SO GORDON BROWN routinely says to Tony Blair: “There is nothing you could ever
say to me now that I could ever believe.” Mr Blair habitually retorts: “You
wouldn’t work with me.”
These words are not some tentative reported speech. They are up there in the
lights, full-frontal oratio recta. They are direct quotations in the
latest war report from the Downing Street battlefront, Brown’s Britain,
by Robert Peston. Nobody has denied them.
We can clearly forget those fuddy-duddy textbook checks on the executive: Her
Majesty’s Opposition, the Conservative Party and House of Commons Question
Time. With Whitehall inhabited by neighbours from hell, there is no need of
a balancing power. “Friends” will do the job. The first rough draft of
history lies with such blood-spattered gentlemen-at-arms as Peter Mandelson
and Alastair Campbell on one side and Ed Balls and Sue Nye on the other.
The Labour peer Lord Campbell-Savours is surely right. The exchanges recounted
by Mr Peston must be denied or otherwise explained. If I were the Tories I
would have them laser-projected on to the Cabinet Office façade each night
until the election. When a prime minister and his Chancellor of the
Exchequer so distrust each other in virtually public debate, collective
responsibility is in ruins.
Senior politicians have often been at loggerheads before. Churchill could not
bear Eden twitching at his shoulder, frantic to succeed him. Macmillan was
repelled by Rab Butler. Margaret Thatcher had an aversion to half her
Cabinet. Given their path to power, Mr Blair and Mr Brown clearly made
pledges in their political puberty (and since) which they have found hard to
keep.
The personal immaturity in these men amazes not just the Labour Party but the
nation. From what is a wealth of intramural accounts, they seem barely able
to maintain the dignities of office. This is not a matter of clashing
personalities. All organisations have those. The truth is that neither Mr
Blair nor Mr Brown seems able to manage their clashes in ways familiar in
any normal organisation. They watch Yes, Minister when they should be
watching The Office.
Neither man brought any corporate experience to Downing Street in 1997. They
showed no aptitude for personnel and no awareness that give and take is
crucial to the smooth running of any firm, let alone government. Mr Blair
trusted to a vague plausibility and Mr Brown to a moody sense of personal
loyalty.
The former Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, reportedly reacted to a
chaotic scene in Mr Blair’s office by blurting out: “Your problem is that
neither you nor anyone else in Downing Street has ever managed anything.” Mr
Blair protested that he had managed the Labour Party. No, said Sir Richard,
“you led it”, a distinction lost on Mr Blair. In this he was like Margaret
Thatcher, except that until 1985 Mrs Thatcher was forced to act as a
coalition leader rather than a president. She had to manage.
Political leadership in Britain now expects of its claimants the talents of a
president without any relevant qualification. To lead America, or Germany,
or France requires one to have been a minister, a governor or a mayor. Mr
Blair and Mr Brown were none of these. They were lucky in taking power when
economic and electoral good fortune masked what memoirs now reveal as a
divided and shambolic administration. The past week’s fiascos over tsunami
relief and a leaky book reveal deplorable management by both men, poor
delegation, rotten discipline and a failure to suppress personal ambition
for the wider good. Nobody has a clue how to keep a secret.
The British ruling class, Conservative or Labour, used to come from the land,
business and the trade unions. Leadership qualities were tested before
forming a base for political advancement. Mr Blair and Mr Brown won power by
mastering a quite different skill, that of conspiracy to outsmart the Labour
Left. Mr Blair certainly exploited a remarkable charm. Indeed he embodies
the potency of charm. But like Mr Brown’s inverse sullen doggedness, that is
of little help when things go awry.
It is now clear that Mr Blair’s dismembering of Downing Street’s Civil Service
machine in 1997 was a catastrophe. Were he an experienced corporate leader
he might have known how to replace it. Instead, his chief of staff, Jonathan
Powell, declared vaguely that the new style would be “more Napoleonic”.
Administration was swiftly dominated by the press officer, Alastair
Campbell. News management supplanted policy coherence and government became
an exercise in jerky stagecraft. Black arts that had been directed at the
Tories and the press were soon redirected at “enemies within”.
As a result a Government that embraces no deep political divisions cannot
co-ordinate meetings or harmonise “lines to take” between the two highest
officers of state. What used to be a Rolls-Royce machine is now a miasma of
grudges, sulks, broken promises and poisonous semi-public exchanges. A Civil
Service has been replaced by an uncivil one. In place of inter-departmental
liaison we have peace missions, kiss-and-make-up dinners and painful “ joint
appearances”. Small wonder Mr Blair, like Napoleon, keeps disappearing to
war, leaving his prefects to feud at home.
The fact is that Mr Blair and Mr Brown disagree on something far more
fundamental than policy. They disagree on who should be boss. On this there
is no compromise. Most constitutions offer a framework for deciding such
matters. Power is assigned by calendars and elections.
Not so in Britain. Here there are no fixed terms. There are no formal primary
elections. The present Labour leadership was allegedly carved up between two
friends in an Islington restaurant a decade ago, a deal which neither of
them deigns to make public. That Mr Brown feels obliged to assert the
knightly rights of Camelot, pleading an Arthurian blood promise in the
stripped-pine forest of Islington, shows how badly the system needs reform.
If I were the Parliamentary Labour Party I would demand a nationwide primary
election, Blair versus Brown, of registered Labour members before Easter. It
would do wonders for party membership and settle the leadership for the next
Parliament. If I were Mr Blair, I would do what I suggested he do after Mr
Brown’s challenge at the 2003 Labour Party conference. He should sack him
and damn the consequences. Mr Brown is not indispensable. He has shown by
his known collaboration with Mr Peston’s book that he is a lethal presence
in any Blair Cabinet. If Mr Blair stays, he must go.
Meanwhile the Civil Service must look to its laurels. Its head, Sir Andrew
Turnbull, should tell Mr Blair that either its status is statutorily
protected as an independent corps of advice to government, or Mr Blair
should go over completely to the American system. In the latter case all top
officials would resign and be replaced with political appointees. Lines
would be clear, even if chaos ensued. At present the Blair experience merely
shows that, whatever the shortcomings of the old Whitehall, it was better
than today’s.
George Orwell protested, in the Ukrainian preface to Animal Farm, that
his satire on left-wing power had been misconstrued by critics. His message
was not that absolute power made pigs indistinguishable from humans (or new
Labour ministers from Tories). The pigs might eventually look like humans,
but there was no reconciliation. “I meant it to end,” said Orwell of his
book, “on a loud note of discord.” His warning to the Left was that
revolutionary autocracy and democracy could not mix.
Indeed so. Animal Farm ends with “a violent quarrel in progress. There
were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious
denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr
Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously. Twelve voices
were shouting in anger.” The other animals crept away, shocked.
The two aces are still on the table. Nothing has changed.
simon.jenkins@thetimes.co.uk
