Across the pond

Not a very restful day May Day Bank Holiday for Britain’s beleagured Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. On his Sunday breakfast table he had to read The Observer news of a trenchant attack by one of his own cabinet, Hazel Blears, the Communities Minister. She was brought back into line before most people had got to the morning service. She could not deny her attack, which was in a signed article for The Observer, not just journalistic sensation-monging. But back-track she did. Very ingeniously. She said she was attacking the whole leadership, including herself! She did not want to get rid of Gordon, merely to get him to lead them in a slightly different direction.

So Gordon could breathe again and settle down to watch the snooker final on Monday. It was not to be. This time the bombshell on the breakfast table was The Daily Telegraph. Their front page spash headline was quite unambiguous:

‘Harman: I’d fight for leadership.’

Poor Harriett was dragged out of bed and sent off to the television studies. Pressed very hard on BBC Breakfast she said that she was not only not bidding to oust Brown, but she did not want to be leader, not in present circumstances, not if someone else stood against Brown. Not under any circumstances. And showing quick thinking and a ready wit, she grabbed a pen from her interviewer, and inserted a ‘not’ in this morning’s Telegraph and held it up for all the nation to see.

So it must have been the Torygraph up to its old tricks, proclaiming disarray amongst the Labour ranks, paving the way for a return to the ‘old’ Conservatism, with the youthful telegenic David Cameron proclaiming policies which Harold Macmillan would have been happy with. But, wait a minute, the online Telegraph, after reporting her denial, went on to write that ‘friends’ of Harriett Harman had assured them that she would indeed fight for the leadership if it looked as if there was going to be a challenge to Brown from someone else. So although the Daily Telegraph story did not contain a single attributable quote, that does not mean it was invented.

So what is the truth?

First, the denials are believable, because Brown is not surrounded by disloyal cabinet colleagues plotting against him. But what is true is that several of his colleagues are worried that if he leads Labour into the next election there is a real risk that Labour will suffer a huge defeat, with maybe a hundred Labour MPs losing their seats. These worries have come to a head over this May Day Bank Holiday, for several reasons.

The Government suffered a heavy defeat in the House of Commons over the treatment of the Gurkhas, partly due to the effective campaigning of the actress with a conscience, Joanna Lumley. That is not an issue that is likely to reasonate at the time of next year’s General Election. Much more serious is the twists and turns of Government policy over MP’s expenses. This is always a minefield. The Government wants to ensure that MPs are paid sufficiently well, by a combination of salary and expenses, so that they can afford to shop at John Lewis, like the rest of the professional classes. But the revelations that a few MPs from all parties, but including some Labour ministers, had been cooking the books (in a way that reminded me of the glory days of Fleet Street, when journalists took each other out to gourmet dinners, and then tossed to coin a decide who would charge it up to expenses), do not go down well with the voters.

This resulted in what I think is the worst of Gordon Brown’s recent blunders. When, egged on no doubt by his advisers, he went on U-tube to show his human side. Nothing wrong with his presentation. But it was the content which was the problem. It was the great clunking fist hitting himself on the foot.

Because he announced a new policy on MP’s expenses which, of course, should have been put to colleagues and put the House of Commons, not announced on the internet, or on television. That is a violation of representative democracy. That is a move in the direction of the British Prime Minister behaving like an American President. Which is what Tony Blair did from time to time when he was the boss, and Gordon Brown, was his mostly loyal sidekick, managing the economy to make Blairism possible, with its enlisting of the support of the bankers and the giant international companies.

This is an issue which will be debated at the time of the next General Election. The recession has already begun to bite in the Midlands and North. It is hitting the poorest people, old Labour’s heartlands, much more severely than the south-east and the south-west. By next year it is likely to be much worse.

At that time, the Conservatives and the Liiberal Democrats will have no inhibitions as to reminding the electorate that it was Gordon Brown, who was one of the principal architects of the boom that was to go no booming for-ever. With a continuatiion of the un-regulated free market, which encouraged the bankers to lend to people who could not afford their mortgages and which turned a blind eye to the number of huge companies who were avoiding British taxes.

Today one of Labour’s ex-leaders, Neil Kinnock, tried to rally support for Brown, by warning them that if the party continued its infighting it would lead to a rise in the power the BNP. That argument is nonsense. It would not be at all surprising if the BNP did win more seats in the Council elections. If it does that will be the cause of the deepening recession, which causes some of the poor working class to resent the immigrants, be they black, brown or Polish.

But in national politics it will not be the BNP or UKIP, who will be taking Labour seats. It will be the Conservatives, the LibDems, and a few Welsh and Scottish nationalists.

To sum up, this argument. New Labour brought us the credit crunch (along with many other things not so nasty). It is old Labour supporters who have been hit hardest by the recession. Many of them would never vote for any of the other parties. The danger is that if Brown is still the leader, they will not vote at all.

Just as Cameron has revived the Conservative vote by demonstrating he is not Thatcher, so Labour needs a leader who can demonstrate that he is not Brown and he is not Blair. And Labour is fortunate in having several candidates who could do that honestly and effectively. Amongst the old Guard there is Jack Straw and from the new guard there is Alan Johnson. Both have been effective cabinet ministers, close the leadership, but not too close. Both have the support and credibility to make Newer Labour, showing more respect than Blair and Brown did for the beliefs of Old Labour.

And, come to think of it, it is appropriate that the first shots have been fired in this particular Bank Holiday, which is the only ‘left-wing’ bank holiday in the British calendar.

(Photo: BBC)