For new Labour the gospel is not Marx but Manchester United, or rather, its
mouthy manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Alastair Campbell tells of a black moment
in his first election campaign when the strain of fielding a million queries
and contradictory advice had him “struggling to focus”.
On the road to Damascus – or was it Doncaster? – Ferguson bellowed down the
mobile to his disciple: “Put the blinkers on and get tunnel vision. Don’t be
distracted. Do your job.”
Blair’s former media chief adds: “From that moment on, I did . . . I came
across as being a bit hard and even brutal when I was with the government
because of it – but it worked. I got things done when I had my blinkers on.”
Trouble is, Alastair still forgets to take them off.
Gordon Brown, another football fanatic (I can reveal he has inside dope on the
next England manager), has arrived at that Sir Alex-Alastair state of mind.
The prime minister is no longer listening to the people who shout contrary
advice to him in the dugout, no longer trying to act out of character. Down
in the polls he may be, but he is utterly convinced he is no John Major.
The last Tory prime minister, tortured by divisions in his party, sensitive to
press criticism and bewildered by sex and sleaze scandals, crumpled. For a
month now Brown has been getting the kicking of his life, a horrible
surprise for a precocious overachiever. A few nights ago during the course
of a dinner I got an insight into how he is bearing up.
He has lost weight, looks sharp and is more willing to turn on the charm. We
saw a public side to this in the summer when he exuded a new confidence and
authority. But to change the popular perception of his character there are
limits to what he will do. The prime minister cannot, will not, answer the
question, “When are you going to stop beating your wife?” or its equally
impossible equivalent, “When are you going to start to be cheerful, chirpy
Tony Blair?” His critics have raised a bar he knows he cannot jump.
As Donorgate, Datagate and Opengate (the immigration figures scandal) have
knocked his government for six he is taking the long view. Murphy’s law is
part of the warp and weft of politics. These things pass. As for the weekly
mauling he gets at prime minister’s questions, he says it doesn’t really
hurt – few watch it – though I don’t really believe him as it must, at the
very least, impact on the morale of his own benches, front and back.
Indeed my early nickname for David Cameron – “Flashman” – has been taken up by
Labour MPs who observe the baiting of the PM.
But the Church of Scotland minister’s son is openly furious when the Tory
leader and George Osborne, his shadow chancellor, impugn his honesty over
the donations scandal. He repeatedly invokes his moral upbringing by his
father.
Brown is also prickly about his personal responsibility for a decade of steady
and stable economic growth and will not concede an inch to the record of the
Tories under Ken Clarke, the former chancellor. If Brown were to write an
autobiography, he would take the title of Anthony Trollope’s novel He Knew
He was Right. This is the area to watch. In the midst of woes over Northern
Rock and fears for the wider health of the economy, he is strikingly
ungloomy about Britain’s prospects. Is his confidence justified?
The Tories have twice prophesied there are bad times just around the corner.
Both times they landed in the soup. In 1998 Francis Maude, the shadow
chancellor, memorably predicted: “Goodbye Iron Chancellor, may he rust in
peace.” Economic growth soared and unemployment fell in 1999. The funeral
rites were pronounced over Maude instead. The same predictions were repeated
three years ago with equal lack of success.
The prime minister believes his stewardship of the economy will give him the
decisive advantage when the British public looks at him and then at Cameron.
They must see he is the weightier character.
Others are more pessimistic. Public sector debt is up and revenues and
consumer spending are forecast to go down. Interest payments as a percentage
of income who people who have just acquired mortgages leapt from 15% in
February 2006 to 18.6% in September two months ago. Interest payments for
many will shoot up again by up to a third next year when 1.7m homeowners
come to the end of their fixed-rate deals. A government can put up with a
bit of sleaze, even incompetence. But against a backcloth of economic
discontent all grievances are magnified. The memory of negative equity
finished off the Tories in 1997.
Economic forecasters are there to make weather forecasters look good, so I
merely point out the dangers.
Another bloody clash between government and opposition will take place over
terrorism as early as next week when the home affairs select committee
reports. In the new year, Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, is going over
the top again to get the maximum pretrial detention of suspected terrorists
extended from 28 to 42 days. This is a big gamble. In the political climate
after 7/7 a figure like this was an achievable target, but Tony Blair’s
hysterical advocacy of a repressive 90-day lockup period without charge
curdled the blood. People who had hitherto thought habeas corpus was a magic
spell taught at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Academy, discovered civil liberties.
Neutral observers are highly suspicious of any government that plays the
national security card for advantage.
With a mixture of cool reason and a former chief whip’s arm-twisting skills,
Smith hopes to talk round Labour rebels, she tells me. Her strongest suit is
the independent judicial oversight of any extension. The judges have, in the
name of civil liberties, notoriously frustrated government attempts to kick
out of Britain foreign-born terrorists. She will say the judges are unlikely
to bang up suspects for another fortnight to please the politicians without
real evidence that the police need more time.
Smith is adamant that the real differences between the parties are now
“negligible”. Try telling that to her Tory opposite number, the smiling
assassin David Davis. He won’t be content until he has her head on a
platter.
In what promises to be another gruelling year of political warfare, is Brown’s
self-confidence misplaced? Let’s give it the Charles Clarke test.
Clarke, you will remember, was the former home secretary who proposed a
reasonable deal with the opposition on terror before Blair hijacked it. He
is a moderniser but claims to be a Labour loyalist above all else. “I have
always been a leader person,” he once told me. “I was a Wilson-ite, a
Callaghan-ite and even a Foot-ite. I have always been an ‘-ite’,” he added
drolly.
In a series of hard-hitting speeches earlier this year Clarke threw down a
challenge to Brown. The new prime minister must avoid government by faction;
he also had to prove that his “politics have a purpose” on the basis that
the next election could not be won on what Labour had achieved in the last
three elections.
On the issue of a narrowly based circle there is grumbling, even outside the
ranks of the Blairites. Complaints mount about overcentralisation and delay
at No 10. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, a loyalist through and through,
has been treated as a puppet at times. It is alleged No 10 briefed against
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, at the Labour party conference. On
these grounds alone, Clarke might find the prime minister wanting.
And so to the future. Brown hasn’t yet done “the vision thing”. He cannot
expect gratitude from the voters for his past achievements. However
unfairly, the voters believe steady and stable growth should now be a given.
Despite the knocks, Brown has the allegiance of his party. Labour is Brownite
in a way that it was never Blairite. That should prevent him going the way
of Major, humbled by his Eurosceptics. But Blair’s achievement was to govern
against the instincts of his party but with the grain of aspirational
Britain. The prime minister sounds like he wants to placate the middle
classes. His predecessor sounded as if he identified with them. There is a
world of difference between these two mindsets.
