By James Macintyre / @NewStatesman
As Parliament rises, Gordon Brown will be hoping that this summer is not like the last, which saw a non-stop frenzy about his leadership of the Labour party. He has reason to be cautiously optimistic: David Miliband, source of so much speculation last year, remains firmly loyal to the Prime Minister. His decision to stay in government on the night James Purnell resigned last month confirms what those who know him have long known: he will not challenge Brown. Purnell, too, is heading into the party conference season intent on aiding an open debate on the left, rather than whipping up rebellion against Number Ten. Alan Johnson was “locked in” by his move to the Home Office. And the man who could have brought down Brown by resigning, Alistair Darling, has – just about – been kept on-side with his last-minute retention of the Chancellorship, the importance of which to Brown’s survival cannot be overstated.
On the other hand, arch-rebels - mainly former so-called “Blairites” – continue to deny the leadership issue is resolved. Insiders still float the idea of Brown stepping down voluntarily in the autumn if he can find a narrative that allows him to leave with honour, having saved the British economy and withdrawn, with grace, to make way for a more electable leader. Those who seek this outcome even go so far as to go into detail: Brown would have to ensure there would be no divisive leadership contest, gaining an assurance from potential candidates – notably Ed Balls – that they will not run. After all a contest were it to erupt today could involve, at least, Balls, Jon Cruddas, David Miliband, Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson and Jack Straw.
What the plotters fail to answer is who could be the beneficiary of Labour’s second “smooth transition” in one term. Brown became Prime Minister as the towering Labour figure of his generation; now there is no such consensus around a successor. Further, it is surely mistaken to believe that Brown will be in a position of strength to rein in those who want to run. Would Ed Balls, especially after being denied the Treasury job he has sought for a year, continue to obey his old master and allow – say – Miliband to take over?
Instead, if Labour is to recover, it has no option now but to unite around Brown and turn its fire on the Conservatives. LabourList has shown itself more aware than most ministers of how to articulate the case against David Cameron’s un-modernised party. Now Labour as a whole must follow suit. Ministers should remember over the fragile summer period which precedes conference, that if they are not helping Brown, they are helping Cameron.
I have been in a minority of roughly one or two journalists in the country who has maintained throughout his turbulent two-year premiership, that Brown will stay on to fight the general election next year (as well as that the election can still be won). Yet I am far from unaware of his many faults. Brown has a split personality: the “better angels” of an earnest man who went into politics for the right reasons, are too often eclipsed by his dark side as epitomised by the ruthless briefings that have left a number of loyal allies badly bruised. Equally, the questions over his electability Peter Mandelson laid out in his famous 1994 fax to Brown, still apply.
However, the reality is that Brown is here to stay. Nothing in his past or his personality suggests he will step down voluntarily – and he will not be challenged by a serious contender for the leadership. It may not be ideal for all, but Labour’s only hope is that Brown’s intellect and magisterial grasp of the one area that will most determine the election result – the economy – will save the day. Meanwhile, Brown must urgently find a radical constitutional agenda that incorporates electoral reform, to bring leftwards the centre of gravity in British politics once and for all, and – less nobly – attract the Liberal Democrats in the wake of a hung Parliament.
The Tories are there for the taking. Contrary to popular wisdom, the next election is not over; it has not yet even begun. But if Labour is to stand a chance at retaining office, it must now rally round. There really is no alternative.
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http://order-order.com/2009/07/26/staggering-sillyness-from-mcintnyre/
They are undertaking an austerity budget to correct a government deficit of 9% GDP.
The UK's is soon to be 14% - so do you think we will magic it away? Or will this government be implementing its own austerity plans soon? Remember this - we are able to sell our debt because of the 'viability' of our economy in the eyes of the international money markets.
If their sentiment changes, many think it is only a matter of time, then this government is going to have implement it's own 'Plan B' budget. Oh yes, there is an emergency budget in existence, emergency 20% cuts in spending across the board.
Besides; it's probably best not to crow about the capitalist Irish; this government will have to cut the education budget by £100m during the course of this financial year.
As for Lisbon, what do the Irish have to gain from Lisbon apart from even less controls to correct their economy? Remember it was Eurozone interest rates that the Irish couldn't control that created their crisis.
OTOH, I am for the Lisbon Treaty, so I am not too bothered by this.
Brown serves one purpose only at the moment and that game was given away by the return of Mandelson. His sole reason for his political existance currently is keep the labour government together and avoid an election at any cost until the Lisbon treaty is in place.
Labour will implode as soon as this is done and Brown's political career will be over.
True - he won't step down, because he is cussed and stubborn, and that will be the downfall that take Labour out into the political wilderness again for 10 or more years.
Anyway, the public has made their mind up about Brown. "Rallying" around him is like trying to save a dead tree. If we stick around, we're going to get bulldozed with him.
Blair knew Nu Labour was going down the pan and did a flit; happy that Gordon would be taking the can.
The UK public has seen the Emperor's new clothes and knows Labour is a naked as the day it was born.
It is this obsession with everyone being 'on message' that has got Labour into this viscous circle of ineptitude, this after you Cyril, Buggins turn mentality where Gordon only hears 'Yes Gordon' from all the lick spittle lackeys that have encircled him of whom the Lard Meddlesome is the most insidious.
Labour are going down the pan, supporting Gordon is only going to make it all worse, the early indications at Norwich are third place at best. That is the real message from the UK public to the party - Labour be gone and make it soon!
There is an alternative: accept reality.
The reality is that Brown is the worst PM in living memory. The reality is that the British public is sick of Labour politicians and aparatchiks. The reality is that Labour will not be re-elected. The reality is that Labour is drained of ideas, talent and The reality is that Labour is fighting for its very existence.
Stop dreaming and start the hard-headed thinking if you want to survive to fight another day.
Unfortunately he does not have the qualities of a good leader. A classic case of "the Peter Principle" of management theory.
He took the job after the Party campaigned that its leader would serve a full term.
He took the job without a leadership election.
Since he has presided over an economic calamity; the amplitude of which was of his own making. Decisions he has made have played out over time as being the most inept and wrong decisions; short term gains paid for by long term loss. The latest one it seems is cutting the MoD's helicopter budget in 2001.
Then we have the downright lies; the 10p tax cut and no-one losing out. Then another; Labour was not cutting spending.
Labour should stand tall with its leader when they are not trying pitifully to bring him down and take the rap.
He is not fit to be PM.
Winning? Thanks for an early-morning belly laugh.
Having been in opposition for over a decade there is little to fire at the Conservatives over. Whilst they have been found wanting on the expenses issue, their record is far better than Labour's and Cameron has acted more decisively than Brown.
Question: How to tell when Labour thinks the game is up? Answer: Just listen for all the calls for electoral reform.
Governments loose elections, didn't you know that?
And be honest - he still is. But that says more about the rest of the party at the moment than it does about GB!
The most potent factor that affected the Conservatives in 1997 was the disgrace brought about by Aitken and Archer and surrounding sleaze. The public have long made it clear that they expect ALL MP's to act with the utmost integrity.
This is nothing new.
I am a supporter of Brown though as I cannot think of anyone in the PLP who can deal with the Economy better. His strategic timing is aweful and so he often trails Cameron on issues, but his attention to detail can be very great indeed. It will be a very long time before we have a strategic AND tactical thinker leading our party again, I cannot think of anyone in the Cabinet at all at the moment.
But I do think that there is a fundamental problem in the trust that Brown and others place in the market. Its probably too late to try to change that impression now
Tony Wright is an MP who decided to focus on the select committees largely because he isn't a party apparatchik
If all else fails - turn to god (eh, blair?).
If anyone thinks blair/brown let the labour party down, then that is as nothing compared to how labour party have let the country down.
This fact is all the public need to consider when voting come the next general election - Brown really is the best that Labour have to offer...
Roll on the next generation - but please god, don't let that generation of labour supporters be led by the champagne socialist kids who seem so vocal in labour blogs...
And I think Labour supporters need to question why they think a leadership election (rather than a coronation) would be so horrendously divisive - isn't the problem that you haven't actually had a policy debate inside the party since 1994? Look at the last set of Tory and Lib Dem leadership elections. They were robust but no-one would suggest they destroyed the parties. If anything the elections were invigorating. It's worth noting that David Cameron's rivals got offered plum jobs (Davis to Home Office, Fox to Defence, even Clarke making a return to Business). By contrast the fear when Brown took over was that if you dared stand against him it would be the end of your political career.
It's policies that are at fault. From the abolition of the 10p tax band, allowing the bankers to continue to take bonuses and huge pensions after all the money we've put into them, to selling off our gold reserves when the price was at a record low, to the transfer of regulatory power from the BoE to the FSA that allowed the banking crisis to proceed unchecked, to hanging pour soldiers in Afghanistan out to dry whilst 8 Chinooks have been sat on the ground unfinished for 5 years, to allowing his friend Philip Green to take 1 billion pound profit out of his dealing of BHS without paying a penny of tax, to introducing a virtual police state under the guise of combatting terrorism.
Brown's policies are a disgrace to Labour. Quite frankly, even the Tories would be ashamed of some of his policies.
We do need a leadership election, not based on personality, but based on policy and political direction. If we had a new leader who could admit to Brown's mistakes over banking regulation and promise to re-instate the 10p tax band, Labour would sweep the board at the next election. The question is, does anyone have the courage to stick their head above the parapet, knowing that they are going to be a target for Brown's stormtroopers? Somehow I doubt it . . .
And Purnell now dares to hector us about what it means to be on the left! Rather outrageous, if you ask me.
If these people have anything of value to say (and judging by recent contributions from failed ex ministers etc they have'nt), they should be preaperd to respond: after all many of them raise more questions than they answered. As others have said, if he suspected something was amiss x years ago, why not blow the whistle? Whether he troughed or not, he colluded in others doing it.
Blair was also responsible for involving us in more wars than any other "Labour" (I use the word losley in his case) leader than any other Labour PM and most Tory ones. A loathsome, shameful little man who I hope is never allowed to become President of the EU
Indeed. It is the Blairites (and Blarism, as Roy Hattersley recently said) that, largely, got us into this mess. We desperately need a change of tack on a number of key issues, but a personality-driven leadership contest would do the party absolutely no good and would be wholly destructive.
This site is supposed to be a voice for the grass roots, the articles today show it for what it is - a propaganda site.
The LL editorship do not have a grip on the challenges the country face - its just get Labour re elected whatever the cost. That Alex reduces you to something I dont want to say in public, for you have turned your back on those Gordon has fuxxed in favour of your tribal loyalty - Xxxxxxxx.
Well yes... but possibly only in the sense that he's in thrall to an old Queen.
If he has such a wonderful intellect and "magisterial grasp", how did he manage to muck up the 10p tax rate? Either he understood what he was doing or he did not.
If he understood what he was doing, then he lied and deliberately made many poorer families worse off in order to get a cheer in the Commons and a headline in the Mirror.
If he did not understand what he was doing, how can he be said to have this great intellect and magisterial grasp?
He useless, useless, useless.
Yes. If you say so.
" Brown’s intellect and magisterial grasp of the one area that will most determine the election result – the economy – will save the day"
Nurse! - the screens!
"[Brown] He has reason to be cautiously optimistic: "
This is just about the most glib and otiose collection of platitudes ever assembled on LL