The word that may wreck Blair's plan

The day the National Health Service was born in 1948, the launch of Labour's proudest creation was overshadowed by some ill-judged words from its Health Secretary. Aneuran Bevan had travelled to Manchester to address a party rally. His speech was full of idealism and a distinctly Blairite ambition of Britain providing the world with "moral leadership". However, what is remembered is his description of the Conservatives: "lower than vermin".

Yesterday Tony Blair also gave a visionary speech; but, like Bevan, he is likely to be remembered not for his positive prospectus but for his poisonous description of the Tories, this time as "wreckers". He must hope that his reputation is not tarnished by this language as Bevan's was; but he will have only himself to blame if it is.

If there is a difference, it is that Mr Blair's words were more premeditated. Bevan coined his phrase to express his raw, personal anger at the way the Conservatives had tried to block the creation of the health service. He lacked a praetorian guard of speech-writers and special advisers to cool him down. Clement Attlee, his Prime Minister, subsequently admonished him in a private letter for his "unfortunate remarks".

Mr Blair's comment was no angry, off-the-cuff affair. "Reformers versus wreckers" appeared in the official text and in briefings the day before. Stephen Byers used a similar phrase speech on Saturday: "We must push forward on our agenda of modernisation and reform. It will be a battle between the reformers and the wreckers."

The alliteration, the positing of a stark and simple choice, and the use of a strong, guttural word such as "wreckers" are all devices straight out of the Alastair Campbell school of polemicry. Nobody should doubt the technical craft involved. But to acknowledge the technical skill of the verbal construction is neither to explain nor justify what was said.

For the explanation, we need look no further than the past few bruising weeks for ministers, starting with the rail strikes on South West Trains, continuing with this newspaper's disclosures about 94-year-old Rose Addis and the Whittington Hospital, and culminating with the Government's highlycontroversial decision, to be announced this week, to sign contracts with private companies to operate parts of the London Underground network.

Ministers admit openly that Labour will be in serious trouble if the NHS and commuter train companies are not providing better and more punctual services by the time of the next general election. The party's best chance then of warding off a strong challenge from the Conservatives will be to tarnish the Tories as people who would make bad services even worse.

At one level, the Prime Minister's "wreckers" comment was a down-payment on an insurance policy against that depressing eventuality. And before the Tories complain that Mr Blair is demeaning political debate, they should recall the way they used precisely the same technique in 1992, when the economy was in trouble, to say that Labour would run it yet further into the ground. That was the purpose of the Tories' poster, "Labour's Double Whammy". Central Office strategists should recall that campaign, hang their heads in shame, and say nothing about the latest verbal fisticuffs.

There was, however, another target in the Prime Minister's sights yesterday: Labour and trade union Left-wingers who oppose public-private partnerships to provide commuters, pupils and patients with better trains, schools and hospitals. Mr Blair was depicting himself as the head of a decent and rational government, assailed from both sides by people who would undo all his good work, given half a chance.

Here we reach the underlying explanation of his words. It goes beyond the political tactics of dealing with the Tories and Labour's Left-wing. What Mr Blair said yesterday springs from a triangular view of modern politics and his place in it. He tends to see himself as a radical moderate, constantly assailed by extremists from two different directions.

Witness, for example, his statement three months ago, following the IRA's initial act of weapons decommissioning. He warned against over-optimism: "There will be dangers from the wreckers - loyalist or splinter republican groups who do not want change or prefer to take refuge in the past." Or go back three years to a rowdy exchange in the Commons shortly before the first elections to the Welsh Assembly. Mr Blair said then: "What we need to know is why the nationalists and the Tories are in bed with one another - the two wreckers of devolution - one group that wants to separate Wales from the United Kingdom, and the other that supports centralisation."

On both of those occasions, like yesterday, the Prime Minister not only spoke of "wreckers" but identified two separate groups of them, normally bitter opponents of each other. This is Mr Blair's political triangle. He occupies the apex of reason, while his enemies in the other two corners concoct dark plans to make mischief.

As long as he can persuade enough people to accept this geometry and his place in it, he will be hard to defeat. He should, however, beware. Since the dawn of time, politicians have been tempted by hubris to believe that they possess a monopoly of virtue and wisdom. Hence their depiction of opponents as villains, rather than people plying an alternative, legitimate point of view.

Eventually, nemesis has invariably followed. For a man who has frequently complained about yah-boo politics and who asserts the need for a new political discourse, Mr Blair is in danger of falling into the oldest trap of all.