Without Iraq and the Recession, how long could Labour stay in power?

[Masteroftheuniverse]

From their election in 1997 up until 2003 the Labour government of Tony Blair was one of the most popular government in history. It had an enormous majority, consistently favourable poll ratings on just about everything and few scandals which had any real consequences. The Iraq War and the Great Recession changed all that and I would say that they are more responsible than anything else for the sorry state that Labour finds itself in today.

Iraq seriously damaged public trust in New Labour and made Blair a hate figure among the left, which left him isolated within his own party, which tarnished the reputations of his future supporters. The recession, on the other hand annihilated Labour's hard won reputation for economic competence and provided the Conservatives with a clear issue to attack Labour on. It also gave the post 2010 party a problem with regards to economic issues- if they stick to supporting austerity measures they are accused of being no different from the Tories but if they go anti-austerity than it seems like they want to repeat the same policies that caused the recession.

So it would seem to me that a POD which eliminated Iraq and the Great Recession would result in Labour staying in power longer. But how much longer? New Labour's reliance on spin was already beginning to rankle by 2001 (even Blair came to dislike it). The Blair-Brown wars were a pre-existing issue which seems like it would still lead to divisions in the party and if Brown still takes over it is doubtful that he'd become much more popular than OTL even without a recession. Finally, given Blair's fondness for interventionism( he regarded Sierra Leone and Kosovo as one of the best things about his first term) there is a chance that he'd end up involved in another war that would become unpopular, although I'm not sure where that might be.

Any thoughts?

 

[shiftygiant]

I'll give something far more detailed later, but an interesting implication of No Iraq is IDS has a far greater chance of surviving into 2005, which will give Labour an advantage.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

The recession, on the other hand annihilated Labour's hard won reputation for economic competence and provided the Conservatives with a clear issue to attack Labour on.

The problem was that Labour's reputation for economic competence was largely undeserved, not all that hard won and totally relied on their being in power during a global period of economic growth. If you read any serious economic commentators (and that includes the contemporary commentary in the likes of the Economist) about the Brown years as Chancellor the only two things he got largely right were (a) sticking to the spending plans he inherited for his first couple of years in the job and (b) not going into the Euro. Otherwise, Brown was largely the architect of his own misfortunes - his garage sale of the national gold reserves made the currency more volatile and his tax increases, particularly a dull and unspectacular one relating to pension funds, reduced the amount of money available for direct investment and consumption thus helping bring about the recession. Basically turned on the spending taps (Government expenditure rose from c. 35% of GDP to c.45% of GDP under his stewardship and, like many a Chancellor before him, found that they weren't as easy to turn off again. Also very jealous of his fiefdom, there were one or two economically literate Labour people (one whose name I now forget was a economist with a NHS background) about in the early Blair years who could see the flaws in what he was doing, but Brown effectively hounded them out of active politics. Rather than an economic expert, Brown was what is known as an informed incompetent - knows a lot of information about the subject, all the jargon, all the theories but doesn't really have a deep understanding or "feel" for the subject.

So a major problem is Gordon Brown. Have him fall under a bus around 1993 for a start.

Secondly, Iraq. Much more complex issue. America feels under threat post 2001, is less cordial relations with the US a price worth paying?
And again, partly self inflicted by poor planning (same problem as Suez -no clear detailed plan for what to do if we win) and trying to run a war on a peacetime budget. According to military experts, at least a third of Iraq/Afghan casualties were avoidable with better kit for the troops on the ground. So a stronger defence team -maybe if Paddy Ashdown had joined Labour rather than the Liberals?

Mind you, not that hard to transform Iraq intervention into a success. Tony Blair was already hated by the hard left prior to Iraq, and it was the failure to find any WMD, ongoing violence and loss of life of British troops that allowed these perceptions to more widely percolate into the wider public political consciousness. Look at Cameron intervention in Libya for contrast -also condemned by left at the time. No boots on ground, no long term consequences (so far!) for Britain and now largely forgotten even by the far left.

Britain contributes mainly at naval and air force level plus a few SAS missions and don't get sucked into subsequent quagmire? Credit with Americans for being helpful, glory of a successful military intervention but none of the nasty bits after.

Keep the neocons away and put someone less ideological in charge of post war reconstruction of Iraq? If a more cynical approach had been taken to deBaathification more similar to deNazification in West Germany (not sacking Iraq's army police and civil service, just removing a few of the more egregious bad apples would have been a start) post-Saddam Iraq might not so nearly approach a failed state or have needed significant garrison levels.

And what if some of the WMD had actually been found? Very naïve to assume that Saddam had none at all , Chemical Ali wasn't dropping lollipops on the Kurds and Marsh Arabs. Probably had a lot less than Western Intelligence services thought he had, but there is an ex-CIA type who has written a book alleging that the CIA messed up securing the arsenal, the WMD disappeared across the border into Iran and the CIA are not admitting to it as they prefer to be seen as sinister (engineered a war with exaggerated WMD claims) rather than incompetent. May not be true, but let us say that there is at least some truth in it and an Iraqi defector provides more accurate intelligence, some material is actually intercepted by SAS/SBS/American Special Forces. A nice photo shoot of George and Tony watching some centrifuges and canisters of nerve gas being put beyond use by Army engineers and the case against Blair significantly weakens.