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No 10 turns to Alastair Campbell and Gould to advise inexperienced election team
Joe Murphy, Political Editor14 Sep 2009
Gordon Brown is being forced to fall back on big guns from the Blair years after failing to appoint a full-time election supremo.
Amid concern that Labour is ill-prepared for an election just eight months away, Lord Mandelson is recruiting veterans from Tony Blair's three victories to strengthen planning.
Polling guru Lord Gould and former Downing Street communications chief Alastair Campbell are among those helping to re-educate Labour in the arts of electioneering.
Mr Campbell is one of at least two Labour figures who have turned down an approach to take
charge of the campaign on a full-time basis.
According to insiders, staff at party headquarters are so inexperienced that many need to be taught the basics of organising a campaign.
“There are good people but they need showing what to do,” said one. “The trouble is that so few political people have been brought up the ladder by Gordon Brown.”
Mr Brown's critics say the dearth of experience at Labour HQ is mirrored at 10 Downing Street.
Former director of political strategy Spencer Livermore was asked by Lord Mandelson earlier this year to return in a powerful chief of staff role but he refused.
Weeks later, Mr Brown himself asked him to go to party HQ to run the election planning.
Mr Livermore quit No 10 in 2007 in dismay when Mr Brown scrapped the 10p tax rate and rejected
his advice to call an early election.
Eyebrows are being raised now at the promotion of speechwriter Kirsty McNeill, 29, to be a senior political adviser at No 10.
Lord Mandelson is reportedly uneasy about the influence being given to the former student activist, who caught the Prime Minister's eye with her work against poverty in Africa.
“She is out of her depth in big strategic conversations,” said one Labour colleague. “Her approach is more akin to student politics than strategic and she would not say no' to Gordon.”
Ms McNeill tried to unseat Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes at Southwark in the last general election and was selected to try again. But last month she stood down as candidate to focus on her work for Mr Brown.
Reader views (3)
The Labour Party are a bit like the Black Night in Monty Python, refusing to accept that they are beaten: "It's only a flesh wound!".
They could put the man who sells ice to Eskimos and sand to the Saudis in charge of their election campaign, but they still won't win. The electorate is fed up with Labour. By next May, the government will have wasted 13 years and hundreds of billions of pounds and what will they have to show for it? A high-speed rail network? No waiting for hospital appointments or operations? Well-educated, respectful children? An untarnished human rights record?
No, none of the above. Change is the only answer, not more spin doctors.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 14/09/2009 16:45
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Hasn't anyone told these fantasists that `Back to the Future` was childrens' fiction?
- Ted, London, 14/09/2009 14:20
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Labour have an inexperienced election team - 12 YEARS AFTER BEING IN OFFICE!
THAT SAYS IT ALL.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 14/09/2009 10:37
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