Leading Article: Blair takes on the old guard

TONY BLAIR this week showed a touch of the courage that will be needed to transform his party. As union leaders rumbled against loosened links with Labour, Mr Blair made his position clear. A government led by him would represent national, not sectional interests. He would treat businesses and the trade unions equally, offering privileges to neither.

Until recently, such language would have amounted to treason. Yet Mr Blair carried the day with statements whose logic dictated that sooner rather than later the party should be subject to a further round of constitutional change. An encouraging impression left by the TUC conference is that the momentum of change is with him. Labour's old guard may protest against reforms, but it seems to have little will to fight. As Andrew Jackson, the swashbuckling US president, once remarked: 'One man with courage makes a majority.'

Mr Blair may well be that man, but he knows full well that he lacks presidential powers. The task before him is great. The paradox is that each time Mr Blair demonstrates his political acumen, he throws fresh light upon the dullness of his party. Three issues - the signal workers' strike, the minimum wage and the argument over free eye tests - show how hard the Labour leader will have to kick to move some of his colleagues away from knee-jerk politics.

On the first, Frank Dobson, Labour's transport spokesman, has short-sightedly preached RMT's cause throughout the summer, calling on the Government to make Railtrack pay up. Mr Blair stepped in to champion binding arbitration, only to be rebuffed by Jimmy Knapp, the signallers' leader.

The minimum wage is another party shibboleth. No Shadow minister dared to speak without obfuscation at the TUC against a formula that would set the rate at pounds 4 an hour, which would destroy jobs.

Then, yesterday, came controversy over a paper in the British Medical Journal revealing a fall in referrals to Bristol Eye Hospital after the introduction in 1989 of an eye test fee for some patients. The data came from a single hospital and seems at odds with current national figures. So the study's conclusion - that sight-threatening disease is going undetected - is questionable. Labour's reaction? David Blunkett, Labour's health spokesman, demanded an immediate return to free eye tests for everyone. In this case, the costs of universal entitlement may not be large, but it is drearily indicative of old Labour attitudes that the answer to any question in the area of health and welfare is to demand across-the-board, untargeted payments funded by the taxpayer. What happened to Mr Blair's leadership campaign motif of choice for the individual?

All of this indicates that Mr Blair is in for a demanding winter. It is all very well for him to sound flexible when his party looks rigid, for him to appear modern when his party harks back. But the tactical sense that guided him this week in keeping his distance from the rail strikers is, at this stage, tactic without strategy. A strategy in this area would require a thought-through approach to public sector pay and some clarity about how Labour would modernise the railway industry, whose chronic mismanagement has been highlighted by this lengthy dispute. Nor can he dodge indefinitely on the minimum wage. If he recognises that pounds 4 an hour is too high, he should say so and explain his thinking to his party.

It is unreasonable to expect Mr Blair to have detailed answers to all the policy issues facing Labour, but this autumn there will be occasions when he should feel obliged to set out his thinking. The Commission on Social Justice, established by John Smith, is to report next month. In responding, Mr Blair must face some critical judgements, notably the vexed question of universal vs targeted benefits.

Tony Blair's first visit to Blackpool this autumn was a qualified success. His second, to the Labour Party conference, will tell us more about the new leader's battle for the heart and mind of his party.