“Domestification” is a distinctly ugly phrase but it has become a fashionable one in parts of Downing Street. It refers to the need for Tony Blair to convince voters that he is now focused on the agenda at home and that the weight placed on foreign affairs will diminish. The implicit strategy is to move discussion on from Iraq, which ministers contend casts “a shadow” over the Government. The Prime Minister sought to put domestic matters at the heart of his monthly press conference yesterday and intends to make a series of speeches on the future of the key public services over the course of the next month.
This is perfectly rational in its own terms. Voters are likely to be far more interested in the economy, education, health, transport and crime than high diplomacy when polling day arrives. Mr Blair should set out his stall and demonstrate, as he asserted yesterday, that reform can “move up a gear”.
But there are some who have an unduly sweeping notion of “domestification”. They would have the Prime Minister distance himself from George W. Bush, either directly apologise for Iraq or indicate that he will not go about liberating nations ever again and pledge that he will seek to avoid high-profile international engagements.
This would be less domestic than intellectual and political isolationism. Foreign policy is a major aspect of the Prime Minister’s work. It should not be thought of as an electoral embarrassment. Mr Blair’s relationship with Washington enables him to have an influence that is of benefit to Britain. An even temporary retreat into the sidelines would be unwise. That he might disavow his intervention in Iraq, in effect asserting that he should have left the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of Saddam Hussein, is ludicrous. It is a particularly odd suggestion at a time when huge strides have been taken towards a political settlement in Baghdad — a blueprint endorsed by the United Nations.
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Michael Howard has also been domesticated. On Monday he held a mini-reshuffle, moving Tim Yeo out of his unduly burdensome responsibilities for health and education and bringing Andrew Lansley and Tim Collins into his Shadow Cabinet to cover these two areas. He then outlined his philosophy for the public services in an address yesterday.
The Tory leader was right to switch tack. His message on health and education has become somewhat lost of late, in part because of the confusion over Mr Yeo’s role. The most significant part of his wideranging speech involved an important change in presentation and substance. He said that the policies which he would present shortly for health and education would “build on” the passport policies previously announced (and inherited from Iain Duncan Smith) but be renamed and redefined as a broad “right to choose”. This is a sensible innovation. The passports concept has proved complex to the point of incomprehensibility, hard to cost with precision, yet easy for the Labour Party to demonise. The “right to choose” is a simpler theme and potentially appealing.
This new language should provide the cover for Mr Lansley and Mr Collins to take a fresh look at policy detail. Mr Howard has offered a forceful critique of Labour’s “command and control” approach, but how he secures the “individualised” public services to which he aspires is not yet obvious. He must also settle on what to do about university top-up fees, a reform that will soon be law. He should either accept the Government’s formula, refine it, or put forward a coherent alternative. He should not engage in an auction for votes on student finance with the Lib Dems (which Charles Kennedy would win). The truth about being domesticated is, for Mr Blair, that all politics is not local, and, for Mr Howard and his team, that there is more to opposition than opposing.