One of the sweet joys of gym membership is that it instantly fills life with a multitude of joyous alternatives to going for a work-out. Just as when a teenager enters exam season, there is never a moment when there is nothing to do – but every activity other than revision becomes an exercise in bliss.
Having left the house with the intention of getting some exercise, I found myself sitting in the local Waterstone’s reading the Hugo Young papers.
The late and truly great liberal journalist would write meticulous notes following every off the record conversation with PMs, cabinet ministers, civil servants and aides.
His collected papers have been published and what is astonishing about his conversations with the great beasts of New Labour in the days before 9-11 is these men and women were gripped by the question of when Britain would enter the Euro.
This may partly reflect Young’s own passion for the European project, but the prospect of redefining Britain’s relationship with its immediate neighbours seemed to excite the bright minds who engineered the 1997 landslide.
Privately, the vision of Britain at the heart of an EU which is an international force for the values of justice, tolerance and cooperation may still burn in the hearts of frontbenchers, but they must feel like chapel elders who have watched the congregation dwindle to the point where there is no money to repair the organ.
Think back to 1999, when still-shiny Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown, Tory giants Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine populist Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy came together to launch Britain in Europe.
These men seemed to relish the battle for ideas they anticipated. They knew they would have to convert the British public to the idea that the EU was not a diabolical threat – but Mr Blair had made Middle Britain fall in love with Labour, so why couldn’t he perform an act of grand enchantment again?
The terrorist attacks of September 11 distracted attention from the work of European integration. There was the need to confront an extremist movement which was pursuing its own nefarious project with ruthless energy and twisted imagination.
Did Mr Blair find that the Gladstonian spirit of liberal interventionism was more alive in the United States than the EU? It took American leadership and NATO hardware to intervene in Kosovo, and the transatlantic partnership was renewed in the occupation of Afghanistan.
By the time the UK and US were entering Iraq, the idea that Britain was about to join France and Germany in the bosom of Europe was laughable. Today, with the Eurozone in crisis, entry seems less appetising that a deep-fried brussels sprout.
Regardless of whether the federal project was flawed to begin with, what is to be mourned is the passing of a politics of hope.
A sense of purpose seems to have vanished from mainstream politics but we need leaders who want to do more than fire-fight and manage: We need them to build.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
This "European project" has just died the nattural death of an unnatural synthetic currency and Britain was lucky, not by its intelligence, mind you, not to have joined. Which is not to say, that the UK doesn't equally face public bankruptcy.
Post a Comment