Brown’s Problem: Entrenched Blairism

• Home
• NEW BLOG! Bring Back Tony Blair - Nov 2007

Comment at end

18th November, 2007

BROWN’S WAY FORWARD?

This morning as the present prime minister sits in his den/bunker wondering whether he can get it all right by the 2009/10 election, he, above all must surely know what the problem is.

 

[Pic: Miliband & Brown. Seeing the joke?]

But first …

THE DIRTY DOZEN - or - WHAT IT IS NOT

1. It is not that he messed up on the election that never was, though that pinpointed his indecisiveness and questionable judgement.
2. It is not that his sobriety and seriousness is now becoming heavy and losing its lustre.
3. It is not that the much vaunted “openness” now seems like expedient language rather than a point of real principle.
4. It is not that he is being outclassed at PMQs by his opposite number, the man who was never quite a match for Blair, (though upon whom Cameron has modeled his style.)
5. It is not that Iraq and other foreign policy issues have altered, or failed to alter; Iraq does not play as highly in the public mind as some might wish.
6. It is not that the electorate has fallen for David Cameron in any way similar to their love affair with Blair. Opinion polls go up and down.
7. It is not that Brown’s might have been challenger for the leadership is, allegedly, unhappy with Brown’s “interference” regarding the Foreign Secretary’s utterings on EU defence.
8. Nor that other Cabinet members and ministers are said to be disturbed at the emergence of the old, secretive, Stalinist former chancellor.
9. Nor is it that his advisers - the Eds et al - cannot operate as their new jobs demand, so used are they to working as a destructive cabal against … well, something or other.
10. Nor is it that David Miliband has been seen with Tony Blair this week in South Shields, receiving praise from that quarter, and this weekend follows Blair to the Middle East.
11. Nor is is that Blair was not exactly effusive in South Shields on Brown’s premiership.
12. It is not that Brown’s Cabinet and Ministers are just not too impressive.

Not that any of the above help the present prime minister’s position, and believe me there are more where they came from. For now, this Dirty Dozen will do.

[Pic: Blair with Miliband in South Shields earlier this week]

BLAIRISM: AN ENEMY er … CHANGE , TOO FAR?

It is simply that Blairism is firmly established in the body politic and now Brown has few opportunities to set out his ideas or vision for the future without junking much of that which he funded and supported in his last political role.

There isn’t all that much new he can introduce that will not upset his party’s Left. And he knows they will be gunning for him if he introduces any more Blairite policies.

Brown also faces the likelihood that the economy is on a downwards trajectory, and although it may not be his or his predecessor’s government’s handling of the economy which is solely to blame, in this eventuality he knows how it will be perceived and who will be held to account.

Brown made a big issue of ‘change’ when he came into Downing Street. He knew it was disingenuous. All the major changes had already been made on domestic and international issues, by his predecessor. But we had been persuaded by the ferals, in the main, and some in the Labour party that HE personally was the biggest change required … style, tone, whatEVER!

THAT kind of change (of leader) would be enough.

It was wrong-headed then and it’s becoming moreso by the day.

What a change in fortunes.

Ch..ch..ch..ch..ch..ch..CHANGES …

To take a quick glance behind the scenes in Anthony Seldon’s Book ‘Blair Unbound’ is to see real change and reform in action, or some of the time inaction as it was thwarted by the man holding the purse strings.

It is also to observe how the present prime minister tried and sometimes succeeded in scuppering the promised changes on which Labour had been elected in 2005. On Blair’s NHS and Education reforms Brown was not always on board. At times he denied or delayed funding and became irritated with Blair if the then PM had the audacity to make any announcement on spending on the public services without the then chancellor’s say-so. Brown’s team also provided financial assistance to backbench rebels to assist them in their rebellion in the House, on the account of the rebels themselves. Where did this financial information come from, one has to ask?

In the event, and by June of this year, Blair still managed to lay strong foundations to entrench his much less centralised public service projects in both Health and Education.

Brown may well be the one who has now been scuppered by Blair’s tremendous workrate in his last year in office.

Brown may rightly feel he is a hostage to fortune of his party’s Left who saw in him the vehicle on which they could travel back to the future. But Brown has a reasonable excuse to stop their demands.

‘Sorry’, he may have to explain soon, “but these changes are actually popular and working’.

But that makes his vision of change harder to identify and to show to the rest of us.

Changing PM in itself is NOT and never would have been good enough.

CLIMATE CHANGE BILL

Blair is already the leading light in the Middle East Peace Process, and the British government is forced to play a “don’t mess with Tony” game with its own envoy and opinions while the world watches Blair.

And, to make matters worse still, another pet Blair project has risen with a vengeance on the horizon. Yesterday’s ‘wake-up call’ by Ban Ki-moon, the UN General Secretary on the changes (sorry to be repetitive) to the climate, only draws attention, despite GB/PM’s best efforts to sideline him, to the fact that it was Tony Blair in March this year whose draft Climate Change Bill (pdf file) was hailed as a first in the world as far as setting legal limits on carbon emissions is concerned. Blair, who also won over the EU, the USA and other even less willing national leaders, rightly deserved and received the plaudits.

THE POLLS

The opinion polls are looking unhealthy too for GB/PM and noises off are threatening dissent within Labour ranks. Some of them may even be wondering what potion they were consuming when they turned a drowsy eye to the plotters ridding them of their greatest ever election winner.

THE BLEATING GOATS

And with Admiral Lord West this week, pleading that he is but ‘a simple sailor’, and therefore cannot be expected to be on message, is Brown getting cold feet about his Government Of All the Talents?

For the last year or so of his premiership Blair set about like the proverbial ensuring that he fulfilled his pledges of the 2005 manifesto. Many of us didn’t notice, so fooled and transfixed were we by the feral talk of ‘paralysis in Whitehall’ and ‘everyone waiting for Gordon’.

Blair’s diligent and careful stonemasonry was faultless and exemplary. Give the boy an NVQ!

Who’d be British PM in this House of Cards?

Well, GB, that’s who.

Please get on with it, changes and all, Mr Prime Minister.

What do the papers say about this?

The Telegraph says that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has denied that tension between himself and Gordon Brown is threatening to open a rift at the heart of the Government.

Blair adds to Brown’s tension with Miliband Gordon Brown’s strategy has fallen to pieces Relations between the pair were said to be rocky after Mr Miliband was forced to tone down certain pro-European passages in a speech about the European Union.

The Foreign Secretary was said to be furious with Number 10, and to have claimed that sources close to the Prime Minister had been “crudely briefing” against him in a “disloyal manner”.

But Mr Miliband today said he was “working very closely” with Gordon Brown on the Government’s European agenda, and was proud to serve under the Prime Minister.

Miliband’s relationships with some in his own party might have started to rock a bit about one month ago when, in relation to the new EU Treaty a Hitler jibe was made from one of his own party members.

I just wonder for how long such as Miliband will be willing to put up with some of life’s political oddballs, whilst watching their party implode.

And it was all so unnecessary.

 

---

Tags: Blairism, brown, cameron, change, climate, election, Politics, polls, prime minister, problem, Tony Blair