By Mike Blakeney
Well it's the issue that seems to have set the blogosphere alight - the ideologically conspicuous pairing of Jon Cruddas and James Purnell. Why would such a pairing possibly occur? It’s important to note that there is little to no evidence of anything happening here, but it's interesting enough to warrant a discussion.
Two issues arise immediately:
Cruddas was always a Brownite, a protégé of his if you will.
However it’s also oft said that whoever wields the knife, never wears the crown.
Both of these points conflict here. Why would Cruddas knowingly wield the knife against a key ally? He has drifted somewhat (ok a lot) to the left of Brown since becoming an MP, and has vocally disapproved of many of Labour's policies, becoming a key spokesman for the "Compass Left" of the party in doing so. Purnell has done nothing of the sort, and is the quintessential New Labour, cosmopolitan, less ideological, high-flying minister with his fellow Primrose Hill Gang accomplices David Miliband, Andy Burnham and so forth.
This has led to widespread derision of the theory. However it's not as outlandish as it may seem. Let us theorise...
If Brown stands down, Cruddas and Purnell could stand in to unite the party. But why would Purnell do that, and backstab Miliband et. al.? Why would Cruddas backstab his old friend Gordon Brown? Wouldn't this amount to a coup, dividing the party immeasurably at the worst possible time?
I'm fairly sure this scenario is unlikely. Perhaps, however, their goal isn't the crown, but simply to knock the crown off a certain other minister's head, and allow others to take Gordon's place.
Again though, this seems odd. As surely the obvious successor would be Miliband, who's hardly a "compass lefty". Perhaps Cruddas thinks someone on the left of the party could win. I fail, though, to think who could be a possible contender of the Left other than Cruddas himself.
I can only therefore conclude the aim would be to simply oust Gordon Brown before a General Election, and have someone form the younger generation succeed him. This still seems a bit farfetched - I don't see the logic of Cruddas throwing himself on his own grenade to spite an old friend in favour of his "enemy".
I can't see how this could work. Not because I think the Cruddas/Purnell partnership is unworkable. Quite the opposite - it could be genius. But Cruddas wouldn't stand to gain anything, and instead would lose the respect of his base, and Purnell equally would likely put his ministerial career on the line.
All in all? I think the rumours are rubbish. Most likely a challenge would come from John McDonnell or Michael Meacher, and Cruddas would run for leader against Miliband. This would in itself be disastrous. To portray the party as divided that close to an election would be unlikely to improve our fortunes.
Let's stick together. Let's follow Gordon into the next election. And let's stop this speculation on who may be running for what. Gordon Brown is our leader and he will be come the election. Let's stop this positioning and manoeuvring and do what Labour do best. Unity.
I was proud when I sat inside Labour's Spring Conference just one year ago, and the media waited for the opportunity to spot disunity and make that the story. It never came. Time after time they interviewed supporters, waiting for those words that never came. The media never got their story, and our reward was a large boost in the polls.
We're stronger together.
Mike Blakeney also blogs at mikeblakeney.co.uk/blog.
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Brown is abysmal but so are the alternatives.
We believe in nothing and stand for nothing any more.
We're circling the drain folks.
It's all over.
Johnson, maybe
Comment is free
Gordon Brown must go – by June 5
He made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The Labour party can't go into the next election under Brown's leadership
Comments (262)
Polly Toynbee
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 May 2009 19.01 BST
Article history
Politics tests character, often to destruction. The character of some ministers, their shadows and MPs of all parties has been wrecked by exposure of their expenses. How can those caught pilfering from the public purse denounce benefit fraud? How can those with state-purchased silk cushions support the cash-limited social fund that denies beds and blankets to families sleeping on bare boards? MPs with fingers in the till will blush to justify paying the unemployed £60.50 a week to live on. Nor can they rant convincingly at City greed or tax-dodgers fleeing to Guernsey.
The one character who has been tested to final destruction is Gordon Brown. The music stopped on his watch, first for the economy and now MPs' sleaze, for which the government of the day takes most blame. Labour used to lay claim to higher moral ground, while the right always said greed was the motor of growth. When he first talked of his moral compass, Brown should have cleaned up party funding, MPs' expenses and honours – and linked these reforms with curbs on the power that money breathes over the nation's affairs. The expenses mess would not be fatal if the prime minister were upright and strong. But Labour is already dangling over a cliff, and this affair prises its fingers off the edge.
It's all over for Brown and Labour. The abyss awaits. As long as he remains leader, there is nothing that wretched Labour candidates can plausibly say on the doorstep at next month's European elections. They are struck dumb. Why should people vote for them? The horse manure bought on expenses is garnish for a decomposing government. The heart of the matter is the economy, and Brown's responsibility for the bubble years. He personally is to blame for Labour's failure to ensure that ordinary people on median incomes and poor people at the bottom received a bigger share in national growth: it turns out that they fell back and only the wealthy prospered. Labour made the rich richer and the poor poorer: growth for the few, not the many.
That is a failure so fundamental to Labour's purpose that the party can't go into the next election led by the man responsible. His other failings as leader pale beside this one monumental fact. While he is there, Labour cannot claim "fairness" or "social justice", so what is left to say? What is Labour's offer?
Gordon Brown has been tested and found in want of almost every attribute a leader needs. Squalid dealings by his poisonous inner circle were exposed to the light of day; yet at the same time he lacks a leader's necessary political cunning. Many hoped that the end of the rivalry with Blair would see Brown cast off his myrmidons. He didn't. In the tussle between his better and his worse selves, too often the lesser man won.
That he was no great public orator or warm telegenic talker would never have mattered had he gained a reputation as a gruff, unspun man of honour, vision and purpose. I thought it an asset after Blair's glibness and Cameron's suavity. It wasn't the medium that did for him, but the message. There wasn't one. What was Labour for?
He may be the best-read prime minister in decades, but his learning seems to hamper instead of illuminate his path. His indecision is legendary, every department awaiting answers that linger on his desk for months as he agonises sleepless but indecisive into the early hours. But then the decisions he takes are too often tactical, not purposeful or strategic. Trident, the third runway or post office privatisation are mere positioning in some illusory business-pleasing ploy, their long-term damage far outweighing one day's headlines.
Blair people warned of Brown's dark side, his rages, obstinacy and inflexibility. Labour MPs who voted him in unopposed hoped he would grow in stature. They needed to believe the best of him as there was no alternative. Any serious attempt to stop him would have led to an internal feud of such ferocity it would have shipwrecked the government. Besides, back then the economic boom years were his crowning laurels.
I was among those looking for the best in him, celebrating his undoubted concern for Africa, foreign aid and child poverty – but no one can know a leader's mettle until too late. His leadership of the G20 championed a measure of Keynesianism to counter the worst effects of the crash. But an essentially neoliberal ideology coupled with timidity prevents him taking this once-only chance to reform the City, demand more of bankers and separate high street from casino banking. Despite the crash, he harbours the same old reverence for, or fear of, the money-men who wrought this global mayhem.
The morning after the 4 June election a majority deputation from the cabinet, bearing a long list of MPs' names, should knock on the door of No 10 to tell him his number's up. Plot it now, do it fast. The Tories are lethal with their failed leaders: Labour MPs facing annihilation must find the bottle. There is nothing to lose. Once the credit crunch began, I thought assassination might make matters worse, precipitating a downward spiral from which Labour could fall into total collapse – Brown at least had the gravitas of experience. But Labour now faces an imminent collapse anyway, with Brown hitting polling depths below Michael Foot's, lower than for 70 years.
There is all the difference between losing by a few points and crashing out so badly it takes another three elections to recover. The one person around whom the party could gather speedily would be Alan Johnson. It's nonsense that another unopposed leadership would mean disaster: a general election is coming soon enough. Orphan boy, genial postman, self-made, clever but modest, he has the grace and charm to match his perfect backstory. He was always the one the Cameroons feared. His political talents turned the NHS from a danger with closures and denials of drugs into an asset for Labour. Good to work with, good in public, he inspires considerable admiration. This time I will not say I know he would be a good leader – that's unknowable until too late. I doubt that he can win for Labour. But, goodness knows, Cameron is still there for the taking.
The only question now is whether Labour ministers and MPs are so shell-shocked by the last year and so shamed by their expenses that they lack the will to live. Ordinary party members, you valiant few, get up and tell your MPs that Gordon Brown must go.
"do what the Labour party does best. Unity"?
You're taking the worng pills Mike.
Gord is hopeless. Not denying his wish to improve ordinary people's lot at all.
But he's failed. Why follow him?
I'm afraid the time is up for Brown. It could only go downhill after the G20. He has 'saved the world', now he should pack away his cape and disappear into the sunset (or the IMF, at least...)
But Jon Cruddas? Hardly anyone has heard of him. And James Purnell? You must be joking, surely? He's a little squirt who makes angry speeches about why he's punishing 'chavs' for being poor.
Anyway a 'dream ticket' is misguided. No one gives two hoots about the deputy. It's all about the PM.
There's only Alan Johnson and Hilary Benn in the cabinet who have any credibility and popularity left. Either would be popular and connect with the electorate. Unlike the present incumbent.
Yes, Mike. If you say so.....
He is an appalling communicator and he has surrounded himself with fellow idiots like Smith, Balls, Blears
and Cooper. A good leader chooses a good team!! Brown is dead and buried. Lets move on and
save some shreds at the next election.
- two MPs talking at a party is not evidence of a coup plot. I'd be more concerned if Purnell and Cruddas were in the same room and refused to talk to each other.
- even if they have been 'plotting' I doubt it's to overthrow Gordon. Neither has the political strength or backing to do it. Rather, I would suspect they might fear that someone else might force Brown out. Recognising that such circumstances could instigate a civil war within Labour they perceive there might come a time when a unity ticket is needed: a ticket with someone clearly from the right (Purnell) and someone clearly from the left (Cruddas), a kind of Blair & Prescott Mk 2.
- actually I think this is all tittle-tattle from people who can remember when John Redwood backed Ken Clarke for the Conservative leadership in 1997, in order to form a 'dream ticket' that would unite the party. In the end Redwood supporters refused to back Clarke.
What makes you so sure Gordon will want to lead the party into an election that the polls may indicate he has no chance of winning?
He grudgingly supported Blair's candidacy to replace Smith not to enhance party unity but because it was obvious from the soundings he would loose, and supporting Blair allowed him to fight another day.
There will be no way back for Brown if Labour loose and I wonder if he has the character that will allow him to behave as John Major did when he vacated the leadership of the Conservative Party.
Purnell is only in the party for a bet, he's a tory through and through, Cruddas or Johnson MIGHT do OK, no-one but no-one would make a worse job of it than Gordon. Labour need some new talent, you don't have to like politicians but you do need to respect them and at the moment its 'epic fail'* all round.
* Dunno, its something kids say.