‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’

September 1, 2008

Taking the glove-puppet off

Daily Mail, 31 August 2008

People returning from holiday are entitled to observe with a deep groan that it appears to be groundhog day in Britain. Again.

When they departed for sunnier climes, the Government was in chaos and the Prime Minister in deep political trouble. Now they return from the August break only to discover that the Government is in chaos and the Prime Minister is in even deeper trouble.

This was supposed to be the week in which a refreshed Prime Minister re-launched himself to demonstrate his newly reinvigorated vision for the country, and to end once and for all the sniping against him by a Labour Party panicking at the prospect of defeat at the polls.

Alas, re-launch week looks more like rerun week, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, no less, now locked in mortal combat with the Prime Minister — causing Labour ferrets to start fighting inside their sack all over again.

This is because Alistair Darling did something so shocking it destabilises the entire political system. He actually told the truth.

He said the economic crisis was more profound and long-lasting than people imagined, that we were on the brink of the worst economic conditions for 60 years — and that the public was ‘p****d off with us’, the implication being that, in the circumstances, this was an entirely reasonable reaction.

This of course strikes certain people as an act of treason not merely against the Prime Minister, who is busy telling us that he is the best person to steer Britain through a world economic crisis that has nothing to do with him, but against the whole concept of government. Surely, fume Brown’s allies on the Labour benches, the job of Chancellor is to talk up both the economy and the Government?

No doubt such MPs will need to lie down in a darkened room once they read this — but no, his job is actually to serve the public by telling the truth about the state of the nation’s finances.

Until now, it must be said, Darling has dutifully parroted the disingenuous party line that the credit crunch is a global problem.

He appears to have broken the habit of a lifetime and spoken out for two reasons. First, he fears he is about to be made the fall-guy in a Cabinet reshuffle. And second, because of a huge row over Mr Brown’s £40 billion plan effectively to nationalise some three out of every 100 mortgages to ease the housing crisis.

The Treasury is reputedly aghast at this plan. No wonder — it would utterly destroy the Treasury’s own ‘prudent’ borrowing rules, and expose the public to the risk of another Northern Rock-style debacle with knobs on.

Darling’s outburst, however, moves Labour’s civil war on to a new plane altogether. For no government can long survive a falling-out between Chancellor and Prime Minister.

Which is why that arch-fixer Jack Straw was wheeled into a TV studio yesterday to declare that there wasn’t a cigarette paper between Downing Street and the Treasury.

But reports say otherwise. A furious Brown is said to have ordered Darling to eat his words on TV — which he did, resembling nothing so much as a hostage mouthing for the cameras lines written for him by a man with a knife at his throat.

The irony is that Darling was appointed Chancellor precisely because Brown assumed he would do his bidding. If an attack by the former Tory chancellor Geoffrey Howe was famously like being savaged by a dead sheep, an attack by Darling is like being mauled by a glove puppet.

Now people are asking whether his outburst was a ‘Geoffrey Howe’ moment — a reference to the lethal blow inflicted upon Mrs Thatcher when Lord Howe compared himself to an opening batsman who found that his bat had been broken by the team captain.

The response by the Brown camp has been farcical, with claims that our economic difficulties are not so severe. Who on earth do they think they’re kidding?

The British Chambers of Commerce have warned that a recession is a mere six to nine months away. Unemployment is rising and the CBI has warned that manufacturing prospects for the next three months are set to be the worst for seven years.

And now a leak has revealed that last July the Home Secretary warned that the economic crisis would lead to a surge in crime, illegal working and even the number of terrorists.

In the light of all this, Brown’s proposal to use public money to subsidise bad debt is a cynical political move designed to secure short-term popularity by gambling with the economic well-being of the entire nation.

Moreover, it is impossible not to relate such recklessness to stories about the Prime Minister’s bizarre personal behaviour in recent weeks. Journalists accompanying him to the Beijing Olympics reported his alarming mood-swings when asked about his political difficulties.

He apparently refused to answer such questions and made inappropriately bombastic remarks instead, grimacing at the mere mention of the name of David Miliband, his own Foreign Secretary and the young pretender to his throne.

This all suggests a man who, under the pressure of no longer being able to control events and having to watch everything go pear-shaped instead, is lashing out in irrational fashion. If so, it is deeply alarming that someone in such a state of mind should remain in charge of running this country.

Which brings us back to the Labour Party, watching aghast as this melodrama (and personal tragedy) continues to unfold, convinced that under Brown’s leadership they are heading for electoral wipe-out — but so far unable to agree whether any other leader would rescue them from this fate.

Even now, no one should underestimate Brown’s ability to destroy his enemies. Darling may yet find he is playing the role of Georgia to Brown’s Vladimir Putin, mown down by the overwhelming force of the Downing Street tanks.

The real reason, though, that there is no head of steam behind an alternative to Gordon Brown is the absence of an obvious saviour in Labour’s ranks. That’s because this is almost certainly one of those historic moments when the whole political climate has shifted.

If that is so, then nothing will change the public’s perception that Labour has blown its chances and now it’s time for the other lot to have a go — even though few have any great enthusiasm for the Tories either.

It’s not just the economic downturn. People have had it up to here with serial and endemic government incompetence — and with the lies politicians tell to cover it all up.

They want politicians to be transparent and accountable. But that would mean Brown would have to acknowledge that the Labour project had failed, that this was in large measure his fault and that accordingly he was going to the country to seek its forgiveness and continued support.

It would not, of course, give it to him. So he won’t.

The Chancellor has warned that this country is on the edge of bankruptcy — and yet we face up to two years more of mind-numbing infighting, paralysis and serial incompetence as Labour clings on to power by its fingernails.

As Oliver Cromwell told the Rump Parliament in 1653: ‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’