On a Saturday morning in March, 2003, I received call from Fundación Alternativa, a Madrid-based think tank associated with the socialists, who were in opposition at the time in Spain, who were hosting a conference on Social Change and the Political Agenda at the Balearic University. The headline speaker was Peter Mandelson and they wanted to know if I could pop up for an interview “You’ll only have around 15 minutes, he’s a tough character” I was told, we spoke for nearly two hours in a wide-ranging interview.
I am here to give them the benefit of our experience, our thinking and our electoral success in Britain and to try and spread those lessons to our sister party in Spain,” he told me. As he want on, he said “there was a thirst for progress (in the UK), personal advance as well as progress in the country as a whole and that was the appeal that Mr Blair created and I think we have sustained that. I think people do see us still as a relevant, modern party with a national appeal.
“Before we came to office, we had an explosion in crime in Britain, crime doubled over the decade before we came into power and the rate of increase in crime has slowed. In many areas crime is less, police numbers are more, crime detection is greater, but still people look around and feel a physical insecurity because whatever progress we’ve made, crime is still too extensive, so we have to make further progress. Take the National Health Service, like the education system and other public services, we are now investing in hospitals, NHS staff, technology, new buildings on a scale the NHS has never seen in its entire history.
"Our investment programme in public service is unprecedented in post-war years, but we knew it was never going to be enough just spending more money. That money had to be coupled with modernisation, resources and reforms had to go hand in hand. That takes longer. We’re doing it, but if you take the example of the National Health Service, you’ll never double the output of the health service in the way that we want, by maintaining it as a top-down monolithic, centrally planned and organised service.
"There has to be greater decentralisation, localisation of management and delivery so that, amongst others things, as is the case of all our public services, they are tailored more to the needs of the individual. Now, these changes take time but I believe that the direction in which we’re progressing on the economy, public services and the education system are the right directions and are supported by the country. There will be difficult choices still to come, I give for an example the funding of higher eduction.
"Everyone wants, in an ideal world, to maintain access to a higher education based on grants and low fees, but I’m afraid in today´s world, there is no such thing as a free lunch and, if we’re going to maintain standards in our higher education and increase access to those who are qualified to go into higher eduction, maintain, scope, breadth and calibre of the offer of higher education, then we have to put more money into the system. When we came into office, there was a £4 billion gap in funding of our higher education institutions.
"You’re either going to reduce that gap by saying that everyone has to pay the equivalent of 4p on the basic rate of tax, or say that those who are going to benefit and take out of higher education, have an obligation to put something back into it in future years, when they can afford to do so. Now that’s a hard decision and then there are other similar difficult choices to be made, but we’re not going to shy away from them. Tony Blair has one over-riding duty and that is to use the intelligence available to him, his knowledge and his best judgement to do what he believes is necessary for Britain’s national interests, and he’ll do it,” he told me.