Despedida de Tony Blair

Na semana em que Portugal teve uma greve geral (qual o impacto e adesão poucos sabem, ou então foi tão reduzida que não teve qualquer expressão), foi também publicado no Economist um artigo escrito por Tony Blair no momento da sua partida, no qual são expressas algumas ideias que se enquadram nos motivos invocados pelos organizadores da greve mas cuja interpretação é, obviamente, diferente. Apesar deste artigo ter algumas ideias com as quais discordo, na sua grande maioria julgo que espelha um sentido de Estado e uma visão do mundo bastante interessante e que explica, em parte, a razão pela qual os Ingleses têm vindo a dar cartas na Europa e no Mundo. A Europa precisava de mais líderes assim.
Vou deixar aqui uma pequena passagem que revela esse espírito, que Portugal e a Europa deveriam seguir:

1. “Open v closed” is as important today in politics as “left v right”. Nations do best when they are prepared to be open to the world. This means open in their economies, eschewing protectionism, welcoming foreign investment, running flexible labour markets. It means also open to the benefit of controlled immigration. For all nations this is a hugely contentious area of policy. But I have no doubt London is stronger and more successful through the encouragement of targeted migration.

Isolationism and protectionism now cut across left and right boundaries. They are easy tunes to play but pointless in anything other than the very short-term.

2. The role of the state is changing. The state today needs to be enabling and based on a partnership with the citizen, one of mutual rights and responsibilities. The implications are profound. Public services need to go through the same revolution—professionally, culturally and in organisation—that the private sector has been through.

The old monolithic provision has to be broken down. The user has to be given real power and preference. The system needs proper incentives and rewards. The purpose should be so that public services can adapt and adjust naturally—self-generating reform—rather than being continually prodded and pushed from the centre. Public-sector unions can't be allowed to determine the shape of public services.

In Britain we have put huge investment into our public services. But we are also opening the health service to private and voluntary-sector partnerships, introducing a payment-by-results system, creating competition and allowing hospitals to become self-governing trusts. The new academies and trust schools will have the freedom to develop as independent but non-fee-paying schools, with outside partners like businesses, universities and charities able to sponsor and run them.

3. Welfare systems work only if there is shared responsibility—the state to provide help, the citizens to use that help to help themselves. The pensions reforms Britain is now putting through will, over the decades, give us a system that is affordable and fair between the generations, by ensuring that, though each citizen is guaranteed a basic pension, they will be expected to top that up with their own finances.

4. Law and order matters in a way that is more profound than most commentary suggests. It used to be that progressives were people who wanted an end to prejudice and discrimination and took the view that, in crime, social causes were paramount. Conservatives thought crime was a matter of individual responsibility and that campaigns against discrimination were so much political correctness.

Today the public distinguishes clearly between personal lifestyle issues, where they are liberal, and crime, where they are definitely not. It is what I call the pro-gay-rights, tough-on-crime position. It confounds traditional left/right views.

5. Social exclusion needs special focus. From 1979 to 1997 the incomes of the richest 20% in Britain grew faster (2.5%) than the incomes of the poorest 20% (0.8%). That has been reversed. Since 1997 the incomes of the poorest have risen faster (2.2%) than the richest (2%). However, this masks a tail of under-achievers, the socially excluded. The rising tide does not lift their ships. This issue of social exclusion is common throughout Western nations.

6. Finally, political parties will have to change radically their modus operandi. Contrary to mythology, political parties aren't dying; public interest in politics is as intense as it ever was. As the recent turn-out in the French election shows: give people a real contest and they will come out and vote.

But politics is subject to the same forces of change as everything else. It is less tribal; people will be interested in issues, not necessarily ideologies; political organisation if it is rigid is off-putting; and there are myriad new ways of communicating information. Above all, political parties need to go out and seek public participation, not wait for the public to be permitted the privilege of becoming part of the sect.

So, membership should be looser, policymaking broader and more representative, the internet and interactive communication the norm. Open it all up.