More on this from me later.
Showing posts with label Labour leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour leadership. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
++ Milburn to challenge Brown says PB.com ++
Mike Smithson has a potentially huge story HERE. Mike is to the political blogosphere what Phil Webster of The Times was to the Lobby in my time there - if he has a story, it's worth taking seriously.
More on this from me later.
More on this from me later.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Four out of five readers back leadership change
For the past fortnight since the local election debacle I have been running a Poll on who should lead the Labour Party into the next general election. Gordon Brown was of course included in the shortlist, but the results show that, however much support he retains among Labour Party members, readers of this blog at any rate are less than enthused by his leadership.
Although Brown topped the poll with 20pc of the vote, four out of five of those who took part backed other candidates, with Jack Straw and Jon Cruddas the next most favoured. Furthermore there are strong suggestions that some of those who want to keep Brown in place were Tories - there was a surge of votes for the Prime Minister after my commentary piece last weekend was linked to by Guido Fawkes, sending traffic temporarily through the roof.
The full results were:
Gordon Brown 20%
Jack Straw 15%
Jon Cruddas 14%
David Miliband 13%
Alan Johnson 11%
John McDonnell 7%
Ed Balls 6%
Hilary Benn 6%
John Denham 5%
Alan Milburn 2%
Since the poll began Gordon has obviously launched a fairly determined fightback with this week's emergency Budget and draft Queen's Speech, and I'll be saying a bit more about the potential impact of this in my weekly column which will be on here from tomorrow morning.
One name I didn't include in the list was James Purnell, mainly because I view him as an incurable lightweight. However Fraser Nelson of the Spectator, who knows more about these things than I do, has since penned this piece arguing that Purnell, not David Miliband, is now the great hope of the Blairite faction.
I was in London yesterday and read a scandalous piece in the Standard's Londoner's Diary suggesting the Speccie has turned against Miliband because its editor Matthew d'Ancona's wife Sarah, who is Miliband's special adviser, has left him. This is so outrageous that it either has to be (a) true or (b) a particularly unfortunate case of a journalist putting two and two together and making seventeen.
Although Brown topped the poll with 20pc of the vote, four out of five of those who took part backed other candidates, with Jack Straw and Jon Cruddas the next most favoured. Furthermore there are strong suggestions that some of those who want to keep Brown in place were Tories - there was a surge of votes for the Prime Minister after my commentary piece last weekend was linked to by Guido Fawkes, sending traffic temporarily through the roof.
The full results were:
Gordon Brown 20%
Jack Straw 15%
Jon Cruddas 14%
David Miliband 13%
Alan Johnson 11%
John McDonnell 7%
Ed Balls 6%
Hilary Benn 6%
John Denham 5%
Alan Milburn 2%
Since the poll began Gordon has obviously launched a fairly determined fightback with this week's emergency Budget and draft Queen's Speech, and I'll be saying a bit more about the potential impact of this in my weekly column which will be on here from tomorrow morning.
One name I didn't include in the list was James Purnell, mainly because I view him as an incurable lightweight. However Fraser Nelson of the Spectator, who knows more about these things than I do, has since penned this piece arguing that Purnell, not David Miliband, is now the great hope of the Blairite faction.
I was in London yesterday and read a scandalous piece in the Standard's Londoner's Diary suggesting the Speccie has turned against Miliband because its editor Matthew d'Ancona's wife Sarah, who is Miliband's special adviser, has left him. This is so outrageous that it either has to be (a) true or (b) a particularly unfortunate case of a journalist putting two and two together and making seventeen.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Is Prescott rewriting history?
Gordon Brown has not been a particularly lucky Prime Minister so far - while some of his mistakes have been of his own making, others, such as "discgate" and the David Abrahams affair were down to others' incompetence. But looking at the headlines of the last couple of days, I wonder whether the Prime Minister is perhaps more fortunate in his enemies.
Who are these people who are currently twisting the knife? An ex deputy leader who was very lucky not to be sacked himself by Tony Blair, a failed ex welfare minister who has borne a deeply personal grudge against him for the past decade, and a sleazy fundraiser whose activities did more than anyone else to bring disgrace on the party.
The activities of Lord Cashpoint in persistently seeking to link Brown with the cash for honours affair on the strength of absolutely no evidence are simply beneath contempt. It's the kind of thing you expect from Tory bloggers, not people who are allegedly supporters of the Labour Party.
As for Frank Field, he has been seeking to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Labour MPs by spearheading the rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, but such is the depth of his hatred for Gordon that anything he says about him is worthless.
John Prescott is a different case altogether. His loyalty to the party and determination to hold it together at all costs has been the hallmark of his long career, which is what makes the revelations about the Blair-Brown feud in his memoirs all the more surprising.
I wonder if he is re-writing history somewhat. Either that, or else his words are being rather badly edited.
In truth, I don't think for a moment he actually wanted Tony to sack Gordon or for Gordon to resign and attack Tony from the backbenches. Prescott knows perfectly well that both of those scenarios would have led to civil war in the party, and that is not something which he would ever have wanted.
I think his comments have more the air of exasperation about them. If he did indeed urge Blair to sack Brown, it was probably said more as a reductio ad absurdam than anything else.
Contrary to the impression given in the book, I am in fact as certain as I can be that he wanted Brown to succeed Blair, saw him as the best guarantor of the Labour Party's core values, and was working quietly to ensure his succession from a fairly early stage.
Indeed I was told all of this by one of Prescott's very closest ministerial colleagues shortly after the 2001 election.
The same source made clear that Prescott envisaged continuing as Brown's deputy for a while, presumably on the assumption that the handover would come sometime in the 2001-2005 Parliament.
Blair's decision to stay on until 2007, coupled with the Tracey Temple affair, evidently put paid to that ambition.
Who are these people who are currently twisting the knife? An ex deputy leader who was very lucky not to be sacked himself by Tony Blair, a failed ex welfare minister who has borne a deeply personal grudge against him for the past decade, and a sleazy fundraiser whose activities did more than anyone else to bring disgrace on the party.
The activities of Lord Cashpoint in persistently seeking to link Brown with the cash for honours affair on the strength of absolutely no evidence are simply beneath contempt. It's the kind of thing you expect from Tory bloggers, not people who are allegedly supporters of the Labour Party.
As for Frank Field, he has been seeking to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Labour MPs by spearheading the rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, but such is the depth of his hatred for Gordon that anything he says about him is worthless.
John Prescott is a different case altogether. His loyalty to the party and determination to hold it together at all costs has been the hallmark of his long career, which is what makes the revelations about the Blair-Brown feud in his memoirs all the more surprising.
I wonder if he is re-writing history somewhat. Either that, or else his words are being rather badly edited.
In truth, I don't think for a moment he actually wanted Tony to sack Gordon or for Gordon to resign and attack Tony from the backbenches. Prescott knows perfectly well that both of those scenarios would have led to civil war in the party, and that is not something which he would ever have wanted.
I think his comments have more the air of exasperation about them. If he did indeed urge Blair to sack Brown, it was probably said more as a reductio ad absurdam than anything else.
Contrary to the impression given in the book, I am in fact as certain as I can be that he wanted Brown to succeed Blair, saw him as the best guarantor of the Labour Party's core values, and was working quietly to ensure his succession from a fairly early stage.
Indeed I was told all of this by one of Prescott's very closest ministerial colleagues shortly after the 2001 election.
The same source made clear that Prescott envisaged continuing as Brown's deputy for a while, presumably on the assumption that the handover would come sometime in the 2001-2005 Parliament.
Blair's decision to stay on until 2007, coupled with the Tracey Temple affair, evidently put paid to that ambition.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Sands of time running out for Gordon
How much longer has Gordon Brown got to turn things around for Labour? And if he fails, who might replace him? Here's my column from today's Newcastle Journal.
***
Last Saturday, I wrote in this column that despite Labour’s abysmal performance in the local election, I did not detect any appetite in the party for another change of leadership.
For now, I am sticking to that. In spite of Labour’s current dreadful plight, the party as a whole remains overwhelmingly loyal to Gordon Brown and desperately wants to see him succeed.
At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness that things cannot go on like this indefinitely, and that there may come a point where a change has, however reluctantly, to be made.
Mr Brown, in other words, is now on notice. Unless he can demonstrate that he is still the one to turn things around, the pressure on him to do the decent thing will become insurmountable.
The past week has brought no respite for the government. Last Thursday’s local election carnage was followed by Boris Johnson’s totemic victory over Ken Livingstone in London in the early hours of Saturday morning.
More damaging still was Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander’s decision to back a referendum on Scottish independence, almost certainly without Mr Brown’s approval.
The potential longer-term consequences of that announcement are worthy of a column in itself, but the short-term impact was to make it look like the Prime Minister had lost control of his own party.
Yesterday, the polling organisation You Gov piled yet deeper humiliation on Mr Brown as its latest survey showed the Tories 26 points in front, with Labour on its lowest rating ever at 23pc.
Estimates vary as to how much time Mr Brown has left in which to turn the situation around. Some say a year, some say as little as three or four months.
My own take on the matter is that there will need to be evidence that the crisis has bottomed out and the situation begun to move back in Labour’s favour by the time of the autumn conferences.
Furthermore, by next May’s local elections, there will need to be proof that Labour is at least on the road to recovery, back within touching distance of the Tories in terms of overall share of the vote.
If neither of those things happen, I think it entirely plausible that Mr Brown will fall on his own sword. The one thing he has always been is a party man.
So who might take over? Well, the one consolation for Gordon in yesterday’s You Gov poll is that it showed that any other leader – including South Shields MP David Miliband – would do even worse.
This bears out my own view that this crisis is not primarily about personalities, but about Labour’s collective failure to articulate a new vision capable of re-enthusing the electorate.
It follows from what I have said thus far that in my view, replacing Mr Brown with another old-stager from the Cabinet would be a completely pointless exercise.
The name most mentioned in this regard is Jack Straw, but he would carry all of the baggage of having served in the Blair-Brown Cabinet since the start, as well having been Foreign Secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion.
Skipping a generation has a far greater potential appeal, and overwhelmingly the name on people’s lips in this context is Mr Miliband.
The other young hopefuls, James Purnell, Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband, fall into the next-leaders-but-one category, while Ed Balls would simply be Mr Brown without the gravitas.
The main advantage of having a leader from the thirty- and forty-something age-band is that it would indicate that the party was looking ahead and moving on from the now seemingly discredited Blair-Brown era.
That said, none of the “next generation” candidates are exactly over-endowed with charisma, and if they do have any fresh ideas, they have not exactly been much in evidence thus far.
What, then, about a backbench heavyweight - someone who could combine experience with the appearance of change, by virtue of not having been party to the debacle of the Brown premiership.
Of the obvious contenders, Charles Clarke has made too many foolish outbursts and hence too many enemies, while David Blunkett has made too many personal errors of judgement.
Potentially the most promising “change candidate” is Darlington MP Alan Milburn, whose still-youthful appearance belies his five years’ Cabinet experience.
More importantly, he alone among Labour’s big-hitters has demonstrated an appetite for thinking outside the box. Whether he actually wants the job is unclear, but in my view, this could be his time.
But while the election of Mr Milburn would represent a shift back towards a more “Blairite” agenda, another, riskier option would be to make a conscious shift to the left.
The man for that task would be Jon Cruddas, whose thoughtful campaign for the deputy leadership last year now appears prophetic in its attacks on the intellectual emptiness of New Labour.
There is also a case to be made for a woman, given that Mr Brown has been criticised for his inability to “empathise” with voters in the way that David Cameron appears to be able to do.
The difficulty is that none of the available women seem particularly empathetic. Indeed the likes of Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper are even more prone to New Labour-style hectoring than their male counterparts.
After reading this far, you might think that, with no single candidate entirely free from drawbacks, the party would be better off sticking with the devil they know.
But politics doesn’t really work like that. Unless Mr Brown can recover, there will come a point when Labour MPs start to take the view that it’s his neck on the line or theirs.
Some argue that no-one really wants the job any more, that it is too much of a poisoned chalice – but politics doesn’t work like that either, and there will be someone, somewhere prepared to grasp the opportunity.
All is not quite lost for Mr Brown. But he knows that the sands of time are now fast running out on him.
***
Last Saturday, I wrote in this column that despite Labour’s abysmal performance in the local election, I did not detect any appetite in the party for another change of leadership.
For now, I am sticking to that. In spite of Labour’s current dreadful plight, the party as a whole remains overwhelmingly loyal to Gordon Brown and desperately wants to see him succeed.
At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness that things cannot go on like this indefinitely, and that there may come a point where a change has, however reluctantly, to be made.
Mr Brown, in other words, is now on notice. Unless he can demonstrate that he is still the one to turn things around, the pressure on him to do the decent thing will become insurmountable.
The past week has brought no respite for the government. Last Thursday’s local election carnage was followed by Boris Johnson’s totemic victory over Ken Livingstone in London in the early hours of Saturday morning.
More damaging still was Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander’s decision to back a referendum on Scottish independence, almost certainly without Mr Brown’s approval.
The potential longer-term consequences of that announcement are worthy of a column in itself, but the short-term impact was to make it look like the Prime Minister had lost control of his own party.
Yesterday, the polling organisation You Gov piled yet deeper humiliation on Mr Brown as its latest survey showed the Tories 26 points in front, with Labour on its lowest rating ever at 23pc.
Estimates vary as to how much time Mr Brown has left in which to turn the situation around. Some say a year, some say as little as three or four months.
My own take on the matter is that there will need to be evidence that the crisis has bottomed out and the situation begun to move back in Labour’s favour by the time of the autumn conferences.
Furthermore, by next May’s local elections, there will need to be proof that Labour is at least on the road to recovery, back within touching distance of the Tories in terms of overall share of the vote.
If neither of those things happen, I think it entirely plausible that Mr Brown will fall on his own sword. The one thing he has always been is a party man.
So who might take over? Well, the one consolation for Gordon in yesterday’s You Gov poll is that it showed that any other leader – including South Shields MP David Miliband – would do even worse.
This bears out my own view that this crisis is not primarily about personalities, but about Labour’s collective failure to articulate a new vision capable of re-enthusing the electorate.
It follows from what I have said thus far that in my view, replacing Mr Brown with another old-stager from the Cabinet would be a completely pointless exercise.
The name most mentioned in this regard is Jack Straw, but he would carry all of the baggage of having served in the Blair-Brown Cabinet since the start, as well having been Foreign Secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion.
Skipping a generation has a far greater potential appeal, and overwhelmingly the name on people’s lips in this context is Mr Miliband.
The other young hopefuls, James Purnell, Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband, fall into the next-leaders-but-one category, while Ed Balls would simply be Mr Brown without the gravitas.
The main advantage of having a leader from the thirty- and forty-something age-band is that it would indicate that the party was looking ahead and moving on from the now seemingly discredited Blair-Brown era.
That said, none of the “next generation” candidates are exactly over-endowed with charisma, and if they do have any fresh ideas, they have not exactly been much in evidence thus far.
What, then, about a backbench heavyweight - someone who could combine experience with the appearance of change, by virtue of not having been party to the debacle of the Brown premiership.
Of the obvious contenders, Charles Clarke has made too many foolish outbursts and hence too many enemies, while David Blunkett has made too many personal errors of judgement.
Potentially the most promising “change candidate” is Darlington MP Alan Milburn, whose still-youthful appearance belies his five years’ Cabinet experience.
More importantly, he alone among Labour’s big-hitters has demonstrated an appetite for thinking outside the box. Whether he actually wants the job is unclear, but in my view, this could be his time.
But while the election of Mr Milburn would represent a shift back towards a more “Blairite” agenda, another, riskier option would be to make a conscious shift to the left.
The man for that task would be Jon Cruddas, whose thoughtful campaign for the deputy leadership last year now appears prophetic in its attacks on the intellectual emptiness of New Labour.
There is also a case to be made for a woman, given that Mr Brown has been criticised for his inability to “empathise” with voters in the way that David Cameron appears to be able to do.
The difficulty is that none of the available women seem particularly empathetic. Indeed the likes of Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper are even more prone to New Labour-style hectoring than their male counterparts.
After reading this far, you might think that, with no single candidate entirely free from drawbacks, the party would be better off sticking with the devil they know.
But politics doesn’t really work like that. Unless Mr Brown can recover, there will come a point when Labour MPs start to take the view that it’s his neck on the line or theirs.
Some argue that no-one really wants the job any more, that it is too much of a poisoned chalice – but politics doesn’t work like that either, and there will be someone, somewhere prepared to grasp the opportunity.
All is not quite lost for Mr Brown. But he knows that the sands of time are now fast running out on him.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Could Geoff Hoon or Tessa Jowell really be the next PM?
The weeks between the start of the summer Parliamentary recess in July and the party conference season in September have traditionally been known in the "silly season" in political and journalistic circles. With the MPs off on their holidays, it is a time of long, slow news days at Westminster, with the result that any small thing that happens tends to get rather blown out of proportion.
Perhaps the greatest silly season story of my time in the Lobby came in August 1997, when John Prescott's throwaway remark about naming a baby crab after Peter Mandelson made headlines the length and breadth of Fleet Street.
But if the past couple of days are anything to go by, the silly season has arrived early this year. Two of my favourite bloggers have come out with what can only be described as outlandish theories about the post-Brown Labour leadership.
Mike Smithson of PoliticalBetting.com is one of the most insightful political commentators in the country - inside and outside the MSM. Yet incredibly, he decided to devote an entire blog post yesterday to the idea that Tessa Jowell could become Prime Minister.
Now I do realise that the raison d'etre of PB.com is political betting, as it says on the tin, and that one aspect of this is the seeking-out of unlikely scenarios from which the site's aficionados can thereby profit at long odds, but even so....
Leaving aside the fact that Jowell is the absolute personification of nannny-knows-best New Labourism, has Mike totally forgotten about the David Mills-Silvio Berlusconi affair, which nearly brought about Jowell's resignation from the Blair Cabinet?
The Daily Pundit is a less serious blog. Indeed at times, I have openly wondered whether it is a spoof on the entire political punditry industry. Today, for instance, it carries a delightful story speculating whether Guto Harri will shortly replace Michael Cole as spokesman for Mohamed-al-Fayed.
If so, it would explain why the Pundit's current hot tip for Labour leader is Geoff "Buff" Hoon, although in his defence, there is at least a literary precedent for a Chief Whip becoming party leader, namely Francis Urquhart in House of Cards.
In a recent comment on this blog, the Pundit takes me to task for failing to include Hoon in my current poll on the Labour leadership, still being headed by Jack Straw.
In my reply, I own up to the fact that I myself once tipped Hoon to be Tony Blair's successor over a few pints with a couple of Labour researchers in Bellamy's, only to be laughed out of the room.
Well, you may say, it's all very well me dissing others' efforts to make sense of the current political crisis - who do I think should become Labour leader if Brown were to be forced out?
Tomorrow, in my weekly column which will be available on this blog, I will give my answer.
Perhaps the greatest silly season story of my time in the Lobby came in August 1997, when John Prescott's throwaway remark about naming a baby crab after Peter Mandelson made headlines the length and breadth of Fleet Street.
But if the past couple of days are anything to go by, the silly season has arrived early this year. Two of my favourite bloggers have come out with what can only be described as outlandish theories about the post-Brown Labour leadership.
Mike Smithson of PoliticalBetting.com is one of the most insightful political commentators in the country - inside and outside the MSM. Yet incredibly, he decided to devote an entire blog post yesterday to the idea that Tessa Jowell could become Prime Minister.
Now I do realise that the raison d'etre of PB.com is political betting, as it says on the tin, and that one aspect of this is the seeking-out of unlikely scenarios from which the site's aficionados can thereby profit at long odds, but even so....
Leaving aside the fact that Jowell is the absolute personification of nannny-knows-best New Labourism, has Mike totally forgotten about the David Mills-Silvio Berlusconi affair, which nearly brought about Jowell's resignation from the Blair Cabinet?
The Daily Pundit is a less serious blog. Indeed at times, I have openly wondered whether it is a spoof on the entire political punditry industry. Today, for instance, it carries a delightful story speculating whether Guto Harri will shortly replace Michael Cole as spokesman for Mohamed-al-Fayed.
If so, it would explain why the Pundit's current hot tip for Labour leader is Geoff "Buff" Hoon, although in his defence, there is at least a literary precedent for a Chief Whip becoming party leader, namely Francis Urquhart in House of Cards.
In a recent comment on this blog, the Pundit takes me to task for failing to include Hoon in my current poll on the Labour leadership, still being headed by Jack Straw.
In my reply, I own up to the fact that I myself once tipped Hoon to be Tony Blair's successor over a few pints with a couple of Labour researchers in Bellamy's, only to be laughed out of the room.
Well, you may say, it's all very well me dissing others' efforts to make sense of the current political crisis - who do I think should become Labour leader if Brown were to be forced out?
Tomorrow, in my weekly column which will be available on this blog, I will give my answer.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Who should lead Labour into the next election?
In my weekend column (see previous post), I wrote that I don’t detect any appetite in the Labour Party for another leadership change, and that I don’t as yet detect any such stirrings in the political undergrowth.
I am sticking by that, in spite of certain Sunday newspapers' attempts to persuade their readers that David Miliband was about to announce his candidacy for the leadership.
That said, two years is a long time in politics and things could easily change between now and the date of the next general election. Indeed, it would be mildly surprising if they didn't.
To my mind, Phil Webster has it about right in today's Times, arguing that ministers are giving Gordon Brown a year to turn things round. There is a clear logic to the assertion that if next year's local election results are as bad as this year's, even he himself would question whether it was worth continuing.
It's all very sad. I continue to believe Brown would have resoundingly won an election in his own right had Tony Blair made good his promise to stand down mid-way through the second term, as he should have done in any case in view of his administration's culpability in the death of Dr David Kelly and its use of dodgy intelligence to support the case for war in Iraq.
His tragedy was to become leader at a time when New Labour's hold on the public was beginning to wane and the Tories were making themselves electable again.
Should he decide to soldier on until 2010, he could do a lot worse than to take the advice of Sunday's Observer editorial, and seek to lay down some solid achievements which will ensure he is treated more kindly by the historians than by his contemporaries.
Either way, blog readers can have their say in my current poll below which asks whether Brown or any one of nine other leading Labour figures (sadly all men) should take the party into battle in 2009/10.
So far, Jack Straw appears to have streaked into an early lead with Alan Johnson second and other votes spread evenly between Brown, Hilary Benn, Jon Cruddas, John Denham, John McDonnell and Alan Milburn, with no votes for Ed Balls as yet.
Oh, and for the benefit of the annoyingmong who keeps asking me about the sample size every time I run a poll, it's not an attempt to be "scientific," it's primarily a bit of fun for me and for readers of this blog. Got that?
I am sticking by that, in spite of certain Sunday newspapers' attempts to persuade their readers that David Miliband was about to announce his candidacy for the leadership.
That said, two years is a long time in politics and things could easily change between now and the date of the next general election. Indeed, it would be mildly surprising if they didn't.
To my mind, Phil Webster has it about right in today's Times, arguing that ministers are giving Gordon Brown a year to turn things round. There is a clear logic to the assertion that if next year's local election results are as bad as this year's, even he himself would question whether it was worth continuing.
It's all very sad. I continue to believe Brown would have resoundingly won an election in his own right had Tony Blair made good his promise to stand down mid-way through the second term, as he should have done in any case in view of his administration's culpability in the death of Dr David Kelly and its use of dodgy intelligence to support the case for war in Iraq.
His tragedy was to become leader at a time when New Labour's hold on the public was beginning to wane and the Tories were making themselves electable again.
Should he decide to soldier on until 2010, he could do a lot worse than to take the advice of Sunday's Observer editorial, and seek to lay down some solid achievements which will ensure he is treated more kindly by the historians than by his contemporaries.
Either way, blog readers can have their say in my current poll below which asks whether Brown or any one of nine other leading Labour figures (sadly all men) should take the party into battle in 2009/10.
So far, Jack Straw appears to have streaked into an early lead with Alan Johnson second and other votes spread evenly between Brown, Hilary Benn, Jon Cruddas, John Denham, John McDonnell and Alan Milburn, with no votes for Ed Balls as yet.
Oh, and for the benefit of the annoyingmong who keeps asking me about the sample size every time I run a poll, it's not an attempt to be "scientific," it's primarily a bit of fun for me and for readers of this blog. Got that?
Sunday, May 04, 2008
What now for Brown?
Martin Kettle thinks Labour MPs should tell him: "In the name of God, go." The Observer, slightly more charitably, thinks he should now focus on trying to devote himself to one or two core policy areas, in the hope that, should he lose in 2010, he will still be remembered for something other than being one of the shortest serving Prime Ministers in modern history.
So what's my take on it? Here's what I wrote in my weekly column in yesterday's Newcastle Journal.
***
Amidst the long list of disasters to hit Gordon Brown and New Labour during the course of local election night and after, it is hard to say which will have hurt the party the most.
Was it, perhaps, the loss of more than 300 councillors, or the Labour national share of the vote plunging to its lowest level since the days of Harold Wilson’s premiership?
Was it the party’s dismal performance in its so-called Northern “heartlands,” including the loss of Hartlepool, the continuing erosion of its position in Newcastle, and the Tory victory in North Tyneside?
Or was it possibly the humiliation of having your newly-appointed General Secretary resign before he has even taken up his post?
To my mind, it will have been none of those things, so much as the realisation that all the hopes of revival under a new leader that the sustained the party faithful during the latter years of Tony Blair have now been blown out of the water.
Make no mistake, this is as bad as it gets for Mr Brown, short of being dragged out of Downing Street feet first by David Cameron in May 2010.
As the pundits have not been slow to remind us, the last time Labour did this badly in a set of local elections was in 1968 when The Beatles were at No 1 and Flower Power was all the rage.
A more recent and more ominous historical parallel for Mr Brown is the 24pc share of the vote secured by John Major in 1995, two years before Mr Blair turfed him out of Number 10.
Is it bad enough for the Prime Minister to lose his job over? Well, it would be very easy for me to sit here and churn out a speculative piece about the potential runners and riders in a Labour leadership contest.
But in truth, it would be somewhat disingenuous. The fact is, I don’t detect any appetite in the party for another leadership change, and I don’t as yet detect any such stirrings in the political undergrowth.
Sure, some people are once again attempting to talk up the leadership chances of South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband - just as they were doing this time last year.
But he will have none of it, and neither will leading backbench Blairites such as Darlington MP Alan Milburn, although it has to be said he would have little to lose by trying.
As an aside, it is now clear that the Brownites made a serious strategic error in “hoovering-up” the votes of so many MPs last June that the left-winger John McDonnell was unable to get his name on the ballot paper.
Had Mr McDonnell been allowed to stand, Mr Brown would have won an easy victory and been able to swot away all those jibes about being an “unelected” Prime Minister.
Even better would have been a serious challenge, from the likes of John Reid or Charles Clarke, if only for the fact that it would have forced Mr Brown to set out his confounded “vision.”
I can only imagine they concluded it would have been a waste of their energies to take part in a contest that ultimately would only have strengthened the hated Gordon.
So there is, at least, the consolation for Mr Brown this weekend that, for good or ill, the party remains committed to going into the next election under his leadership.
But the continuing support of his party will be of little use to the Prime Minister in the longer term if the country has already decided that he is a liability.
In the wake of the credit crunch, there has been much talk of the need for an experienced economic helmsman to steer us through the choppy waters, but on Thursday night’s evidence, that argument is wearing thin.
It seems to me there are now just as many people who blame Mr Brown for the economic mess than there are people who think he is the best person to get us out of it.
And it’s not all about rising fuel bills and collapsing house prices. What is really harming Labour, in my view, is the feeling that they have run out of steam, that there is no longer any good reason to vote for them.
Less than a year ago, Mr Brown stood on the steps of Downing Street and used the word “change” 27 times as he set out his personal manifesto for power – but what has it actually amounted to?
Essentially, it has meant a greater emphasis on constitutional reform, the scrapping of the Manchester supercasino plan, tougher talk on cannabis, and a hospital deep clean.
They are all good things in themselves, in my view. But a programmme for government they do not make.
It is this paucity of vision, above all, that Mr Brown needs to address in the “relaunch” that he is now apparently preparing in the wake of Thursday’s election carnage.
Key to it will be the draft Queen’s Speech, which is set to be unveiled at the end of the month and which is expected to include measures on welfare, education reforms and involving the community in tackling crime.
But whatever its contents, it must demonstrate some innovative fresh thinking which captures the public’s imagination and which gives the government a new raison d’etre.
Above all, it must be authentically Labour, something which the public will see as fair and just and not simply as another piece of political posturing designed to out-tough the Tories.
This week, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg taunted Mr Brown by quoting Neil Kinnock’s “grotesque chaos” speech at him, in relation to the closure of thousands of post offices up and down the land.
Mr Clegg is right. Real Labour governments do not close the post offices on which deprived and isolated communities depend, any more than real Labour governments put up taxes on the poor.
That New Labour has tried to do both these things is symptomatic of a government which lost its moral compass a long time ago and, despite Mr Brown’s pretensions to the contrary, has failed to recover it.
Unless it can do so, and fast, then Thursday 1 May 2008 will come to be seen as the beginning of the end of the long Labour hegemony.
So what's my take on it? Here's what I wrote in my weekly column in yesterday's Newcastle Journal.
***
Amidst the long list of disasters to hit Gordon Brown and New Labour during the course of local election night and after, it is hard to say which will have hurt the party the most.
Was it, perhaps, the loss of more than 300 councillors, or the Labour national share of the vote plunging to its lowest level since the days of Harold Wilson’s premiership?
Was it the party’s dismal performance in its so-called Northern “heartlands,” including the loss of Hartlepool, the continuing erosion of its position in Newcastle, and the Tory victory in North Tyneside?
Or was it possibly the humiliation of having your newly-appointed General Secretary resign before he has even taken up his post?
To my mind, it will have been none of those things, so much as the realisation that all the hopes of revival under a new leader that the sustained the party faithful during the latter years of Tony Blair have now been blown out of the water.
Make no mistake, this is as bad as it gets for Mr Brown, short of being dragged out of Downing Street feet first by David Cameron in May 2010.
As the pundits have not been slow to remind us, the last time Labour did this badly in a set of local elections was in 1968 when The Beatles were at No 1 and Flower Power was all the rage.
A more recent and more ominous historical parallel for Mr Brown is the 24pc share of the vote secured by John Major in 1995, two years before Mr Blair turfed him out of Number 10.
Is it bad enough for the Prime Minister to lose his job over? Well, it would be very easy for me to sit here and churn out a speculative piece about the potential runners and riders in a Labour leadership contest.
But in truth, it would be somewhat disingenuous. The fact is, I don’t detect any appetite in the party for another leadership change, and I don’t as yet detect any such stirrings in the political undergrowth.
Sure, some people are once again attempting to talk up the leadership chances of South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband - just as they were doing this time last year.
But he will have none of it, and neither will leading backbench Blairites such as Darlington MP Alan Milburn, although it has to be said he would have little to lose by trying.
As an aside, it is now clear that the Brownites made a serious strategic error in “hoovering-up” the votes of so many MPs last June that the left-winger John McDonnell was unable to get his name on the ballot paper.
Had Mr McDonnell been allowed to stand, Mr Brown would have won an easy victory and been able to swot away all those jibes about being an “unelected” Prime Minister.
Even better would have been a serious challenge, from the likes of John Reid or Charles Clarke, if only for the fact that it would have forced Mr Brown to set out his confounded “vision.”
I can only imagine they concluded it would have been a waste of their energies to take part in a contest that ultimately would only have strengthened the hated Gordon.
So there is, at least, the consolation for Mr Brown this weekend that, for good or ill, the party remains committed to going into the next election under his leadership.
But the continuing support of his party will be of little use to the Prime Minister in the longer term if the country has already decided that he is a liability.
In the wake of the credit crunch, there has been much talk of the need for an experienced economic helmsman to steer us through the choppy waters, but on Thursday night’s evidence, that argument is wearing thin.
It seems to me there are now just as many people who blame Mr Brown for the economic mess than there are people who think he is the best person to get us out of it.
And it’s not all about rising fuel bills and collapsing house prices. What is really harming Labour, in my view, is the feeling that they have run out of steam, that there is no longer any good reason to vote for them.
Less than a year ago, Mr Brown stood on the steps of Downing Street and used the word “change” 27 times as he set out his personal manifesto for power – but what has it actually amounted to?
Essentially, it has meant a greater emphasis on constitutional reform, the scrapping of the Manchester supercasino plan, tougher talk on cannabis, and a hospital deep clean.
They are all good things in themselves, in my view. But a programmme for government they do not make.
It is this paucity of vision, above all, that Mr Brown needs to address in the “relaunch” that he is now apparently preparing in the wake of Thursday’s election carnage.
Key to it will be the draft Queen’s Speech, which is set to be unveiled at the end of the month and which is expected to include measures on welfare, education reforms and involving the community in tackling crime.
But whatever its contents, it must demonstrate some innovative fresh thinking which captures the public’s imagination and which gives the government a new raison d’etre.
Above all, it must be authentically Labour, something which the public will see as fair and just and not simply as another piece of political posturing designed to out-tough the Tories.
This week, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg taunted Mr Brown by quoting Neil Kinnock’s “grotesque chaos” speech at him, in relation to the closure of thousands of post offices up and down the land.
Mr Clegg is right. Real Labour governments do not close the post offices on which deprived and isolated communities depend, any more than real Labour governments put up taxes on the poor.
That New Labour has tried to do both these things is symptomatic of a government which lost its moral compass a long time ago and, despite Mr Brown’s pretensions to the contrary, has failed to recover it.
Unless it can do so, and fast, then Thursday 1 May 2008 will come to be seen as the beginning of the end of the long Labour hegemony.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Reflections on Arizona...and on what I've been missing
Okay, so leaving aside being mistaken for Phil Collins and nearly getting septicaemia, what else did I do on my holidays - and what do I make of what's been happening politically in my absense? Well, I'll come to that in a bit.
Each of my three trips to Arizona have been laden with emotion. My first, in 2003, was for my sister's wedding when I stood in my late father's place - one of the proudest days of my life. Unfortunately she got married right in the middle of the party conference season, and I was only able to stay a couple of days before dashing back to England in time to hear Duncan Smith turning up the frigging volume.
My second trip, for my brother-in-law Mitch's memorial service, has already been previously documented on this blog. The ten-and-a-half-hour flight to Phoenix that weekend was the saddest journey I have ever had to make, and I spent most of it listening to Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head. That line "God gave you style and gave you grace, and put a smile upon your face," will always remind me of Mitch.
So this, my third visit, was the first which my wife Gill and I have undertaken which didn't involve taking part in a rite of passage, and also the first we have undertaken with our two small children. It was certainly more relaxing than the first two, yet the place has such meaning for me now that it was impossible again not to be touched with emotion at being there.
Part of this is down to the sheer grandeur of the scenery. My sister lives in what are called the "desert foothills" and her garden, framed by panoramic mountain views all round, is a special place, populated only by cacti, mesquites, paloverdes, lizards and the odd tarantula.
It is at its very best in the early morning, before the heat of the day, and I loved to settle down there with a good book and put all the cares of the world behind me. As previously mentioned, my main choice of reading on this trip was Piers Morgan's Don't You Know Who I Am but I found this a rather odd mixture to be honest.
Although it has its funny bits - such as Morgan telling Charles Clarke to "stick it up your big fat arse" during a Labour conference reception - I found Morgan's obsession with becoming a celebrity slightly disconcerting and I think on the whole I preferred him in his tabloid editor incarnation, when he had a healthy contempt for the whole business.
Aside from chilling out, we found time for a trip to the Grand Canyon - my first time and Gill's second. It's certainly awesome but I suspect you would only get a true idea of its sheer scale by walking down into it and back up the other side. That's definitely one for another year.
***
I purposefully didn't blog while on holiday because I wanted to take some time for reflection on the current state of British politics. I have to confess to being somewhat depressed by this, and to be honest I have been for some time.
Like a lot of people of a naturally progressive bent, I did have very high hopes for the Gordon Brown administration, above all that he could impart some fresh moral purpose to Labour after more than a decade in power. Not only has he not done this, he has done the cause of the left terrible damage by appearing to surrender Labour's hard-won reputation for competence.
I still believe Gordon to be a good and decent man. I will continue to vigorously oppose those in the blogosphere who seek to attack him on the grounds of his so-called "psychological flaws," as if they themselves somehow have none.
But what I can no longer defend is the failure to set out some higher purpose for his administration other than simply remaining in power - a failure which risks handing the next election to David Cameron on a plate.
During my time away there has been mounting speculation about "civil war" breaking out inside the Labour Party if this Thursday's local election results are as bad as currently expected.
In my view, the suggestion that Brown should make way for a new leader remains fanciful without a very much clearer idea of what alternative his critics intend to put in his place. Simply substituting him with Jack Straw or even David Miliband will have zero impact unless other things change too.
Nevertheless, it is already clear that a leadership challenge this summer would have a very much better chance of success than one last summer would have done.
Maybe, just maybe, that was the Blairites' game plan all along....
Each of my three trips to Arizona have been laden with emotion. My first, in 2003, was for my sister's wedding when I stood in my late father's place - one of the proudest days of my life. Unfortunately she got married right in the middle of the party conference season, and I was only able to stay a couple of days before dashing back to England in time to hear Duncan Smith turning up the frigging volume.
My second trip, for my brother-in-law Mitch's memorial service, has already been previously documented on this blog. The ten-and-a-half-hour flight to Phoenix that weekend was the saddest journey I have ever had to make, and I spent most of it listening to Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head. That line "God gave you style and gave you grace, and put a smile upon your face," will always remind me of Mitch.
So this, my third visit, was the first which my wife Gill and I have undertaken which didn't involve taking part in a rite of passage, and also the first we have undertaken with our two small children. It was certainly more relaxing than the first two, yet the place has such meaning for me now that it was impossible again not to be touched with emotion at being there.
Part of this is down to the sheer grandeur of the scenery. My sister lives in what are called the "desert foothills" and her garden, framed by panoramic mountain views all round, is a special place, populated only by cacti, mesquites, paloverdes, lizards and the odd tarantula.
It is at its very best in the early morning, before the heat of the day, and I loved to settle down there with a good book and put all the cares of the world behind me. As previously mentioned, my main choice of reading on this trip was Piers Morgan's Don't You Know Who I Am but I found this a rather odd mixture to be honest.
Although it has its funny bits - such as Morgan telling Charles Clarke to "stick it up your big fat arse" during a Labour conference reception - I found Morgan's obsession with becoming a celebrity slightly disconcerting and I think on the whole I preferred him in his tabloid editor incarnation, when he had a healthy contempt for the whole business.
Aside from chilling out, we found time for a trip to the Grand Canyon - my first time and Gill's second. It's certainly awesome but I suspect you would only get a true idea of its sheer scale by walking down into it and back up the other side. That's definitely one for another year.
***
I purposefully didn't blog while on holiday because I wanted to take some time for reflection on the current state of British politics. I have to confess to being somewhat depressed by this, and to be honest I have been for some time.
Like a lot of people of a naturally progressive bent, I did have very high hopes for the Gordon Brown administration, above all that he could impart some fresh moral purpose to Labour after more than a decade in power. Not only has he not done this, he has done the cause of the left terrible damage by appearing to surrender Labour's hard-won reputation for competence.
I still believe Gordon to be a good and decent man. I will continue to vigorously oppose those in the blogosphere who seek to attack him on the grounds of his so-called "psychological flaws," as if they themselves somehow have none.
But what I can no longer defend is the failure to set out some higher purpose for his administration other than simply remaining in power - a failure which risks handing the next election to David Cameron on a plate.
During my time away there has been mounting speculation about "civil war" breaking out inside the Labour Party if this Thursday's local election results are as bad as currently expected.
In my view, the suggestion that Brown should make way for a new leader remains fanciful without a very much clearer idea of what alternative his critics intend to put in his place. Simply substituting him with Jack Straw or even David Miliband will have zero impact unless other things change too.
Nevertheless, it is already clear that a leadership challenge this summer would have a very much better chance of success than one last summer would have done.
Maybe, just maybe, that was the Blairites' game plan all along....
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Mrs and Mr Balls
I have always maintained that if there was a future Prime Minister in the Balls household, it was Yvette rather than Ed - most recently in this post published on Monday.
Today, with Ed Balls in hot water after apparently saying "So what?" to a claim that UK taxes are now the highest in history, I wonder whether the wider political commentariat might now start to realise this.
While Ed was making a fool of himself in the Chamber, and providing an open goal for David Cameron as he sought to dismantle the Budget, Yvette was doing the rounds of College Green and the TV studios presenting the Government's case in her usual cool, calm, quietly persuasive manner.
Mike Smithson goes so far as to speculate today that Balls' antics might have cost Labour the next election. I would certainly agree that the more the public sees of Balls, the less they will be inclined to vote for the party.
Balls was already deeply implicated in last autumn's election debacle, shooting his mouth off on the radio about whether "the gamble" lay in holding the election or delaying - with the clear implication that the riskier course was delay.
I believe that was the moment when the public began to turn against Brown, the moment it became clear that the decision over whether to hold the election was being very clearly determined not by the national interest but by narrow party advantage.
Gordon should have learned his lesson from that and put Balls firmly back in his box before now, but old loyalties notwithstanding, perhaps it's time he echoed the words of Clem Attlee to Harold Laski - and I use the full quote here advisedly.
"I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome."
Today, with Ed Balls in hot water after apparently saying "So what?" to a claim that UK taxes are now the highest in history, I wonder whether the wider political commentariat might now start to realise this.
While Ed was making a fool of himself in the Chamber, and providing an open goal for David Cameron as he sought to dismantle the Budget, Yvette was doing the rounds of College Green and the TV studios presenting the Government's case in her usual cool, calm, quietly persuasive manner.
Mike Smithson goes so far as to speculate today that Balls' antics might have cost Labour the next election. I would certainly agree that the more the public sees of Balls, the less they will be inclined to vote for the party.
Balls was already deeply implicated in last autumn's election debacle, shooting his mouth off on the radio about whether "the gamble" lay in holding the election or delaying - with the clear implication that the riskier course was delay.
I believe that was the moment when the public began to turn against Brown, the moment it became clear that the decision over whether to hold the election was being very clearly determined not by the national interest but by narrow party advantage.
Gordon should have learned his lesson from that and put Balls firmly back in his box before now, but old loyalties notwithstanding, perhaps it's time he echoed the words of Clem Attlee to Harold Laski - and I use the full quote here advisedly.
"I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome."
Monday, March 10, 2008
Talking Balls
One of the most entertaining blog threads I have read over the past day or two arose from this post on Political Betting in which Mike Smithson posits the idea of Ed Balls as the next leader of the Labour Party. By the time it came to my attention, there were already 200-odd comments on the thread, so I thought I would give my thoughts here instead.
Part of what makes PB.com one of the few truly great UK blogs is Mike's habit of posing questions about unlikely political outcomes. Recent examples have included: What would happen if John McCain died before the Republican Convention, and could Al Gore yet emerge as the Democratic candidate if their August convention is deadlocked.
Although these are the kind of long-odds scenarios which fascinate betting types, they are not serious political questions. For the Democrats to turn to a loser like Gore when it has two potential winners in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would be a bit like the FA being unable to decide between Capello and Mourinho for England manager, and turning to Kevin Keegan instead.
The idea of Ed Balls as Prime Minister almost falls into the same category. To my mind, and that of many other observers both inside and outside the Labour Party, it is a manifest absurdity. But it is nevertheless apparent - not least from this Sunday Telegraph piece, that it is an idea to which some very influential people are giving serious consideration.
The theory is predicated on Gordon Brown winning the next election, promoting Balls to Chancellor, and building him up as the natural and obvious successor before handing over at some point in the next Parliament. The Telegraph piece suggests the current "obvious successor," David Miliband, does not really want the job, although I don't think that can necessarily be deduced from his failure to challenge Gordon last year.
Why, then, do I take the view that Balls is inconceivable as Labour leader and Prime Minister? Well, it's certainly nothing personal. Whenever I dealt with Ed Balls in my Lobby days - usually when he was doing the post-Budget briefing from the Press Gallery - he was no less courteous or helpful to me than any other lobby hack.
It's more an issue that I - and others - have with his extremely aggressive personal style. While this was a useful if occasionally counter-productive trait for a spin doctor seeking to ensure his master's key message got across, it always struck me as ill-befitting a frontline political role, and it does not surprise me in the least that Balls's TV appearances have invariably been so catastrophic.
The fact that Balls is being seriously spoken of as a potential Prime Minister is probably indicative of the lack of real talent in the much-vaunted younger generation of Cabinet ministers. They are all either too geeky (the Milibands), too lightweight (Purnell, Burnham) or, in the case of Balls and Douglas Alexander, much better cast as backroom boys.
The one exception, and the one current member of the Cabinet who, in my view, has both the intellect and the emotional intelligence to be a successful political leader in the 21st century is Balls' wife, Yvette Cooper, although I also think there are two more outside the current Cabinet in Jon Cruddas and Alan Milburn.
So far as Cooper is concerned, the question to my mind is not whether she could do the job, but whether her overweeningly arrogant and ambitious other half will let her.
Part of what makes PB.com one of the few truly great UK blogs is Mike's habit of posing questions about unlikely political outcomes. Recent examples have included: What would happen if John McCain died before the Republican Convention, and could Al Gore yet emerge as the Democratic candidate if their August convention is deadlocked.
Although these are the kind of long-odds scenarios which fascinate betting types, they are not serious political questions. For the Democrats to turn to a loser like Gore when it has two potential winners in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would be a bit like the FA being unable to decide between Capello and Mourinho for England manager, and turning to Kevin Keegan instead.
The idea of Ed Balls as Prime Minister almost falls into the same category. To my mind, and that of many other observers both inside and outside the Labour Party, it is a manifest absurdity. But it is nevertheless apparent - not least from this Sunday Telegraph piece, that it is an idea to which some very influential people are giving serious consideration.
The theory is predicated on Gordon Brown winning the next election, promoting Balls to Chancellor, and building him up as the natural and obvious successor before handing over at some point in the next Parliament. The Telegraph piece suggests the current "obvious successor," David Miliband, does not really want the job, although I don't think that can necessarily be deduced from his failure to challenge Gordon last year.
Why, then, do I take the view that Balls is inconceivable as Labour leader and Prime Minister? Well, it's certainly nothing personal. Whenever I dealt with Ed Balls in my Lobby days - usually when he was doing the post-Budget briefing from the Press Gallery - he was no less courteous or helpful to me than any other lobby hack.
It's more an issue that I - and others - have with his extremely aggressive personal style. While this was a useful if occasionally counter-productive trait for a spin doctor seeking to ensure his master's key message got across, it always struck me as ill-befitting a frontline political role, and it does not surprise me in the least that Balls's TV appearances have invariably been so catastrophic.
The fact that Balls is being seriously spoken of as a potential Prime Minister is probably indicative of the lack of real talent in the much-vaunted younger generation of Cabinet ministers. They are all either too geeky (the Milibands), too lightweight (Purnell, Burnham) or, in the case of Balls and Douglas Alexander, much better cast as backroom boys.
The one exception, and the one current member of the Cabinet who, in my view, has both the intellect and the emotional intelligence to be a successful political leader in the 21st century is Balls' wife, Yvette Cooper, although I also think there are two more outside the current Cabinet in Jon Cruddas and Alan Milburn.
So far as Cooper is concerned, the question to my mind is not whether she could do the job, but whether her overweeningly arrogant and ambitious other half will let her.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Blairites can offer Brown fresh thinking
A week ago today Stephen Byers wrote a piece in the Sunday Times declaring that Tony Blair was "history" and it was time for the Labour Party to get behind Gordon Brown. I thought this was a significant development, but didn't blog on it at the time because it was New Year and we had people staying and I had loads of cooking to do etc etc.
I did however devote my weekly column in the Newcastle Journal to the story, and this can be read in full on the companion blog.
The digested read is that this olive branch by Byers is intended to lay the ground for other key Blairites such as Alan Milburn and David Blunkett to bring forward new policy ideas without that interpreted as some sort of leadership challenge to Gordon.
I argue that this fresh thinking is what the Brown administration now desperately needs, and that the Prime Minister should accept such help wherever it is being offered.
I did however devote my weekly column in the Newcastle Journal to the story, and this can be read in full on the companion blog.
The digested read is that this olive branch by Byers is intended to lay the ground for other key Blairites such as Alan Milburn and David Blunkett to bring forward new policy ideas without that interpreted as some sort of leadership challenge to Gordon.
I argue that this fresh thinking is what the Brown administration now desperately needs, and that the Prime Minister should accept such help wherever it is being offered.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
My preview of 2008
Following on from my annual Review of the political year, here's my political Preview of 2008, first published in yesterday's Newcastle Journal.
***
Twelve months ago, the central question which was dominating British politics as Tony Blair prepared to bow out as Labour leader and Prime Minister was “Can Gordon lose?”
One year on, with Mr Brown having succeeded to the top job unchallenged, the question is: “Can Gordon ever win again?”
The Prime Minister’s decision to funk an autumn election after appearing to prepare and plan for one created a new political narrative in which his administration seemed doomed to failure.
Whether he can recover will not only be the key talking-point of the new political year, but will also go a long way to determining the outcome of the next election whenever it is held.
Before going on to look in detail at Mr Brown’s prospects, here’s three things that, I confidently predict, won’t happen in 2008.
First, there won’t be a general election. Having ruled it out in October, Mr Brown can scarcely change his mind again, and with the economy set to take a turn for the worse, he can only now win by “playing it long.”
Second, there won’t be a referendum on the EU Treaty. It is nothing short of a national disgrace that Labour has broken its promise on this, but the point of maximum danger for the government has now passed, perhaps overshadowed by other events.
Third, the Liberal Democrats won’t change their leader again. They are stuck with Nick Clegg now until the election, though if that turns out as badly for them as the opinion polls are suggesting, the poor chap’s political career could be over at 42.
Away from these shores, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto looks certain to trigger a new wave of instability in the Islamic world, with the position of Pakistani leader and US ally General Pervez Musharraf looking increasingly unsustainable
It is also, of course, election year in the US itself, with the succession to George W. Bush currently looking wide open.
If Hillary Clinton runs away with the Democratic nomination, the Republicans will surely want to counter her with someone of similar weight and experience – and that means either Senator John McCain or former governor Rudy Guiliani.
Much more will become clear after Thursday’s Iowa caucuses which are expected to show which of the numerous candidates currently has what Americans call “the Big Mo.”
But what of Mr Brown and Labour? Well, the short answer to the big question is that, yes, he can recover, but the longer answer is that it depends on the confluence of a number of factors, not all of them within his control.
The first prerequisite of any recovery, besides demonstrating some basic competence, is for the Prime Minister to set out, if not a “vision,” then certainly a “big idea” that provides some connective thread to his government’s actions.
A number of possible options have been suggested, ranging from a new drive for social mobility under the banner of “opportunity for all,” to a generalised commitment towards “building the future,” starting with housing.
Either way, Mr Brown has to come up with something that gives people more of a sense of what his government is about, other than remaining in power for as long as possible.
Secondly, Labour needs to try to switch the focus of attention onto what alternative remedies the Tories are proposing for the nation’s current ills.
The one huge silver lining for Mr Brown in all his travails is that the public’s disappointment with him has not thus far been matched by an outpouring of enthusiasm for David Cameron.
If people don’t currently know what the central purpose of the Brown government is, neither do they know what would be the point of a Cameron one
For sure, the Tory leader is getting the mood music right, but with the sole exception of the proposed cut in inheritance tax, there remains a marked absence of specific, thought-through policies.
But the biggest determining factor in whether Mr Brown can mount a sustained recovery will, as always, be events.
The likelihood of an economic downturn will carry a particular danger for Mr Brown in that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years. If it does all go wrong, there will be no one else to blame.
Some Tories believe the potential nationalisation of Northern Rock could yet provide a “Black Wednesday” type moment for New Labour.
Their thinking goes that if, in 2008, the government were forced to take a major bank into public ownership, it would symbolise the defeat of everything New Labour was supposed to stand for.
Could it get so bad for Mr Brown that he is forced to consider his position? I don’t consider it particularly likely, but it cannot be entirely ruled out.
Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul wrote this week: “The latest idea doing the rounds among serious Labour people is that of a David Miliband-Ed Balls dream ticket, with Miliband as prime minister and Balls as chancellor.”
My only comment on this is that if anyone thinks Miliband-Balls is a “dream ticket,” it is a measure of how bad things have got for Labour.
If there is to be another change of leadership, a more likely option is either Jack Straw as a safe pair of hands, or the return of one of the leading Blairites such as David Blunkett or even Alan Milburn.
So, cards on the table time - what do I think? Well, mainly because I do not think the public are yet convinced by Mr Cameron, I think there probably will be a Labour recovery of sorts.
It will not put Labour back into the lead, but it will leave sufficient room for doubt about the outcome of the next election to intensify the speculation about what Mr Clegg will do in the event of a hung Parliament.
The fact remains, though, that Labour’s best opportunity to renew itself in office came with the departure of Mr Blair, and they bungled it.
Whether another such opportunity will come along - and whether Mr Brown will be able to take it this time – is the question to which no political pundit really knows the answer.
***
Twelve months ago, the central question which was dominating British politics as Tony Blair prepared to bow out as Labour leader and Prime Minister was “Can Gordon lose?”
One year on, with Mr Brown having succeeded to the top job unchallenged, the question is: “Can Gordon ever win again?”
The Prime Minister’s decision to funk an autumn election after appearing to prepare and plan for one created a new political narrative in which his administration seemed doomed to failure.
Whether he can recover will not only be the key talking-point of the new political year, but will also go a long way to determining the outcome of the next election whenever it is held.
Before going on to look in detail at Mr Brown’s prospects, here’s three things that, I confidently predict, won’t happen in 2008.
First, there won’t be a general election. Having ruled it out in October, Mr Brown can scarcely change his mind again, and with the economy set to take a turn for the worse, he can only now win by “playing it long.”
Second, there won’t be a referendum on the EU Treaty. It is nothing short of a national disgrace that Labour has broken its promise on this, but the point of maximum danger for the government has now passed, perhaps overshadowed by other events.
Third, the Liberal Democrats won’t change their leader again. They are stuck with Nick Clegg now until the election, though if that turns out as badly for them as the opinion polls are suggesting, the poor chap’s political career could be over at 42.
Away from these shores, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto looks certain to trigger a new wave of instability in the Islamic world, with the position of Pakistani leader and US ally General Pervez Musharraf looking increasingly unsustainable
It is also, of course, election year in the US itself, with the succession to George W. Bush currently looking wide open.
If Hillary Clinton runs away with the Democratic nomination, the Republicans will surely want to counter her with someone of similar weight and experience – and that means either Senator John McCain or former governor Rudy Guiliani.
Much more will become clear after Thursday’s Iowa caucuses which are expected to show which of the numerous candidates currently has what Americans call “the Big Mo.”
But what of Mr Brown and Labour? Well, the short answer to the big question is that, yes, he can recover, but the longer answer is that it depends on the confluence of a number of factors, not all of them within his control.
The first prerequisite of any recovery, besides demonstrating some basic competence, is for the Prime Minister to set out, if not a “vision,” then certainly a “big idea” that provides some connective thread to his government’s actions.
A number of possible options have been suggested, ranging from a new drive for social mobility under the banner of “opportunity for all,” to a generalised commitment towards “building the future,” starting with housing.
Either way, Mr Brown has to come up with something that gives people more of a sense of what his government is about, other than remaining in power for as long as possible.
Secondly, Labour needs to try to switch the focus of attention onto what alternative remedies the Tories are proposing for the nation’s current ills.
The one huge silver lining for Mr Brown in all his travails is that the public’s disappointment with him has not thus far been matched by an outpouring of enthusiasm for David Cameron.
If people don’t currently know what the central purpose of the Brown government is, neither do they know what would be the point of a Cameron one
For sure, the Tory leader is getting the mood music right, but with the sole exception of the proposed cut in inheritance tax, there remains a marked absence of specific, thought-through policies.
But the biggest determining factor in whether Mr Brown can mount a sustained recovery will, as always, be events.
The likelihood of an economic downturn will carry a particular danger for Mr Brown in that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years. If it does all go wrong, there will be no one else to blame.
Some Tories believe the potential nationalisation of Northern Rock could yet provide a “Black Wednesday” type moment for New Labour.
Their thinking goes that if, in 2008, the government were forced to take a major bank into public ownership, it would symbolise the defeat of everything New Labour was supposed to stand for.
Could it get so bad for Mr Brown that he is forced to consider his position? I don’t consider it particularly likely, but it cannot be entirely ruled out.
Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul wrote this week: “The latest idea doing the rounds among serious Labour people is that of a David Miliband-Ed Balls dream ticket, with Miliband as prime minister and Balls as chancellor.”
My only comment on this is that if anyone thinks Miliband-Balls is a “dream ticket,” it is a measure of how bad things have got for Labour.
If there is to be another change of leadership, a more likely option is either Jack Straw as a safe pair of hands, or the return of one of the leading Blairites such as David Blunkett or even Alan Milburn.
So, cards on the table time - what do I think? Well, mainly because I do not think the public are yet convinced by Mr Cameron, I think there probably will be a Labour recovery of sorts.
It will not put Labour back into the lead, but it will leave sufficient room for doubt about the outcome of the next election to intensify the speculation about what Mr Clegg will do in the event of a hung Parliament.
The fact remains, though, that Labour’s best opportunity to renew itself in office came with the departure of Mr Blair, and they bungled it.
Whether another such opportunity will come along - and whether Mr Brown will be able to take it this time – is the question to which no political pundit really knows the answer.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
My review of 2007
For the past 10 years, I have written a review of the political year for the Newcastle Journal. This year's was published yesterday, and here it is in full.
***
Eventful? The political year 2007 was certainly that. Entertaining? Well, that too – if you are the kind of person who enjoyed seeing Gordon Brown fall flat on his face, that is.
But as for epoch-making – only time will tell if 2007, or 6 October, 2007 to be precise, will go down as one of the great turning points of modern political history.
That was the day that Mr Brown finally resolved the question that had dominated the agenda ever since he had taken over as Prime Minister in June - whether or not he would hold a general election.
His decision not to go to the country changed the political weather at a stroke and left Labour on the defensive for the first time in 15 years.
The widespread public reaction to the decision was that a government that appeared to have so little confidence in itself certainly did not deserve the confidence of the voters.
Suddenly, a Labour Party which had carried all before it for a decade and a half began to look like losers.
The mistake, though, did not lie in the decision itself. Despite his earlier surge in popularity, by October the polls clearly showed the best Mr Brown could have hoped for was a hung Parliament.
No, it was in having allowed the speculation and planning to get so wildly out of control beforehand that the eventual cancellation could only be seen as a humiliating retreat.
The first few months of the year had been dominated by the endgame of the long Tony Blair premiership, played out against the grisly backdrop of the “cash for honours” inquiry.
In the event, no charges were brought, but the stench of sleaze would hang over the Labour Party long after the men from Scotland Yard had departed.
But the background story of the spring was not so much whether there would be charges, as whether there would be a challenge – namely to Mr Brown for the Labour leadership.
For a time, it seemed that South Shields MP David Miliband was the chosen one - not least in Mr Blair’s eyes – but he wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
Mr Blair had stayed on, apparently with Mr Brown’s acquiescence, in order to “take the hit” for what were expected to be disastrous local and Scottish election results in May.
In the event these were every bit as bad as anticipated, with Alex Salmond’s SNP overtaking Labour to become the dominant force in the Scottish Parliament.
After what had seemed like the longest farewell tour since Frank Sinatra, the outgoing Prime Minister finally said his goodbyes with a bravura performance at his last Commons Question Time.
It was followed swiftly by his resignation as MP for Sedgefield to take up a new role as a Middle East peace envoy, though the irony of this seemed lost on most observers.
After such a long spell at 10 Downing Street, it was remarkable how little Mr Blair was initially missed.
An attempted terrorist attack, a spate of summer floods, and even a foot and mouth outbreak were all calmly and competently dealt with by Mr Brown and his new-look Cabinet team.
Even when the global “credit crunch” led to the first run on British bank in 150 years – Newcastle’s very own Northern Rock – the Government acted swiftly to cool the situation by agreeing to guarantee investors’ savings.
Consequently Labour went into the autumn conference season on a big high, with one poll showing a snap election would give them a majority of 134.
But the mood began to change after Mr Brown’s closest aide, Ed Balls, speculated openly on whether “the gamble” lay in going now, or delaying – with the clear implication that the bigger risk lay in delay.
From this, it became clear that uppermost in Mr Brown’s election calculations was not the long-term good of the country, but short-term party advantage.
His subsequent non-announcement created a new political narrative in which a government that had seemed destined to succeed appeared instead to be doomed to failure.
And as if to confirm that view, the government then found itself buffeted by a whole series of mishaps – all of them made and manufactured in the North-East.
First, the Northern Rock crisis blew up again, with questions over whether the £25bn of taxpayers’ money spent propping up the bank would be repaid. The outcome may yet be nationalisation.
Then it emerged that a computer disc had gone missing from the Revenue and Customs office in Washington containing the personal details of 25m child benefit claimants.
Finally, Labour sleaze reared its head again after it emerged that a Newcastle businessmen, David Abrahams, had used intermediaries to give money to the party in breach of the rules on donations.
Within a few short weeks, Mr Brown’s long-awaited inheritance had turned to dust and ashes in his hands.
The turnaround in Tory leader David Cameron’s fortunes was no less dramatic. Earlier in the year he had been vilified for going to Rwanda while floods devastated his constituency and for bungling a policy shift on grammar schools.
But he was rescued by Mr Brown’s dithering and an ace-in-the-hole from his Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, who pledged to scrap inheritance tax for all estates under £1m.
Ironically, Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell had made probably the best speech of the conference season - but much good did it do him.
Within a month he was gone, citing the media “obsession” with his age, to be replaced after the closest-fought leadership contest of modern times by the 40-year-old Nick Clegg.
Mr Brown ends the year in a deep, deep hole, with opinion polls now consistently showing a Tory lead of 10-15pc.
The Prime Minister is nothing if not resilient, but his government, of which Labour supporters had such high hopes, has thus far been a huge disappointment.
Where he promised quiet competence, there has been only ineptitude. Where he promised “vision” there has been only drift. Above all where he promised to restore trust in politics it has been dragged only further into the mire.
Can he turn it around? That’s the question for next week’s column, when I’ll be looking ahead to what we can expect the political year 2008 to bring.
***
Eventful? The political year 2007 was certainly that. Entertaining? Well, that too – if you are the kind of person who enjoyed seeing Gordon Brown fall flat on his face, that is.
But as for epoch-making – only time will tell if 2007, or 6 October, 2007 to be precise, will go down as one of the great turning points of modern political history.
That was the day that Mr Brown finally resolved the question that had dominated the agenda ever since he had taken over as Prime Minister in June - whether or not he would hold a general election.
His decision not to go to the country changed the political weather at a stroke and left Labour on the defensive for the first time in 15 years.
The widespread public reaction to the decision was that a government that appeared to have so little confidence in itself certainly did not deserve the confidence of the voters.
Suddenly, a Labour Party which had carried all before it for a decade and a half began to look like losers.
The mistake, though, did not lie in the decision itself. Despite his earlier surge in popularity, by October the polls clearly showed the best Mr Brown could have hoped for was a hung Parliament.
No, it was in having allowed the speculation and planning to get so wildly out of control beforehand that the eventual cancellation could only be seen as a humiliating retreat.
The first few months of the year had been dominated by the endgame of the long Tony Blair premiership, played out against the grisly backdrop of the “cash for honours” inquiry.
In the event, no charges were brought, but the stench of sleaze would hang over the Labour Party long after the men from Scotland Yard had departed.
But the background story of the spring was not so much whether there would be charges, as whether there would be a challenge – namely to Mr Brown for the Labour leadership.
For a time, it seemed that South Shields MP David Miliband was the chosen one - not least in Mr Blair’s eyes – but he wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
Mr Blair had stayed on, apparently with Mr Brown’s acquiescence, in order to “take the hit” for what were expected to be disastrous local and Scottish election results in May.
In the event these were every bit as bad as anticipated, with Alex Salmond’s SNP overtaking Labour to become the dominant force in the Scottish Parliament.
After what had seemed like the longest farewell tour since Frank Sinatra, the outgoing Prime Minister finally said his goodbyes with a bravura performance at his last Commons Question Time.
It was followed swiftly by his resignation as MP for Sedgefield to take up a new role as a Middle East peace envoy, though the irony of this seemed lost on most observers.
After such a long spell at 10 Downing Street, it was remarkable how little Mr Blair was initially missed.
An attempted terrorist attack, a spate of summer floods, and even a foot and mouth outbreak were all calmly and competently dealt with by Mr Brown and his new-look Cabinet team.
Even when the global “credit crunch” led to the first run on British bank in 150 years – Newcastle’s very own Northern Rock – the Government acted swiftly to cool the situation by agreeing to guarantee investors’ savings.
Consequently Labour went into the autumn conference season on a big high, with one poll showing a snap election would give them a majority of 134.
But the mood began to change after Mr Brown’s closest aide, Ed Balls, speculated openly on whether “the gamble” lay in going now, or delaying – with the clear implication that the bigger risk lay in delay.
From this, it became clear that uppermost in Mr Brown’s election calculations was not the long-term good of the country, but short-term party advantage.
His subsequent non-announcement created a new political narrative in which a government that had seemed destined to succeed appeared instead to be doomed to failure.
And as if to confirm that view, the government then found itself buffeted by a whole series of mishaps – all of them made and manufactured in the North-East.
First, the Northern Rock crisis blew up again, with questions over whether the £25bn of taxpayers’ money spent propping up the bank would be repaid. The outcome may yet be nationalisation.
Then it emerged that a computer disc had gone missing from the Revenue and Customs office in Washington containing the personal details of 25m child benefit claimants.
Finally, Labour sleaze reared its head again after it emerged that a Newcastle businessmen, David Abrahams, had used intermediaries to give money to the party in breach of the rules on donations.
Within a few short weeks, Mr Brown’s long-awaited inheritance had turned to dust and ashes in his hands.
The turnaround in Tory leader David Cameron’s fortunes was no less dramatic. Earlier in the year he had been vilified for going to Rwanda while floods devastated his constituency and for bungling a policy shift on grammar schools.
But he was rescued by Mr Brown’s dithering and an ace-in-the-hole from his Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, who pledged to scrap inheritance tax for all estates under £1m.
Ironically, Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell had made probably the best speech of the conference season - but much good did it do him.
Within a month he was gone, citing the media “obsession” with his age, to be replaced after the closest-fought leadership contest of modern times by the 40-year-old Nick Clegg.
Mr Brown ends the year in a deep, deep hole, with opinion polls now consistently showing a Tory lead of 10-15pc.
The Prime Minister is nothing if not resilient, but his government, of which Labour supporters had such high hopes, has thus far been a huge disappointment.
Where he promised quiet competence, there has been only ineptitude. Where he promised “vision” there has been only drift. Above all where he promised to restore trust in politics it has been dragged only further into the mire.
Can he turn it around? That’s the question for next week’s column, when I’ll be looking ahead to what we can expect the political year 2008 to bring.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Could Gordon stand down?
Today's Saturday Column poses the question that would have been unthinkable even a few short weeks ago: Could Gordon Brown stand down as Labour leader before the next General Election?
The digested read goes something like:
Labour MPs are now openly speculating as to whether Brown will fight on 2009/10.
This is in part down to the government's recent disasters, and in part to a sense that the Prime Minister is not enjoying the job.
Unless the political situation improves for Labour, there would be little to be gained by Brown staying on indefinitely.
The silver lining is that neither D. Miliband nor Balls come up to the mark as potential successors.
Having long believed that Brown did indeed have what it takes to renew Labour in office, this is not a scenario I hoped or expected to be outlining at this stage in the lifetime of his premiership, but it is becoming a very real possibility nonetheless.
I would say he has, at best 6-9 months to turn the situation round. If by that stage the prospect of a David Cameron election victory has hardened into inevitability, Labour really would have little to lose by changing horses once again.
The digested read goes something like:
Having long believed that Brown did indeed have what it takes to renew Labour in office, this is not a scenario I hoped or expected to be outlining at this stage in the lifetime of his premiership, but it is becoming a very real possibility nonetheless.
I would say he has, at best 6-9 months to turn the situation round. If by that stage the prospect of a David Cameron election victory has hardened into inevitability, Labour really would have little to lose by changing horses once again.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The next leadership race starts here?
When I first spotted this post on Ben Brogan's blog earlier today I initially thought it was a bit frivolous of him to start speculating about leadership "beauty contests." But in fact Brogan has a very good point.
Despite Gordon Brown's current dominance of the political scene, it should not be forgotten that this could easily be both his first and last conference as Labour leader.
As Brogan points out: "If Brown listens to the hotheads, goes for November, and gets it wrong, we really will be looking for a change candidate."
So just for the sake of argument - and because no party conference would be complete without a bit of leadership speculation - who might that candidate be?
Well, as Iain Dale notes, frontrunner David Miliband has just bored the delegates into slumber for the second year running, although the content of his speech today was largely spot-on.
Brogan himself speculates that energetic Ed Balls could emerge as a runner, although I have long believed that his wife, Yvette Cooper, is really the more talented politician in the Balls household.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson would certainly stand, but at 56 may be considered too old for a gruelling four or five years of opposition before he would have a chance to unseat Prime Minister Cameron in 2011/12.
In my view, the dark horse could well be Jacqui Smith, who has made a great start as Home Secretary and has impeccably New Labour credentials. It will be interesting to see how her speech goes down later in the week.
On a related point, does anyone know why Brown moved the leader's speech to Monday? I guess he must have had his reasons but it's turned the whole of the rest of the conference into a largely meaningless anticlimax.
The conference always tailed off after Tuesday, but I reckon that the extra day's build-up to the old Tuesday afternoon slot was worth at least an extra day's front-page headlines for Labour.
Despite Gordon Brown's current dominance of the political scene, it should not be forgotten that this could easily be both his first and last conference as Labour leader.
As Brogan points out: "If Brown listens to the hotheads, goes for November, and gets it wrong, we really will be looking for a change candidate."
So just for the sake of argument - and because no party conference would be complete without a bit of leadership speculation - who might that candidate be?
Well, as Iain Dale notes, frontrunner David Miliband has just bored the delegates into slumber for the second year running, although the content of his speech today was largely spot-on.
Brogan himself speculates that energetic Ed Balls could emerge as a runner, although I have long believed that his wife, Yvette Cooper, is really the more talented politician in the Balls household.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson would certainly stand, but at 56 may be considered too old for a gruelling four or five years of opposition before he would have a chance to unseat Prime Minister Cameron in 2011/12.
In my view, the dark horse could well be Jacqui Smith, who has made a great start as Home Secretary and has impeccably New Labour credentials. It will be interesting to see how her speech goes down later in the week.
On a related point, does anyone know why Brown moved the leader's speech to Monday? I guess he must have had his reasons but it's turned the whole of the rest of the conference into a largely meaningless anticlimax.
The conference always tailed off after Tuesday, but I reckon that the extra day's build-up to the old Tuesday afternoon slot was worth at least an extra day's front-page headlines for Labour.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Labour comes home at last
"I have just accepted the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen to form a government. This will be a new government with new priorities."
For the first time since 1979, we have a real Labour Prime Minister. And for the first time in my adult life - I was 16 when Sunny Jim lost power - we have a Prime Minister who I could actually conceive of voting for.
Rejoice, Rejoice!
For the first time since 1979, we have a real Labour Prime Minister. And for the first time in my adult life - I was 16 when Sunny Jim lost power - we have a Prime Minister who I could actually conceive of voting for.
Rejoice, Rejoice!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Hilary A smells the coffee
So Hilary Armstrong has announced she is stepping down from the Cabinet at the same time as Tony Blair, John Prescott and John Reid on 27 June to give Gordon Brown maximum room for manoeuvre as he reshapes his team.
I think this is what is known as taking the dignified way out, as opposed to the fate awaiting John Hutton, Tessa Jowell and probably Charlie Falconer when Gordo's first Cabinet is finally unveiled.
Armstrong is what I have always described as an absurd loyalist, namely someone who takes loyalty to the leader to the point of absurdity. Never was this more clear than in her conversation with the defecting Labour MP Paul Marsden when she actually uttered the phrase "We don't have spin doctors in Number 10 - or anywhere else."
The chances of her getting a Cabinet job under Gordon Brown were nil. The only thing to be said in her favour is that, unlike some of the others awaiting the axe, she had the good sense to realise this.
I think this is what is known as taking the dignified way out, as opposed to the fate awaiting John Hutton, Tessa Jowell and probably Charlie Falconer when Gordo's first Cabinet is finally unveiled.
Armstrong is what I have always described as an absurd loyalist, namely someone who takes loyalty to the leader to the point of absurdity. Never was this more clear than in her conversation with the defecting Labour MP Paul Marsden when she actually uttered the phrase "We don't have spin doctors in Number 10 - or anywhere else."
The chances of her getting a Cabinet job under Gordon Brown were nil. The only thing to be said in her favour is that, unlike some of the others awaiting the axe, she had the good sense to realise this.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Was Brown's coronation a historical inevitability?
Not at all, I argue in my weekly column in today's Newcastle Journal. Here are some extracts.
***
"The first thing to say about Gordon Brown's unopposed elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party is that it represents a stupendous achievement...political history is full of front-runners who led from the tape only to be overhauled in the final few metres before the line.
I'll be honest, there was a time last month when I briefly thought it might happen to Brown, when all around seemed to be clamouring for a contest and the Chancellor's stock appeared to be falling rapidly.
By the end, Mr Brown's coronation had an air of inevitability about it, all rival contenders having fallen by the wayside, all the passion that has been expended on Labour's tribal feuding seemingly spent.
But actually, there was nothing historically inevitable about this week's events. It could easily all have turned out very differently.
The downfall of David Blunkett, after he lost his head over Kimberley Quinn, will I believe come to be seen as a major turning point in the history of New Labour.
Had he still been in the Cabinet, he would have been the very clear and obvious alternative to Gordon and, with his more compelling personal "back story," may well have been able to beat him.
Darlington MP Alan Milburn's decision to leave the Cabinet in 2003 and again in 2005 also removed a potentially big player from the succession stakes.
Mr Milburn, far more so than South Shields MP David Miliband, was the natural "heir to Blair," and though an intellectual pygmy besides Brown, his looks and charisma could have made him a contender."
Full text is available HERE.
***
"The first thing to say about Gordon Brown's unopposed elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party is that it represents a stupendous achievement...political history is full of front-runners who led from the tape only to be overhauled in the final few metres before the line.
I'll be honest, there was a time last month when I briefly thought it might happen to Brown, when all around seemed to be clamouring for a contest and the Chancellor's stock appeared to be falling rapidly.
By the end, Mr Brown's coronation had an air of inevitability about it, all rival contenders having fallen by the wayside, all the passion that has been expended on Labour's tribal feuding seemingly spent.
But actually, there was nothing historically inevitable about this week's events. It could easily all have turned out very differently.
The downfall of David Blunkett, after he lost his head over Kimberley Quinn, will I believe come to be seen as a major turning point in the history of New Labour.
Had he still been in the Cabinet, he would have been the very clear and obvious alternative to Gordon and, with his more compelling personal "back story," may well have been able to beat him.
Darlington MP Alan Milburn's decision to leave the Cabinet in 2003 and again in 2005 also removed a potentially big player from the succession stakes.
Mr Milburn, far more so than South Shields MP David Miliband, was the natural "heir to Blair," and though an intellectual pygmy besides Brown, his looks and charisma could have made him a contender."
Full text is available HERE.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The right man wins
It's a pity, in a way, that there wasn't a contest. Had either the hard left or the uber-Blairite right succeeded in launching a challenge to Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party, they would have been rightly humiliated and Gordon's mandate for taking the party in a fresh, post-Blairite direction would have been strengthened.
But no matter, the important thing is that Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister on June 27, 2007 and for once in politics, the right man has finished first.
The speculation will continue about why first David Miliband, then John Reid, then finally Charles Clarke all ruled themselves out of the running, about why John Denham didn't spot the opportunity of a challenge from the sensible left, about why a trail of past would-be contenders from Stephen Byers to David Blunkett to Alan Milburn all fell one by one by the wayside.
But the single biggest reason was because Gordon was, all along, the best candidate - and his opponents knew it.
Over the past few months, there has been a concerted attempt on the right-wing blogosphere to portray Gordon Brown as both sinister and sleazy. This has gone way beyond the normal left-right party politicking, and has demonstrated at times an intensely personal dislike of Brown on the part of the ringleaders.
This has included accusations that Gordon abused his position by allowing a charity set up in memory of his close friend and mentor John Smith to use No 11 Downing Street, and various spurious attempts to link him into the cash-for-honours affair.
Had I joined in this witch-hunt, I have no doubt that my monthly traffic figures would now be soaring towards six figures. As it is, it is pretty clear from my stats that some people of a right-ish persuasion stopped reading my blog because they wanted to read bile about Gordon Brown, and didn't want to hear that he is a genuine guy with deeply-held values. So be it.
It's obvious why the Tory bloggers hate him so. They knew all along that he was the man who will show their leader David Cameron up to be the sub-Blair pretender that he is, and so set out to hobble him below the knees before he had even stood up against Cameron at the Despatch Box.
But if Brown's triumph is a victory against these politically-motivated bloggers, it is also a victory against a mainstream media which seemed determined to provoke a challenge for its own savage amusement.
Improbably led by the Labour-supporting Guardian and its Sunday stablemate the Observer, certain newspapers set out over a number of weeks to create the conditions in which a Cabinet-level challenge became seen as inevitable.
The intention was that, in the days following Blair's resignation announcement, the clamour would reach such a fever-pitch that some opportunist somewhere would be persuaded to dance to the media's tune. Indeed I myself fully expected that this would be the case.
As things turned out, it seems I both under-estimated the good sense of Brown's would-be opponents, and over-estimated the power of my former profession. And for that, I am grateful.
But no matter, the important thing is that Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister on June 27, 2007 and for once in politics, the right man has finished first.
The speculation will continue about why first David Miliband, then John Reid, then finally Charles Clarke all ruled themselves out of the running, about why John Denham didn't spot the opportunity of a challenge from the sensible left, about why a trail of past would-be contenders from Stephen Byers to David Blunkett to Alan Milburn all fell one by one by the wayside.
But the single biggest reason was because Gordon was, all along, the best candidate - and his opponents knew it.
Over the past few months, there has been a concerted attempt on the right-wing blogosphere to portray Gordon Brown as both sinister and sleazy. This has gone way beyond the normal left-right party politicking, and has demonstrated at times an intensely personal dislike of Brown on the part of the ringleaders.
This has included accusations that Gordon abused his position by allowing a charity set up in memory of his close friend and mentor John Smith to use No 11 Downing Street, and various spurious attempts to link him into the cash-for-honours affair.
Had I joined in this witch-hunt, I have no doubt that my monthly traffic figures would now be soaring towards six figures. As it is, it is pretty clear from my stats that some people of a right-ish persuasion stopped reading my blog because they wanted to read bile about Gordon Brown, and didn't want to hear that he is a genuine guy with deeply-held values. So be it.
It's obvious why the Tory bloggers hate him so. They knew all along that he was the man who will show their leader David Cameron up to be the sub-Blair pretender that he is, and so set out to hobble him below the knees before he had even stood up against Cameron at the Despatch Box.
But if Brown's triumph is a victory against these politically-motivated bloggers, it is also a victory against a mainstream media which seemed determined to provoke a challenge for its own savage amusement.
Improbably led by the Labour-supporting Guardian and its Sunday stablemate the Observer, certain newspapers set out over a number of weeks to create the conditions in which a Cabinet-level challenge became seen as inevitable.
The intention was that, in the days following Blair's resignation announcement, the clamour would reach such a fever-pitch that some opportunist somewhere would be persuaded to dance to the media's tune. Indeed I myself fully expected that this would be the case.
As things turned out, it seems I both under-estimated the good sense of Brown's would-be opponents, and over-estimated the power of my former profession. And for that, I am grateful.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Why Miliband has made the right decision
We have become accustomed in this country to politicians who make mealy-mouthed statements which don't actually mean what they say and which allow them just enough leeway to wriggle out of.
I suppose the most famous example was Michael Heseltine's declaration that he "could not foresee the circumstances" in which he would challenge Margaret Thatcher, allowing him to launch just such a challenge when the previously unforseeable circumstances actually came about.
So I applaud David Miliband's decision this weekend to deliver an unequivocal statement that he will not challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership.
It's no less than confirmation of what he has always said, but it represents a victory for political plain speaking that Brown himself would do well to take note of. More on this theme later....
That apart, I have no doubt that Miliband has made the right decision, and I explained why in my weekend column and acompanying podcast.
If you can't be bothered to read or listen to it all the way through, a potted summary might read:
He's too young, too inexperienced, and too lacking in gravitas.
He doesn't need the leadership at this stage of his career, and will get a big job under Gordon anyway.
A Miliband-Brown contest would have split the party and perpetuated the Blair-Brown feud into the next generation.
Brown is the best leader to take on the shallow PR man Cameron.
Today's Guardian speculates that either one of Reid or Clarke will still stand, and I share that judgement. Reid v Brown in particular would be a good contest between two men of genuine Prime Ministerial calibre. But neither he nor Clarke can win.
All of which suggests that it's all over bar the shouting.
I suppose the most famous example was Michael Heseltine's declaration that he "could not foresee the circumstances" in which he would challenge Margaret Thatcher, allowing him to launch just such a challenge when the previously unforseeable circumstances actually came about.
So I applaud David Miliband's decision this weekend to deliver an unequivocal statement that he will not challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership.
It's no less than confirmation of what he has always said, but it represents a victory for political plain speaking that Brown himself would do well to take note of. More on this theme later....
That apart, I have no doubt that Miliband has made the right decision, and I explained why in my weekend column and acompanying podcast.
If you can't be bothered to read or listen to it all the way through, a potted summary might read:
Today's Guardian speculates that either one of Reid or Clarke will still stand, and I share that judgement. Reid v Brown in particular would be a good contest between two men of genuine Prime Ministerial calibre. But neither he nor Clarke can win.
All of which suggests that it's all over bar the shouting.
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