Is Gordon Brown really finished?

Labour August 7, 2008 No Comments »

There’s a rare degree of consensus about at the moment on where Britain’s political situation has got to, so I thought I would treat readers to my take on the current situation.

Firstly, I don’t buy this overall story that it’s now inevitable that Gordon Brown is finished. The parallel most in my mind has been John Major’s position in the spring of 1994. Then, as now, it was the accepted wisdom among political commentators that the Prime Minister would be ousted in a matter of weeks, and that inevitably, Ken Clarke (in 1994) would replace him in Downing Street. That was no less accepted fact then than Brown’s demise is now - indeed more so, I would say. But in fact what happened was that there was no moment of resolution in 1994, the immediate crisis passed and when, a year later, John Major did cause a leadership election, it was on his own terms and no serious rival came forward to challenge him. And indeed we should not forget the parallel of that leadership election either - this current Prime Minister has an established record of ensuring he is the only candidate in a party leadership election - something which, incidentally, you would think to listen to some people now was an accident. It was of course no such thing, but the direct result of Gordon Brown spending many years carefully wooing MPs and other key figures to ensure exactly that happened when Blair finally went.

And while it’s obviously not something that you can count on, we shouldn’t forget either the potential impact of sudden and shocking events. In the days after September 11 2001 all sorts of things that had hitherto seemed immovably set in stone changed in a matter of days. If some dramatic attack on Britain or elsewhere - and it need not necessarily be on the scale of 9/11, or the July 7th 2005 London bombings - were to happen, it’s not at all difficult to imagine events working out in such a way that people would turn back to Gordon Brown as a solid and figure, highly experienced in government and, as his defenders say, the best person to steer Britain through coming choppy waters.

In such circumstances, would people trust Gordon Brown or David Cameron more? Maybe the public perception of Cameron has moved on so much now that they would prefer him. But for my money I’d still say that people would hold on to nurse, for fear of something worse. Cameron’s ratings are still far more driven by comparative perceptions of Brown, than they are by perceptions of Cameron, and an emergency - depending hugely, of course, on what it was as well as how it was handled - would change that dynamic quite powerfully.

And indeed the little evidence we have of Brown’s handling of such circumstances, from the terrorist disturbances that took place in the few days after he took power, is that he handled them well (even though the whole episode always reminded, me for some reason, of the scene where the Minister of Magic first appears to the Prime Minister in Harry Potter, to explain various odd goings-on around the country).

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An autumn visit to Highgate Cemetery

Labour, Miscellaneous October 22, 2007 9 Comments »

Highgate Cemetery

Fall is well and truly upon us, and yesterday afternoon we took a beautiful autumnal walk around Highgate Cemetery.

It is very much a creation of the nineteenth century - one of several cemeteries built following the need for more burial space during the rapid expansion of London, and before the twentieth century vogue of cremation. And it feels very Victorian gothic, containing graves or other tombs which are at the least very grand and proper, normally topped by at least an angel or some other statue, and in many cases magnificently more: several large family mausoleums, as well as areas of catacombs. Most famously there is the ‘Lebanon Circle’ - a circular area of catacombs around a large central Cedar (of Lebanon); and an Eqyptian avenue reflecting the fashion of interest in Egypt at one point in the Victorian era.

The very leafy surroundings make it particularly evocative to be there in the autumn, and we had a beautiful fresh afternoon to be up there.

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The Safe Pair of Hands Dour Scottish Bank Manager No More

Labour October 6, 2007 No Comments »

Right, so I should have kept my nerve, obviously, in saying he’d never actually do it.

But this must surely mark the end of people’s trust for Gordon, big time. The latest turn of events just makes it even more plain that he’s been playing games with us all - and once he’s been revealed as the casino gambler, he’s going to find it very difficult to go back in our minds to being the dour Scottish bank manager again.

Throughout I’ve been convinced that Mr Brown is working to a plan, but I confess that if today’s developments are part of one, then I for one can’t work out what it is.

One thing the delay does do is to give Cameron another chance - see my post earlier - but even with the new circumstances, I still think he’s going to find it very difficult to take advantage of it.

Balloon loosing its moorings…

Labour September 28, 2007 1 Comment »

Throughout all this speculation about a possible General Election, I have argued that it is just Mr Brown winding everyone up, and he is not really planning to have an election this year. I set out the case for this here, and certainly he does really seem to have used the threat to tie Mr Cameron in knots over the summer.

However I have to admit that I have been wavering over the last few days. Several of the speeches in Bournemouth this week seem to have been very much geared up to trying to win votes in the near future. And there comes a point in the development of speculation about an election - speculation which is after all generated entirely by his own people - when it looks like either or both (a) weakness and/or (b) that you are just playing games with the electorate, not to call it. I should think that we are coming up on that point pretty imminently now - indeed already if he were to announce that it was all off, he would surely face some slightly awkward questions about why he had been ramping it all up so much and winding up the public when he had no intention of bringing it to a climax. The balloon has not yet gone up but it will need a bit of effort to haul it down and secure it again. It looks like pretty blatant political manipulation and I have argued before that his fondness for this is, sooner or later, going to p*** people off.

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‘No Spin Gordon’ is the biggest spinner of them all

Labour September 24, 2007 No Comments »

Could somebody explain to me how it is Gordon Brown is currently asking us to accept the following three propositions simultaneously?

1. He has licensed his ‘aides’ to spend almost the whole summer putting it about that he is considering calling an autumn election (and as I have argued, this strategy has delivered for him in spades, in stitching up Cameron). The fact that an early election on the agenda at all is entirely down to him - and every time speculation has looked like tailing off, his team has stoked it up again.

2. Gordon Brown is a serious man with serious ideas, strongly focussed on “getting on with the job” of running the country, facing down terrorist threats, and not to be distracted from that by piffling petty party-political considerations such as what the most advantageous moment for an election might be.

3. Gordon Brown is a new ‘non-spinning’ leader, representing a change from the age of New Labour obsession with managing the media, as happened under Blair.

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Autumn Election Off

Labour August 2, 2007 No Comments »

I see Mr Brown has given a memo from Philip Gould to the Mirror, and told them it could mean an autumn election (BBC article)

Do we think this is consistent with:

(a) Mr Brown actually planning to hold an election this autumn,

or

(b) Mr Brown wanting to everyone thinking that he’s planning an autumn election, to create confusion and general havoc in other parties’ election planning, and further damage Cameron while he’s vulnerable?

The answer seems pretty clear to me.

I must say I have always been pretty sceptical about the idea. This was confirmed last night when someone told me that he had it (only second or possibly third hand) from someone who was there, that last week’s ‘political’ cabinet meeting at Chequers was entirely focussed on an autumn general election.

In my experience when you think you’ve found out something that you’re not meant to, then generally you were meant to.

(By the way it’s been a long time since I read the Mirror and the stuff they write really is drivel, even apart from fact that their precious memo doesn’t even really say what they claim it does.)

New Prime Minister, new democracy?

Labour July 10, 2007 No Comments »

Greg Dyke gave an interesting speech to a meeting organised by CentreForum yesterday. I suspect a good number of those present had come because they thought he might be about to announce his candidacy for the London Mayoralty. But he didn’t say anything about that, and just stuck to the advertised title about how Britain’s democracy will fare under Prime Minister Brown.

A lot of what he said was not new. His theme was the public’s disengagement from the political process, and he was particularly critical of the unfairness of Britain’s electoral system, and how that contributed to the fact that so few people voted. He reminded us that 55% of those who voted at the last General Election voted against Labour, but they won with a clear majority anyway, and that taking into account the low turnout figure, in fact only 21% of voters actually voted for Labour.

But he clearly believed it passionately and it was interesting to hear him say how strongly he is committed to proportional representation.

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Beware Brown’s constitutional reforms: it’s a trap

Labour, Liberal Democrats July 3, 2007 4 Comments »

My first reaction to Brown’s plans announced today for constitutional reform, was to be pleasantly impressed. An end to some elements of the royal prerogative, such as institutionalising Commons votes before going to war, had seemed unavoidable for quite a while. But he went further than that, also ending the Prime Minister’s role in appointing Church of England bishops (you only need to say it to see how ridiculous it is in 2007), and opening up some key appointments to Parliamentary scrutiny. He has a long track record on some of this territory and I am prepared to accept that some of it is founded on genuine belief. And he even talked of ‘a Bill of Rights’ and a written constitution. There was nothing concrete on PR for the House of Commons, but some mood music suggesting it might possibly be on the cards.

But then I realised that we’d been here before. Have a look at this. In late 2003 - about half way through the last Parliament, as we are now in this - Blair suddenly announced that he was going to review the case for PR again. Many of us interpreted it as that Blair wasn’t really interested in doing it, but just wanted to put down a marker as an insurance policy in case he needed the Lib Dems after the next General Election. It was never heard of again, and since the result of the 2005 General Election was quite clear, it never needed to be resurrected.

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