Debating Peter Oborne

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I popped in to a very crowded Royal Society of Arts session on the death of the establishment and its usurpation by a new political class. This is the thesis of Peter Oborne's new book and we'll be returning to it. Matthew Taylor the RSA's director and one-time policy guru in Blair's number 10 and thus a prime target of Peter's critique was in the chair. The respondents were John Lloyd, who once clashed violently with the new book's author over an interview John Lloyd did of Blair and whether it was spin or reporting, and Steve Richards of the Independent (who now thinks blogs are wonderful but who still does not seem to have caught up with OurKingdom). Steve Richards missed the point, and assumed that the 'political class' meant the political clique of top politicians whom, he argued, feel utterly besieged by the media and are therefore weaker not stronger than they were. Thus, he assured us, he knows that George Osborne wants a flat tax and is dying to promise tax cuts but dare not say so, while similarly Brown wants to - and does - redistribute but will never say the 'r' word. The consequence being, in his view, the merely apparent similarity of the two main parties - Peter had mentioned taxation and spending, education, the health service, crime, Iraq and Trident as policies they agree on!  (The point Steve Richards missed is that the book's thesis argues there is two-way patron-client, mutual manipulation between the leading mediacrats and politicians and that they are joint architects of the machinery of domination Peter describes.) John Lloyd warned thoughtfully of the power of the media in all this and, in response to the few questions that were asked from the floor in the time allowed, agreed that globalisation and corporate power were sucking vitality out of the national decision making altogether. Whether or not Peter Oborne has come up with the right answers or analysis, I like his approach. He described how he started out as a political journalist 15 years ago in 1992 believing in the system and gradually was forced to ask himself 'What's going on here?' The answer isn't, as in their different ways all the other members of the panel tried to suggest, at least with respect to Britain, 'not very much', or 'nothing, that has not gone on before'.