How Boris Johnson can learn from Tony Blair’s response to wallpaper and flat scandals – Bill Carmichael

This probably sounds familiar, but it is actually a description of the Labour government a few months after the landslide General Election victory in 1997.

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Papers released this week by the National Archives show the depth of the crisis that engulfed Tony Blair’s new administration following revelations that the new Lord Chancellor, Derry Irvine, had spent £650,000 refurbishing his official residence, including £59,000 on hand-printed wallpaper and two hand-made beds that cost £23,000.

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The parallels with today’s problems in Downing Street are striking, and the contrast of the response from Labour’s efficient and sometimes ruthless communications team, very instructive.

Back then Prime Minister Blair appears to have taken personal control of the situation with the official papers showing his hand-written comments saying “We need to stop it” and “We have to be more robust about these things”.

He was especially concerned to dispel accusations that his administration was “just the same as the Tories”.

Labour launched a fierce counter-attack, revealing details of the previous Conservative government’s spending on foreign trips, receptions and entertainment. So effective was this strategy that Labour not only survived the crisis, but went on for another 12 years in power.

It was all a long time ago, of course. Mention “Derry Irvine’s wallpaper” to today’s political neophytes and you will be met with a blank stare of incomprehension.

But the lessons for Boris Johnson’s team today are clear. Claims of sleaze can be quickly forgotten, but only if you get a grip on the narrative to prevent things running out of control – and it is here where Downing Street’s current response has been lacking.

The worst of the Government’s problems have been entirely self-inflicted. The Owen Paterson affair, in which Ministers tried to change the lobbying rules to get a mate out of trouble, was a catastrophic misjudgment that led directly to the disastrous North Shropshire by-election defeat.

And the decision by the Conservatives to trash its reputation as a low tax party could cost it dearly come the next election. The 1.25 per cent increase in National Insurance contributions, which particularly hits the working poor the hardest, will be implemented in April at precisely the same time when big increases in fuel bills are expected.

As the Resolution Foundation think tank pointed out, millions of families are facing a “cost of living catastrophe” in 2022, which could leave households £1,200 a year worse off.

This is what the Government should be concentrating on with laser-like focus. What concerns potential Conservative voters, particularly in the ‘Red Wall’ seats in the North, are bread and butter issues such as jobs, wages, prices, and taxes. Instead the Government has spent far too much time obsessing over fringe issues in order to pander to so-called progressives, who would not vote Tory in a month of Sundays.

If the Conservatives turn themselves into the party of high taxes, global warming and gender neutral toilets, then the Red Wall, and with it the next election, will be lost.

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has made steady progress detoxifying the Labour brand after the shame of the Corbyn years. He has strengthened his front bench team with competent performers, such as Yvette Cooper, MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, and he has successfully marginalised the far left who led Labour to its worst election defeat in 85 years in 2019.

Labour is once again a party that decent people can support, and as a result they are riding high in the polls, with a solid lead over the Conservatives. But it is easy to overstate this. Boris Johnson is in no immediate danger. He still has a substantial majority and an election could be as far off as May 2024.

The Huddersfield-born, former Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, is often quoted as saying: “A week is a long time in politics.” Two years is even longer. Perhaps the only thing we can say with certainty is that there will be many more twists and turns before we get the chance to mark X in the box with a stubby pencil.

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