The Commons returns 2
NEW LABOUR, OLD GRUDGES
Sion Simon says who the new MPs are, which ones to watch, and why older ones will cause the government trouble
THE LAST Labour landslide, over 50 years ago, swept a generation of big politi- cians into Parliament. Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan — an unbroken line of Labour leaders for a quarter of a century from 1955 — as well as such figures as Barbara Castle and Richard Crossman were all first elected in 1945.
The 1997 intake, which returns to West- minster this week after the longest summer recess on record, also boasts a few poten- tial stars. But what it really has in common with its postwar predecessor is an awful lot of very well-meaning, decent people of whom no one has ever heard, or ever will.
Two thirds of new Labour MPs when they were selected as candidates were local councillors in the parliamentary con- stituency which they now represent. They are not professional politicians who served for a couple of years on an inner London council before representing a safe north- ern seat ten years later, but essentially local types with parochial concerns and few pretences to play major roles on the national stage. They tend to be more inter- ested in single-issue politics than is usual among the ambitious, and are not particu- larly New Labour. This might not seem like such a bad thing, but it is not the right cloth from which to cut a disciplined parliamentary party. The leadership has very little sanc- tion over people whose real constituency is their constituency.
Central control over candidates is often incorrectly perceived as a Labour strength from which the Tories should learn. In fact, control currently exists only in critical situations such as by-elections or the emergence of a left-wing local party. Lack of leadership influence in the selection of candidates is a serious problem for Labour. It results from the One Member One Vote selection procedure, first moot- ed as a measure against Militant, and finally consolidated as part of the process of ending Labour's link with the trade unions. But the unions still wield consider- able power in the selection of candidates. A list system will probably be introduced before the next election, whereby con- stituency parties can only select candidates from an approved list drawn up by region- al party officials. This will present an opportunity to weed out the worst and fast-track some of the best. But quality control will remain a problem.
There is a small leftist element within the new parliamentary intake, led by the veteran Londoner John McDonnell who took Hayes and Harlington in May at his umpteenth attempt. But it will not be able to cause problems for the leadership, any more than the rump Campaign Group was a force in the 1992-97 Parliament. The unthinking statist socialism of McDonnell and his 1992 equivalent Alan Simpson is self-evidently irrelevant. Reds under the bed are only frightening if you believe there are more than two of them.
In contrast, there are new members with previously high-flying careers and serious incomes, the disruption of which by their unexpected election to Parliament has not pleased them. One such even approached the party hierarchy to see if there was any way out for him, any route back to his pre- vious life. There was not. But such people are the exception. Most of those who did not expect to get in are delighted. They know they have no chance ,of holding their seats in 2002, and are treating their elec- tion as a splendid one-off bonus. The best and the brightest of the class of 97 are beginning to make their presence felt. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the old pros disguised as new boys and girls who are making the biggest waves. Neil Kin- nock's right-hand man, Charles Clarke, would not necessarily have been a hot tip for advancement before the election. Dur- ing ten years spent throwing his consider- able weight around the Westminster back rooms he made a lot of enemies. And while clearly 'on side' with New Labour, he has never been a closely quartered insider. Quality will out, though, and Mr Clarke, having bagged himself a place on the emi- nent Treasury Committee, is rapidly emerging as the favoured back-bench apol- ogist for the Blair regime. Mr Clarke is accompanied in the van- guard on the one hand by former trade unionists: John Healey from the TUC, Alan Johnson from the UCW, Phil Woolas and Sally Keeble from the GMB; and on the other by what might be termed young New Labour storm troopers: Ruth Kelly from the Bank of England, the Harvard and Balliol- educated scion of a Labour family, Yvette Cooper, and Stephen Twigg, the young gen- eral secretary of the Fabian Society who toppled Michael Portillo in Enfield.
There is potential for such a large new intake to become bored. We all know who Makes work for idle hands. Recognising this, the government whips have put an unprecedented number of new members on to select committees. In the initial list circulated by the PLP in July, 71 out of 156 Labour places went to new MPs. This will keep many of them occupied for a good deal of the time. But it is interesting to note that there are the three committees on which new members barely got a look in: foreign affairs (free trips); culture, media and sport (free tickets); and, of course, modernisation of the House of Commons. The other mechanism for keeping the foot-soldiers busy is the Leadership Cam- paign Team. Set up a couple of years ago to provide a direct link between depart- mental teams and the leadership, the 1-CT is continuing in government. It is in the half-light of this semi-informal struc- lure that shadowy but brilliant figures ike Fraser Kemp are operating. Mr Kemp, a full-time Labour official since 1980 and now MP for Houghton and Washington East, is little known outside Labour circles; but within them his abili- ties are revered. His wily non-ideological realism endears him to a New Labour leadership with which he might otherwise seem to have little in common. As a dis- gruntled Cabinet minister said to me during the Uxbridge by-election, which Kemp was in charge of, 'If you want to know what's really happening, ask Fraser Kemp. Not that he'll tell you.' A fuller range of interesting educational activities could hardly have been provided for the new boys and girls by Messrs Fisher- Price themselves. It is not the novices who will cause trouble for the government. The sniping, when it picks up steam, will come from the disgruntled old-timers who cannot believe they have passed half a lifetime of obscurity on the green benches just to see the glittering prizes carried off by a bunch of disrespectful Blairite Johnny-come- latclys. There are many bitter, resentful, for- mer bright young things on the back benches over whom the government has no sanction whatever. Once a person ceases to fear death, he is invincible — and many of these people are dead already. Resentments are being exacerbated by the 'respect' issue. The leadership would have fewer problems with many of those who will become their enemies over the next five years if they were better able to conceal their contempt. For instance, the South Wales valleys anti-devolutionists, Ray Powell, Allan Rogers and Alan Williams, are all right-wingers with no desire to make waves for the government. But they are also old-fashioned men in their sixties and seventies with a strong sense of their own dignity and nothing to lose except peerages they have already refused. They are never going to respond well to strong arms or harsh words.
The 40 or 50 new Labour MPs who by rights ought to lose their seats next time will also become increasingly difficult to manage as this Parliament progresses. Essentially parochial anyway, they will gradually become obsessed with doing whatever they perceive as necessary to pro- tect their seats, regardless of the national picture. This will be particularly true on questions like proportional representation, Christmas to their turkeyhood.
But they will have neither the will nor the skill seriously to undermine the govern- ment. That task will be shouldered by the embittered old guard who cannot resist one last evening in the television studios before the sun goes down. They are unlike- ly to do lasting damage. That will not be their intention. But whipping 400 Labour MPs is going to prove a much more tire- some business than might have been expected.
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