During the festivities marking Liverpool's coronation as Europe's culture capital, two rival politicians bumped into each other. James Purnell, youngest member of the Cabinet, was there in his official capacity as Culture Secretary. In the crowd was Chris Grayling, the Tory Party's welfare spokesman.
"Welcome to the north, Chris," said Purnell, suggesting that Grayling had made his first trip beyond the Watford Gap. This little exchange summed up their relationship.
Just three weeks later the pair had become direct rivals. Purnell had been promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary with an explicit mission to close the lead that Grayling had opened over welfare reform. Most political dogfights create more heat than light but their battle has radically reshaped British policy.
When they faced each other in Liverpool just after the new year began, a quarter of the city was on out-of-work benefits. The same is true for Glasgow. In Manchester and Birmingham, it's a fifth. Some estimate that, during the Blair years, a full 82% of the "new jobs" were taken or created by immigrants. Despite Labour's reforms, including the new deals, tax credits and pathways to work, millions of Brits remained within the welfare system. The Purnell versus Grayling rivalry means this system is now repudiated by both parties.
The battle over Freud
It all started at the Tory Party conference in Blackpool last year. The Conservatives were preparing for a general election they expected to lose, and by some margin. The tactics were to present a thin blue line of radical new policies, to scare Brown away from an election. Cameron unveiled Swedish-style education reform and Wisconsin-style welfare reform, both the most radical of the genre. His bluff worked, Brown cancelled the election and the rest is history.
The Tories, finding themselves still standing, needed to produce a policy to back up their conference bluff. Grayling got to work and used the discarded template, which a banker called David Freud had prepared for Tony Blair. Grayling seized the agenda, stuck a blue rosette on it, added a few more plans of his own and launched in January. Freud was at the launch, sitting like a star footballer transferred from a rival team.
Grayling expected to be shot down, and denounced as a heartless Tory. After all, even Blair abandoned this subject eight years ago as it caused such outcry with disabled protestors chaining themselves to St Stephen's gate in Parliament. Welfare reform had been known as the third rail of British politics - no one touches it and survives. Yet Grayling had grabbed it, and was electrified rather than electrocuted. Immigration in those eight years had convinced many voters that there are jobs to do, and too many people paid by the government not to do them.
Purnell watched Grayling closely. He has impeccable Blairite credentials and had been a Minister in the Department of Work and Pensions watching his then boss, John Hutton, try to enact welfare reform. Freud had been commissioned by the Blairites so he would not be compromised, and yet here was Grayling reaping the benefits of his work. One text message sent to Radio 5Live was typical of the public reaction: "I work six nights a week for my family - no one else's." The policy approval rating was 85%.
