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One image lingers in my mind from the past few days: the Mitcham murderess, Siobhan McDonagh (surely to be played by Alison Steadman in the inevitable TV drama: Gordon's Goodbye), saying that she did not want to have “stood by and done nothing” while her party rode to disaster.
It was so memorable because she broke through the tired old codes, nuances and calculations and said starkly what a lot of people think: Labour is failing and that something has to give, so one might as well face up to it.
The call for a leadership contest was slapped down yesterday by the party's governing body. So Mr Brown rules, though not remotely OK. Another day, another crack in the plaster, with a Scottish Office minister, David Cairns, also deciding that Mr Brown needs to be challenged.
To the PM's supporters, this is a botched coup: the equivalent of the Georgians taking on the Russians in Ossetia with little air cover, no exit strategy and only a foggy idea of the likely consequences of their actions.
True, this assault had neither the co-ordination nor the weight to ensure a decisive putsch. Mr Brown's team diagnose it as a sign of weakness among his foes. They cite three groups out to “get Gordon” — the ex-Blairites around Charles Clarke, the Compass-style supporters of a lurch to the L eft, and the raggle-taggle plotters who reflect the party's fear of annihilation at the polls.
They also sip cold comfort from the fact that these groupings have failed to come together. No ex-heavyweight has ridden in to deliver the coup de grace, no coalition of Left and Right interests has so far united against the PM to make his position untenable.
Nonetheless, something has changed: Mr Brown has mutated from a struggling leader to one publicly on probation, with time and the patience of his colleagues fast running out.
This mood change is what really endangers him. Many Brownites, including his closest Cabinet supporters now express their defence, not as “Save Gordon, you know he's the best leader we've got in these turbulent times”, but as: “Even if you do want a change, this is a mad way to do it and you will regret it.”
“What matters to the Labour Party isn't Gordon's performance at this year's conference,” says one ally. “It's how he does next year when he has led the UK through a recession.”
Welcome to la-la land. Mr Brown's fate will be decided, as political fates always are in the end, not by a rational consideration of how long a leader should have to recover but by a lurching sense of collapse that sets its own timetable.
The default mode of the Government has shifted from grudging loyalty to sullen despair. “It can't go on for much longer,” says one Cabinet member who described yesterday's meeting as “excruciating: an embarrassment”.
“It's not just the country that's not listening to Gordon any longer: the Cabinet isn't listening to him. Something is going to give. There were people staring at their hands, some scribbling on their papers, someone else on their BlackBerry.” Anything rather than look their own leader in the eye.
Mr Brown told his Cabinet that issues about the direction of the party should not be raised until after the present economic turmoil.
The minister adds: “Gordon is now measuring his survival in two-week horizons. It's humiliating for everyone.”
Frustration with Mr Brown among his colleagues is nothing new. The ferocity of these reflections is.
It would, however, be wrong to see Mr Brown as the only man under pressure as a result of this torrid week. Spare a thought for Foreign Secretary David Miliband, whose every gesture and choice of phrase at the Labour conference will be decoded as a sign of his intentions towards the leadership. His allies are champing at the bit to make the case on his behalf. “Only Alan Johnson is a serious alternative to David,” says one. “But Miliband versus Cameron is still a stronger offer than Johnson versus Cameron.”
If Mr Miliband is unsure about whether he is ready for the pitched battle of a Labour leadership race, Mr Johnson, the well-liked Health Secretary, has signalled even less resolve.
Mr Johnson would certainly appeal to a shaken party: but he would be a de facto admission that Labour was choosing a soothing, emollient figurehead to nurse it through opposition, rather than join the battle to control the centre ground and make a generational renewal against Mr Cameron.
Already, we see the action is beginning to move into a proxy battle for the upper hand in a world beyond Gordon. The stand-off between Mr Balls and Mr Miliband can only grow wider as a result.
Mr Balls's chances of accession increase dramatically if the PM does hang on till the election. So those who wish to avoid a contest with the Foreign Secretary as front runner will argue that infighting while banks are collapsing and the UK economy teeters will alienate voters still more.
I always feel, on talking to ministers of this persuasion, rather like Mowgli in the grip of Kaa in the Jungle Book: “Trust in me, just in me/Shut your eyes, trust in me”. Above all, do nothing until the general election: just “slip into silent slumber”.
Life is not like that. Sometimes, be it in relationships, jobs or governments, things do just give way and tensions snap. That is how it feels around Mr Brown. Next month's Glenrothes by- election hangs over him like his own personal Dunsinane. Really, there is no end to his troubles in sight: except the one he does not want to confront.
Mr Brown is an avid and knowledgeable student of US Democrat politics and one partial parallel springs to mind. In 1967, the most outspoken of Robert Kennedy's advisors, Adam Walinsky, sent his boss a brutally forthright memorandum entitled “Gratuitous Advice”.
In it, he called Lyndon Johnson a lame duck president, predicting that he would lose the 1968 election and encouraging Kennedy to run against him for the presidential nomination. It ended with the ringing words: “He who stands with LBJ now goes into eclipse — perhaps irretrievably.”
The subversive spirit of Walinsky stalks New Labour. It knows it faces eclipse with its present leader. The last few days have shaken it out of the somnolence. A set of events is in motion which is likely to expedite the party's choice, the only questions being how and when.
Reader views (3)
People vote governments out because they feel like a change, but there is real anger towards Labour, which appears to be heading for a generational defeat.
Gordon Brown may be the lightning rod for this, but it is the entire government they want out, not just the leader.
- Tim, Atlanta, GA USA, 17/09/2008 15:04
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If Alan Johnson is only laughed at by most of the voters, David Miliband is much hated and distrusted.
I don't see why any of them should lead this country through the current economic crisis, and why the public should be exposed to the experiments of a moonstruck governing party during such difficult times.
Brown is probably the best leader, but he cannot work with a cabinet which, openly or on the sly, is undermining him.
- Raymond, London, UK, 17/09/2008 12:53
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Northern Rock, Lehman in London, AIG, HBOS etc. point to the need for a General Election October 2008 so that the country can have a leader with the backing of the nation, whoever that may be. This financial crisis is the worst in my lifetime and still deteriorating. Strong leadership now is more important than political careers or very many people are going to suffer financial distress.
- Roy Mohon, Stockton-on-Tees, UK, 17/09/2008 12:09
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