When Whitehall Meets 'The West Wing'

If there is one place where the end of the Bartlet administration will be mourned more than in Washington, it is in Whitehall, the home of the British government. "The West Wing," which will end its seven-year run tonight, enjoys cult status among the British political class. Such was the show's allure that former Bartlet chief of staff Leo McGarry -- played by the recently deceased John Spencer -- was invited to 10 Downing Street in June 2002 for some face time with Jonathan Powell, Prime Minister Tony Blair's real-life chief of staff. Later Spencer told a reporter, "I had British politicians coming up to me saying, 'I don't want to gush too much but I think meeting you could be one of the greatest moments of my life.' "

Their reaction underscored the show's importance: the fictional President Jed Bartlet was to Blair's young turks what President Ronald Reagan had been to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Tory boys. Admiration for President Bill Clinton's campaign techniques morphed into a desire to be like the good-looking, fast-talking Bartlet aides Josh Lyman or Sam Seaborn. For the first time since the Vietnam War, the British Left wanted to be American.

The yuppies of British politics fell for "The West Wing" because the show depicted politicians as they imagined themselves: young, smart idealists committed to making the world a better place. British shows, by contrast, cater to a cynical public and depict politicos as either sinister (see "House of Cards") or bumbling (see "Yes, Prime Minister").

Peter Mandelson, the architect of Blair's "New Labor" movement, lamented in 2002 that "any British TV program about politics has to show almost everyone driven solely by cynicism, self-interest and ambition." And the director of "The Project," a caustic drama about New Labor, observed to the Daily Telegraph that year: "It would be difficult to make a British 'West Wing.' The Americans are optimistic. They wish that their president could be like the Martin Sheen character -- a fundamentally decent guy, every now and then forced up blind alleys by the political process. A British 'West Wing' with a prime minister doing well just wouldn't work."

The show portrayed the U.S. government operating much as Blair's young followers wished Whitehall could work. Instead of ideas having to fight their way up through the bureaucracy, they could be thrashed out by two bright young things and taken straight to the boss. During the fourth season of the show, Bartlet staffers Josh and Toby took inspiration from a chat with a stranger in an Indiana bar to devise a quick plan making college tuition tax-deductible. Fast-forward a few episodes, and it became the centerpiece of the president's second-term tax plan -- just like that.

The old joke goes that the British government has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls-Royce. As the Blairites chafed against that system, "The West Wing" offered them a tantalizing vision of how life could be.

This longing was heightened by the similarities between Bartlet and Blair. They are both self-defined moral men with the ability to inspire devotional loyalty. They both think in world-changing terms and are married to dynamic, feisty, professional women. One of Blair's confidants even told the Daily Telegraph in 2003 that the psychology of the two leaders was strikingly similar. And both had as sidekicks hardened bruisers who had struggled with the demon drink (although Blair's partner was communications guru Alastair Campbell, not his chief of staff).

Other similarities were manufactured: In 2002, British media reported that the chairs in the briefing room at 10 Downing Street had been moved to re-create C.J. Cregg's White House press room. Former Blair spokesman Godric Smith even reportedly kept a snapshot of the Amazonian Bartlet press secretary on his office desk.

In 2002, "West Wing" consultant and former Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling briefed Blair, much to the amusement of the British media. Sperling recalls young New Laborites "lobbying hard" for him to send them the latest episodes. "It would be huge for them to be able to do special showings of 'West Wings' that hadn't been seen yet in the UK," he said. (In Britain, the show runs several episodes behind the U.S. schedule, putting a premium on any news from 1600 Pennsylvania.)

The infatuation with "The West Wing" had a serious side, too. It meant that Blair's camp was used to seeing things from the American point of view -- a perspective that can make actual U.S. proposals feel more reasonable. In effect, the show acted as a distance-learning Fulbright: It helped Blairites reject the old left's anti-Americanism while providing them with a liberal pro-American narrative.

Of course, Blair would have stood with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and joined the invasion of Iraq with or without "The West Wing." But the show can only have bolstered his team's eagerness to understand the U.S. position and its appreciation of America's potential for good. Its perceived influence led conservative British commentator Peter Oborne to denounce Blair and his team's deployment of the "techniques, and empty morality, of 'West Wing' to rewrite the Iraq conflict."

A cynic might observe that the most realistic aspect of the relationship between New Labor and this fictional U.S. president was its one-sidedness. The two most prominent British characters on "The West Wing" were the antithesis of New Labor. One was a diplomat, Lord John Marbury, called in by Bartlet to help avert nuclear war between India and Pakistan. He is drunk, eccentric, aristocratic and off-message -- all traits that New Labor despises. The other character was a female prime minister who bore more than a passing resemblance to Thatcher. And two rare parliamentary defeats for Blair can be blamed in part on the show; Blair's opponents mimicked the parliamentary tactics that Democratic Rep. Matt Santos -- played by Jimmy Smits -- deployed to win a vote on stem cell research. "It was directly inspired by 'The West Wing,' " one plotter boasted to British newspapers.

The British political class's love affair with "The West Wing" won't end after tonight's series finale, or even when New Labor leaves office. Under new leader David Cameron, the opposition Conservatives are big fans, too. Cameron has told interviewers he likes the way Bartlet "cuts through all the bull and does the right thing." The very American language he uses attests to how far up the Thames the Potomac now flows -- and helps explain why, at a time when the British public is increasingly skeptical of U.S. ambitions, the leaders of Britain's two main parties have never been more pro-American.

jforsyth@carnegieendowment.org

James Forsyth, an assistant editor of Foreign Policy magazine, is one more Brit who wishes he could be Josh Lyman.