Across the pond

The 17 per cent swing against the Labour Party in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on Thursday is most definitely a slap in the face for Gordon Brown’s tottering premiership and possibly sounds the death knell of the New Labour personified by the rule of Tony Blair and Brown since 1997. The result is also a huge disappointment for the Liberal Democrats, with their brand new young leader, Nick Clegg. They came a poor third in the poll yesterday. As they did in the election for London mayor on May Day, when Boris Johnson, one of the inner core of David Cameron’s New Conservatism, ousted Ken Livingstone, who had the support of New Labour cabinet ministers in his attempt to get re-elected.

But the result yesterday, and those on May Day, do not amount to a clear signal that the country is ready to vote in a Cameron government in two years time. They don’t want to vote for a Labour Party led by Brown, they don’t think the Liberal Democrats are serious contenders. The negatives are clear. But Cameron is still a long way short of generating enthusiastic national support for his policies and for his new band of Young Conservatives.

First to reprise on May Day. Livingstone, despite the vicious campaign mounted daily against him by the London Evening Standard , did better on May Day then most Labour candidates, and only lost London by a small margin. Livingstone is not in any sense a stalwart of New Labour. In the first election for Mayor of London New Labour put up their own candidate, Frank Dobson, to try and stop him winning. They failed. Londoners remembered with gratitude some of the things Livingstone did while running the Greater London Council, before it was abolished by Margaret Thatcher. Like free travel on the buses. Subsidies like this have no part in New Labour and do not fit in with Brown’s focus on balancing the national budget.

Livingstone did make friends with big business in his two terms as London mayor, when he concentrated on London’s pragmatic needs, and devoted fewer of his speeches to his hobby horses, like support for the republican cause in Northern Ireland. He formed an uneasy alliance with the Blair/Brown government, but he remains a maverick, who does not have sufficient support in the Labour Party to mount a bid to oust Brown as leader.

There is, as yet, no sign of anyone prepared to put his, or her, head above the ramparts to challenge Brown for the leadership. But several leading Labour cabinet ministers have been telling political journalists over the last few days, that they think Brown should not lead Labour into the next election. Off the record, of course.

If the country voted as did the people of Crewe, David Cameron would win the next election with a thumping majority. But such huge majorities in by-elections, when one party has been in power as long as eleven years, are notoriously unreliable predictors. Analysis of the demographics of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election suggest that the result is not nearly as bleak for the Labour Party as the headlines of the last few days have been suggesting.

Labour has not been defeated in one of its heartlands. Crewe and Nantwich is a new parliamentary constituency, which has been Labour since it was created in 1983, but twice, Labour has held on to it by the narrowest of majorities. The present constituency is a merger of two former contituencies.

Crewe was, and is, a Labour heartland, with electors who worked on the nationalised railways and in one of the largest Rolls Royce factories in the country. But Nantwich was solid Conservative, situated in the posh part of Cheshire, with voters similar to those who voted in the Conservative Neil Hamilton, and his wife Christine.

Two of the Sunday newspapers are already speculating as to who will be the next Labour leader.

According to
The Sunday Times , David Milliband, the Foreign Secretary, has told ‘friends’ that he will bid for the job if a critical mass of Labour declares it wants Brown to go. He is certainly highly favoured, but other ‘friends’ of his, have been telling journalists that he remains loyal to Brown.

The Observer has a story,
based on off-the-record talks with several senior ministers, suggesting that Brown should appoint a new deputy prime minister as a leader-in-waiting. They suggest Jack Straw, the justice minister, is the most likely man for the job.

The Daily Novel is sitting on the fence. Because there are several cabinet ministers with the experience who might emerge as contenders over the next few weeks if the Labour Party keeps its nerve and concentrates on developing a version of New Labour capable of winning the support of the country in 2010. In including not a few women, who have not been gossiping to the political journalists as much as some of the men.

Jack Straw photo: Johnny Green/PA