The gentleman's not for turning

TONY Blair has played many roles in his career as a conference speaker. Last year he was an international statesman of Churchillian proportions, with the world's eyes upon him and its breath baited as it waited for the revenge of the Americans following September 11.

In 2000, he was the listening premier in the wake of the quaking in the polls caused by the fuel protest; before that he was the James Bond-style superhero taking on those mysterious and dark "forces of conservatism".

Yesterday, he was the history professor, pillaging his library to find incidents from the past that supported his present day positions - positions which, on the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Iraq, were not popular among the audience sitting before him.

He harked back to the Labour government of 1945, which raised taxes to pay for its new National Health Service, and he looked way back to the Liberals of 1906 who started the pension.

Having examined the evidence, the history professor concluded: "I believe we're at our best when at our boldest."

And this justified his current unpopular domestic decisions. He said: "I have learnt this in five years of government: the radical decision is usually the right one; the right decision is usually the hardest one; and the hardest decisions are often the least popular at the time."

Boldly, the professor then turned to international affairs. As if addressing a tutorial group of students who had just fallen into the most obvious trap imaginable, he said: "It's easy to be anti-American. There's a lot of it about, but remember when and where this alliance was forged: here in Europe, in World War II when Britain and America and every decent citizen in Europe joined forces to liberate Europe from the Nazi evil."

But for all his mastery of history, the professor could barely bring himself to state baldly the philosophy of the 1980s from which he was drawing much of his power. He mentioned it once, but he just about got away with it - although his voice nervously broke between the two words which make up the name of the traditional pantomime villain at Labour conferences.

He said: "Why shouldn't an NHS patient be able to book an appointment for an operation at their convenience, just like they could if they paid for it? 'At the time I want, with the doctor I want' was Margaret Thatcher's reason for going private.

"Why shouldn't it be the right for every citizen and why shouldn't it be done within the NHS?"

Was he really saying that Mrs Thatcher was right all along? And did the history professor have a line running through his head from way back in 1980 which went something like "you turn if you want; the Tony's not for turning"?

How else do you paraphrase his defence of PFI?

He said: "We said schools and hospitals first. We're building them. Lots of them. And I am not going to go to parents and children and patients in my constituency or any other and say I'm sorry because there is an argument going on about PFI we're going to put these projects on hold.

"They don't care who builds them - so long as they're built.

"I don't care who builds them - so long as they're on cost, on budget, and helping to deliver a better NHS and better State schools for the people of Sedgefield and every other constituency in the land.

"Between 1979 and 1997, ten new hospitals were built. Through PFI since 1997, 15 new hospitals built and 100 on the way. 550 schools are being re-built or modernised.

"All under PFI. And every single part of the service remains universal and free at the point of use. Come on: this isn't the betrayal of public services. It's their renewal."

There will be no U-turn on PFI by the Labour Prime Minister no matter how much the Labour Party conference votes against it. Indeed, Mr Blair's arrogant belief that he is right is now every bit as strong as Mrs Thatcher's when she was in her pomp.

The history professor saw closer parallels between the pair. He lectured: "The 20th Century was a century of savage slaughter, insane ideology, and unparalleled progress. Progress won in the end.

"Governments used collective power through the state, to provide opportunity for the masses. But in time the institutions of that power became huge interests in their own right.

"And the people became more prosperous, more assertive, more individualist. Eventually, the 1980s saw a reaction by the individual against collective power in all its forms. Now with globalisation, a new era has begun. People are no less individualist, but they are insecure. Modern prosperity may be greater but modern life is pressure and stress.

"Twentieth Century collective power was exercised through the Big State. Their welfare was paternalistic, handing down from on high. That won't do today.

"Just as mass production has departed from industry, so the monolithic provision of services has to depart from the public sector.

"People want an individual service from them."

Mrs Thatcher, of course, famously said there was no such thing as society only individuals, and this is Thatcherism on a Blairite scale. It is school competing against school for the most able pupils; it is hospital competing against hospital to win the right to operate on a patient. It is fuelled by private money and driven by the private ethos that the individual consumer is always right.

But Mr Blair believes it will give all the public, the many not the few, what they want. And it will give it to them free, irrespective of their income, at the point of service as the old Labour manuals tell him it should.

He gave the old left a nod and a wink, acknowledging their presence - at one stage he actually laughed at them - but the history professor returned to give them a stern lesson. "The alternative (to public service reform) is a return to self destruction, the perennial disease of centre-left governments. Never let us fall for the far left's eternal delusion: that if there is dissatisfaction with a moderate centre-left government this can be manipulated into support for a far-left government.

"It results only in one thing. Always has. Always will: the return of a right-wing Tory government."

This was the speech of someone who is very much his own man. He is beholden to neither his party nor its old certainties. With two huge landslides behind him, and only the opposition from within his own party before him, he can cut what he chooses from Thatcherism and paste it into the New Labour agenda.

This was bold talk. It was probably Mr Blair's bravest speech. It was certainly the clearest he has ever been about Britain joining the single currency. "The euro is not just about our economy but our destiny," he said. "We should only join the euro if the economic tests are met. That is clear. But if the tests are passed, we go for it."

It is as if Mr Blair has seen where his place in history lies and is now determined to reach it.

"Up to 1997, do you know how many years of the 20th Century Labour was in power with a substantial majority?" asked the professor. "Nine. By the end of this Parliament, we will have doubled it."

But boldness, though admirable, will make enemies, as Mrs Thatcher found to her cost. Boldness will ruffle feathers, infuriate vested interests and create opposition. Boldness alone will not do: Mr Blair will have to be brave, too, to see it through.