In the late 20th century, a dynamic centrist politician took over a major European left-wing party and transformed it beyond recognition. He stripped it of outmoded socialist symbolism, severed its links with the working class, smashed the party's internal democracy and ended its suspicion of big business. By embracing the free market and social democracy, Bettino Craxi made his party electable and ruled as Italy's first socialist prime minister from 1983 to 1987. Like Tony Blair, his direct political heir, Craxi sucked the ideological heart out of his party and left its politicians vulnerable to the overtures of big money. Many of his allies were arrested for corruption and then, in 1993, Craxi himself was charged. He fled the country for Tunisia and died a broken man, in self-imposed exile, at the tacky seaside resort of Hammamet in 2000.
There is no reason to suppose that Blair will meet the same fate. Unlike Craxi, he is not personally corrupt and even if he was, Britain's legal system does not lend itself to the kind of investigation that would bring charges against a senior politician. But in the light of the Jowell affair, Craxi's pitiful end should act as a warning to new Labour about where the death of ideology can lead. What we are witnessing is the creeping Italianisation of British politics, with sleaze becoming institutionalised in the practice of government.
Craxi's most recent successor as prime minister is Silvio Berlusconi, Blair's billionaire media-magnate friend and sometime holiday companion, whose business dealings with David Mills, the lawyer husband of Tessa Jowell, have led to the latest new Labour sleaze scandal. In 1994, Berlusconi took up where Craxi left off by creating a party with no democratic structure, because it has no members. He embarked on a full-scale attack on union power, increased his stranglehold on the media and reinforced his own power by changing the law to make any further investigation near impossible. As he rose to power, Berlusconi was employing Mills as his lawyer.
Labour's retreat from ideology has been accompanied by a stream of scandals involving cabinet ministers and their dealings with the super-rich. Peter Mandelson was brought down twice: first in 1998 over his failure to declare the £373,000 lent to him by the paymaster general Geoffrey Robinson, and then in 2001 over his dealings with the billionaire Hinduja brothers. David Blunkett's career was finally terminated last year when it was discovered he had a directorship and shares in a bioscience company, neither of which he had declared. Then there were the ties that did not lead to resignations: with the Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Iraqi oilman Nadhmi Auchi.
Why is it always the Blairite loyalists who come unstuck in this way? When a prime minister himself is prepared to cavort on holiday with a man as morally dubious as Berlusconi, it does not, to put it mildly, set a good example. There is something depressing about watching yet another new Labour star crash and burn. Until her husband's problems put an end to her ambitions, Jowell was being touted as a potential Blairite deputy to Gordon Brown. She has been a popular and competent culture secretary, with a reputation for integrity, and rightly sharing credit for Britain's successful 2012 Olympic bid.
But she lost all credibility when, standing outside her north London house, she said: "I agreed that we would take out a loan on our house. That is not unusual, it's not improper, and it's certainly not illegal." It became clear at that point she was no longer fit to be a Labour minister: not because she was lying, but because she had lost all grip on how most ordinary people live their lives.
Let's have a look for a moment at what Jowell understands by "normal" and "proper". In 1999, her husband received a "gift" of £344,000, which Italian investigators believe came from Berlusconi for services rendered during earlier investigations into his business dealings. Why do they believe this? Because Mills told them so in a confession signed in 2004, a statement he then retracted, saying it had been extracted under duress. The Italians believe the gift was used to pay off a mortgage raised on the £700,000 house Jowell jointly owns with her husband. Her woes increased when it was discovered she had co-signed the mortgage agreement.
Although there is no suggestion that Jowell has done anything illegal, her approach to the whole affair has been unusual. Some would say that shifting large sums of money around the world to avoid tax is improper. It would be surprising if she shared this view, however, given that her husband has built a career advising extremely rich people how to do just that.
The likes of Berlusconi should have been anathema to Labour, but Blair and his circle have clutched him to their collective bosom. The Jowell-Mills saga is the consequence of a politics freed from the shackles of principle and decency. No one is yet seeking exile in North Africa, but there couldn't be a better parable of new Labour.
Read more from the latest issue of the New Statesman
This article first appeared in the New Statesman. For the latest in current and cultural affairs subscribe to the New Statesman print edition.
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