February 4, 2008
Wee Dougie’s wee steps
It is rare and wonderful thing to hear a close confidant of Gordon Brown answer the "vision thing". Ever since the prime minister ducked out of calling an early election, citing his "vision for change", the question has been: have we seen it yet?
When asked, Mr Brown usually trots out the same legislative programme he outlined before the election decision. So it was intriguing to hear Douglas "wee Dougie" Alexander, one of Mr Brown’s closest political advisers, give a fuller response in an interview with the BBC on Sunday. He basically says a big vision is made up of small steps. It certainly has a whiff of self-justification — after all, Mr Alexander has not been popular with many Labour MPs since Gordon Brown’s fortunes turned. Here is the full transcript.
ANDREW MARR: What about the condition of the Party generally? We’ve had this report from Progress which is one of the sort of left-wing think tanks saying basically there needs to be a much clearer sense of direction and a much clearer idea about what New Labour is for or you are all doomed.
DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: I certainly don’t think we’re all doomed. I think instead we have to recognise there’s two challenges for any government in these circumstances. One is, how do you deal with events that inevitably come up in the day to day business of government. But secondly do you have that longer term plan and that longer term agenda. And I think we do.
Whether it’s on issues like social housing - I was in my constituency on Friday. The first question I was asked was about affordable housing for young people. Whether it’s about the challenge of making the Health Service more accessible to people given the hours people are working.
It’s those practical steps, the kind of discipline of the small steps of progress in government that I think actually over time reveals the rhythm and the character of a government.
The last sentence reminded me of a politician who is having some similar vision troubles across the Atlantic. In her first senate speech, Hillary Clinton said:
"I learned some valuable lessons about the political process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done."
This approach is classic Clintonian strategy. Bill Clinton’s State of the Union speeches were typically a crushingly boring laundry list of mini-initiatives to please small sections of the electorate.
Mr Alexander is a noted follower of US politics and indeed takes advice from Clinton pollsters such as Mark Penn and Stan Greenberg. I’m sure he will be interested to see whether this "small steps" strategy prevails on Super Tuesday.
