Gordon Brown likes to claim the credit for Britain’s economic stability, but his real talent is for political instability. Never one for head-on confrontation, he has always acted to destabilise his opponents, allowing them to crumble before coming forward to step over the pieces.
Consider the fates of successive Home Secretaries – David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid – all of them seen as rival heirs to Blair at one point or another, but all destroyed by a combination of the Home Office’s native incompetence and the distinctively unhelpful machinations of Gordon Brown’s Treasury.
But, of course, these were just side shows to the main event – the long, slow destruction of Tony Blair’s Premiership. As with the Home Secretaries, Blair’s wounds were, in part, self-inflicted. But from the moment he entered 10 Downing Street, he had the undermining tactics of his neighbour to contend with. In the wake of Iraq, Blair no longer had the strength to resist. By 2004 he was forced to announce that he would not fight a fourth election. The fact that Blair hadn’t actually fought a third election was of no concern to Brown, who was quite happy to ride a lame duck on to the battlefield.
Pausing only to help Alan Milburn on to his sword, Brown charged into a Labour third term – attempting not one but two coups in the course of 2006. The first of these, in the wake of local election defeat and botched reshuffle, was a failure. Brown’s self-serving call for “a stable and orderly transition” did him more damage than Blair. For the first time, the polls indicated that Brown would be less popular than Blair. The great destabiliser had managed to destabilise himself. Then came the second, more successful, coup attempt in September, a tumultuous month concluding with Blair making his last conference speech as party leader.
The countdown to Brown had begun. Desperate Blairites scrabbled around for a viable challenger. For a while it looked as though David Miliband might chance his arm. But amid reports of dirty tricks, the then Environment Secretary announced that he would not be standing this time round.
And so Gordon Brown finally got to Number 10. To stay there, however, he has to deal with one last opponent: David Cameron. True to form, the new Prime Minister has shied away from direct confrontation. Quite the opposite, in fact. Not only have Conservative policies have been pinched, but Conservative MPs too!
Unlike many ConHomers, I have some sympathy with John Bercow and Patrick Mercer. Both are men of expertise and ideas, and both deserve an audience. That doesn’t mean that David Cameron was wrong to exclude them from frontbench positions. After all, a leader is entitled to certain degree of discipline and conformity. However, it is a shame that the Conservative infrastructure is too poor to give our non-conformists a decent alternative to the front bench. In Washington, one can leave the top team without entering the wilderness – thanks to a properly funded network of congressional committees, campaign groups and think tanks (not to mention positions of real power at the level of state and city). If Gordon Brown really meant what he said about a new kind of politics he would take immediate action to disperse power and influence to a similar extent. But, of course, he does not mean what he says – and is ruthlessly exploiting his control of Prime Ministerial patronage to destabilise the opposition parties.
So what can David Cameron do about it? No Conservative leader can afford to keep everyone on board all of the time; that would be an unsupportable restriction on his or her freedom of manoeuvre. Thus there will always be those open to a tempting offer. Nor should all independent thought and action be crushed – that is not the Conservative way. Building up the wider conservative movement would be helpful, but that will take time and is not a matter for the leadership in any case. No, what we really need to do is throw a spotlight on the Prime Minister and show him up for the malicious old humbug that he is.
The British electorate may still be addicted to ‘golden Brown’ – the self-declared purveyor of continuous economic growth; they may respect ‘deep Brown’ – the reassuring manager of the nation’s affairs; but they cannot abide ‘dark Brown’ – the hypocritical control freak. That was the side of him they saw in the final phase of his campaign against his predecessor. The nation clearly wanted Blair out, but they didn’t like the way that Brown forced him out. I don’t think they’ll much appreciate his meddling with other political parties either – so the more he’s seen to do it, the better.
For our part, let us call his bluff. Either he can engage in a genuine and far-reaching dispersal of power – or, at the very least, quit his creepy little games.
I think the issue is that Brown is not new and is more of a spin-artist than Blair. They both invented New Labour. I call Browns type of spin "Super Spin". Editor, what we need is a ConHome competition to list all the examples of Browns super-spin.
Matt
Posted by: Matt Wright | September 12, 2007 at 09:15 AM
If Bercow and Mercer had Cameron's prior approval, there is no real problem.
After all, when the tide turns - as it soon will - they could be very useful recruiting officers for the conservative cause!
Posted by: David Belchamber | September 12, 2007 at 09:41 AM
"The British electorate may still be addicted to ‘golden Brown’ – the self-declared purveyor of continuous economic growth..."
Given that "golden brown" is slang for heroin, addiction may well be the right word here - addicted to debt and living for the day with no thought for tomorrow, all encouraged by Labour with their smoke and mirrors portrayal that all is well despite the long term problems building up in the background. Showing Brown up as a malicious old humbug ought to go hand in hand with showing him up as one of the most destructive politicians of our time.
Posted by: David Cooper | September 12, 2007 at 10:02 AM
Very insightful article which goes to the heart of Brown's biggest fundamental weakness.
"Either he can engage in a genuine and far-reaching dispersal of power – or, at the very least, quit his creepy little games"
I think that Brown's clumsy attempts to use the argument of a more inclusive politics while he organises grubby back room deals to undermine his opponents will backfire.
Cameron has matched his word by real deeds, as seen when we supported Labour's education bill, Brown on the other hand has not.
Bercow and Mercer were wrong to become advisers to Brown, he has a proven track record of being the opposite of what he claims. They would have been better advised to read Tom Bower's biography of Brown before sitting down and agreeing to work with him. Or better still ask people like Frank Field what the consequences of disagreeing with Brown were.
I still believe that it was fundamentally wrong for those two MP's to take a course of action which was harmful to their own leader and party, but which at the same time allowed Brown to play cheap politics.
Posted by: Scotty | September 12, 2007 at 10:04 AM
Exellent article exposing the naked careerism of Gordon Brown. A political leader ought to be working where possible to unite his party. ot Gordon Brown, he has used colleges as stepping stones for his own political career. In fact he has also used politicians from opposition parties to bolster his own profile.
There certainly is a darker side to Brown than the old-fashioned and affable image portrayed in the media. Gordon Brown is old school politburo. A shrewd and manipulative operator who ensures that opponents within his own party have enough rope to hang themselves. I believe that until the next election Brown will play the centre ground card but if he wins a fourth term for Labour he will see that as a mandate to gallop towards state capitalsm.
The thing that worries me most is not Brown's statism but rather his amateur-economics. Gordon Brown has the idea that debt-fuelled spending can generate growth and that the British economy can prosper with an enlarged service-sector and ever more imports. This strategy is suicide, particularly as and when the pound loses value against other currencies. The Gordon Brown economy is storing up inflation which is being masked by the strength of sterling. Up until now the strong pound has bailed-out Brown but now that the pound has in effect peaked the currency is ready for a fall and inflation will take off.
The problem is that because growth has been fuelled by massive volumes of debt, there is now a huge demand for interest which creates an inflationary pressure. Interest is a demand for money that doesn't already exist and will have to be written into the final cost of goods and services and demand for higher wages. Gordon Brown likes to portray himself as an economic guru but his economic strategy is naive and amateur to say the least.
Posted by: Tony Makara | September 12, 2007 at 11:11 AM
Brown once boasted that he had read Nigel Lawson's The View From No.11 from cover-to-cover.
If only he had understood it.
Posted by: Bruges Group NG | September 12, 2007 at 03:26 PM