Five years ago, I attended a seminar chaired by the Chancellor, at which I was to open up a discussion on tackling inner city deprivation. The attendees were senior figures from the private sector – no public sector notables were invited. To my surprise, the meeting opened with an attack on me – and others like me – by the Chancellor, because of my hostility to workfare.
I mention this simply because it illustrates the problems which the Labour party – and, indeed, the wider electorate – face in deciding what it is that Gordon Brown actually stands for. We know what he has done alongside Tony Blair over the last ten years, but as Prime Minister-in-waiting, we need to know what he intends to do in the top job, unrestrained by either his co-leader of New Labour, or by the narrow demands of his Treasury post.
The manner of his accession is politically maladroit, and begs many questions. How does Labour present itself as a rejuvenated party, when Blair’s dauphin accedes without an election? What does the wider electorate make of the only party not to elect its leader, but to promote by acclamation the co-author of those policies which have alienated supporters and members over the last decade? Why is it that there was no credible alternative presented to the Labour Party so that it might make an informed choice as to who its leader might be? How is it that the Labour party is so devoid of capable people in senior positions that it cannot give us the rigorous debate about the leadership that we so obviously need?
Instead, we have the charade of the Chancellor traipsing around the country, attending meetings of party faithful in the full knowledge that none of it matters – he has the leadership in the bag. For the answer to this, we have to return to the long years of political exile when Labour was threatened with a role as permanent opposition.
Blair and Brown entered parliament together in 1983. It was a small Labour intake that year, at the nadir of our political fortunes. It was not difficult to stand out as young and bright at that time – they both were so, and were marked out for early preferment. In 1985, a new young communications director came along – Peter Mandelson – who set out to raise the profile of his two bright, young protégés. Two election defeats later, this political ménage à trois was bursting with impatience to be in government, when their chance came.
It was the premature death of John Smith which set in train the events which have dominated Labour and the country for the last thirteen years. Whilst the ever-cautious Brown dithered, Blair plunged into the leadership stakes. Within a week of John Smith’s burial, Blair had secured over half of the available PLP nominations. By the time the Brown camp had assessed their chances of success, it was too late. Blair had acted whilst Brown planned.
In a typically Mandelsonian manner, the sultan of spin claimed credit for Blair’s victory, deeply antagonising Brown. It was, ironically, an entirely false claim. Mandelson had no part in Blair’s official campaign – he was persona non grata with most of the Parliamentary Labour Party – but to the two principal actors in this tragedy, he was important.
Brown seethed about his missed opportunity, whilst Blair went from strength to strength, with his familiars, led by Mandelson, at his side. To the horror of many of his initial supporters, Blair began to ‘modernise’ the Labour Party. That is, to destroy it and to replace it with something in his own image – vain, shallow and shorn of any value or principle to which traditional members could adhere. The Labour Party – with the vacuous prefix ‘New’ – became a vehicle for attacking the trade unions, public services and its own membership. In its place was put a personality cult, with a cabinet stuffed with sycophantic non-entities, prized for their obsequiousness rather than their intellect, their judgement and their integrity.
When a combination of his own conceit and his waning political appeal made resignation inevitable, Blair found himself without what he considered a valid political heir to follow in his footsteps. He did not want Brown to succeed him, but for all of the wrong reasons. Blair has always taken an intensely personal view of politics – hence his dislike of his own party. His arrogance persuaded him that his own prejudices were all that he needed to govern. He found the notion of any other form of ideology abhorrent. Critically, Brown is not Blair, nor even a reflection of him. This is the man now to replace Emperor Tony; the question is whether he will don the Emperor’s old clothes.
I have speculated whether, following an antipodean precedent, Blair was to be to Brown what Bob Hawke was to Paul Keating. In short, was Blair to hang on too long for his eventual successor’s good? Many parallels exist between the two political relationships, but with one stark difference. Keating had to win the support of the ALP caucus when the time came, defeating Hawke in a head-on challenge for the leadership. Brown has had a shoo-in to both the leadership of the Labour Party and the prime ministership of the country, without any opposition.
So relentless has been Brown’s determination to hold the top job that any rivals have been disposed of on the way to this crucial choice for party and country. Except, of course, there has been no choice. Like members of a Soviet politburo, PLP members have quietly lined up to applaud a seamless transition from Blair to Brown on the basis of their own narrow self-interest. Not for them the examination of the only candidate’s record over the last ten years, nor his policy agenda for the future.
I believe this is a grievous error – their self interest will only be served if a nominally Labour government remains in power. For that to happen, the electorate will need to be convinced that fundamental change has occurred at the top of the party. Not just a name switch on the door to Number 10, but in style and in the substance of policy. Can the man who has made the United Kingdom into an official tax haven for the super rich, has accelerated the privatisation of the state and has hocked future governments with the private finance initiative, be the orchestrator of those policy changes? Can the man who paid for the Iraq misadventure bring himself to apologise for it? Can a Scot who could not secure Scotland for Labour, bring back the disaffected in the rest of the United Kingdom? Can the gloomy Dane metamorphose into an electoral Prince Charming? Time will tell.
30 May 2007
