Britannia Radio

ember 15, 2008

The slow car crash of the Labour government

Daily Mail, 15 September 2008

Labour has now descended into open civil war.

Every few hours, it seems, there is a fresh revolt against the Prime Minister as Gordon Brown is subjected to a kind of creeping coup.

The upfront challenges to Brown posed by David Miliband and Charles Clarke were damp squibs.

Brown’s ministerial foes decided they therefore had no alternative but to grit their teeth in face of the dire predictions of electoral meltdown and soldier on.

Hence Sunday’s grisly spectacle of two of the most Blairite Cabinet members, John Hutton and the pretender himself, David Miliband, who were paraded uneasily on TV to defend Gordon Brown like enemies of the state in some tinpot dictatorship being forced to declare on camera their slavish loyalty to the leader.

But other Labour MPs decided to force the issue by launching a campaign of attrition.

The strategy is to undermine Brown by withdrawing support on the Labour benches to such an extent that ministers have no alternative but to wield the knife upon the stricken Prime Minister, and put him and the party out of their misery.

Hence the calculated martyrdom of the junior whip Siobhan McDonagh and Labour’s vice-chairman, Joan Ryan, who were sacked after they called for a leadership contest, while assorted senior backbenchers have taken to the media with calls for a new leader.

MPs have also launched the destabilising tactic of asking for leadership nomination ballot forms — although, according to rebel Frank Field, Downing Street leaked this tactic to the media in order to scupper it. If so, this really is Stalinist behaviour.

This uprising may well grow still further. No one should doubt the seriousness of such a revolt and its capacity to destroy the Prime Minister. Maybe by the start of Labour’s conference this coming weekend, Brown will be so badly wounded that it will turn into a wake.

But equally, no one should underestimate Brown’s ability to strike back. It is also possible that the coup will simply fizzle out — because the greatest weakness of the rebels is that they don’t have a plausible alternative candidate

Some are wondering whether the hitherto silent former Home Secretary — and bruiser — John Reid is poised to make a potentially devastating pitch for the leadership.

If he did, he would certainly present an alternative to the series of timorous lightweights whose possible elevation to Number Ten is currently rousing the country to such a pitch of apathy.

But whoever took over would come under enormous pressure to call an immediate General Election because Gordon Brown did not — which they would surely lose, as the public is simply sick to death of the whole lot of them.

Meanwhile, in addition to the endless war between Brownites and Blairites, we now have to endure the spectacle of militant MPs versus handwringing ministers.

And while this Jacobean revenge drama is playing out month after month, just who’s in charge of the clattering train?

Is it any wonder that the Government of this country is in such chaos when members of the governing party are totally transfixed by their own internal machinations to save their electoral skins?

As accusations of treachery and dirty tricks fly thick and fast, the last thing any of them appears to be thinking about is the public interest, or indeed anything as tedious as the actual impact of their disastrous policies upon the lives of the public over whose votes they are fighting.

Such epidemic navel-gazing also distracts from any proper scrutiny of the Opposition. The Tories are clearly benefiting in spades from the implosion of Labour.

Their enormous opinion poll lead has created the firm — if premature — expectation that they will form the next government.

But they need to be challenged on the fact that even now they appear to be more interested in image than substance.

Take, for instance, the ‘Tatler Tories’ — the group of super-cool and trendy young Tory candidates who were pictured in Tatler for all the world as if they were participants at a fashionable society wedding.

Or look at Sunday’s revelation that David Cameron accepted a reported £13,000 from the author of a laughably drooling ‘biography’ of him — which purported to offer an objective account of his life.

Is this really the behaviour of a party which claims to represent a total break with the sleaze and spin of the New Labour years?

The Tories should not take the electorate for granted. People want to know whether the Conservatives will stand up for what matters to them. They are looking for integrity and seriousness.

At present, they can’t see these things anywhere. Across the political spectrum, all they see is spin and repositioning, navelgazing and window-dressing, smoke and mirrors, and the sound of sharpening knives.

What they don’t see is any clear, coherent and consistent articulation of what this country needs.

It’s hard to see how Gordon Brown can regain the public’s trust and confidence. But Labour doesn’t have an alternative candidate because it has no alternative story to tell.

The Labour ‘project’ went pear-shaped under Tony Blair and has never recovered — can never recover — because it was based on a con.

Pretending to have junked state control, it was actually all about bribing and browbeating people into a mass dependency utopia in which Britain would become totally unrecognisable.

The big prize awaits a leader who understands that Britain is sick of being bullied by the state while at the same time watching the country’s powers of self-government, national identity and values go out the window.

Interestingly, it is that most politically correct of parties, the LibDems, who have now inched into this territory with promises of tax cuts and resisting further integration into Europe.

Cynics may well scoff that this is merely desperate repositioning to outflank the Tories and avoid being wiped out by them at the election. Yet there is surely a lesson here for David Cameron.

People feel the democratic compact between voters and government has been shattered. They are fleeced by record levels of taxation, only to see billions poured down various sinks.

Politicians are interfering more and more in their lives, telling them not just how to behave but how to think, rewarding the irresponsible and punishing the dutiful — while failing to deliver the absolute essentials of providing security against crime and conserving the nation’s identity.

In other words, it’s not just Brown who has failed, but the whole so-called progressive agenda which has been shown to be a sham.

The Labour rebels have no answer to this. When Fiona Mactaggart says people need to know where the Government is leading them, she is describing Labour itself.

As a result, the greatest pressure at these party conferences will not be on Gordon Brown — assuming he makes it that far. People already assume he is toast. If he looks like he will survive until Christmas, this will be seen as a great triumph.

No, the real pressure will be on any Labour challengers — and, above all, on David Cameron.

Labour has failed. The public want to know what the alternative is. They are in no mood to be fobbed off with spin or fudge.

It’s no longer a question of party allegiance. The prize awaits the politician who the disdained and browbeaten public thinks is finally on their side.