What will happen to Labour when it loses the coming general election? We in
the political world have been so fascinated by the uncertainties surrounding
the handover from Tony Blair to (we suppose) Gordon Brown, that we have
taken our eye off something more important for Labour, coming down the track
behind. The odds are now that though the Chancellor may get his mandate from
his party, he will not — when the time comes — get it from the electorate.
What would then be in store for him, his party and his rivals?
These should be the big questions for those of Mr Brown’s senior colleagues
who contemplate throwing their own hats into the ring. If they duck the
challenge this time, how long will they have to wait until a next time, and
what might be their chances then, compared with now? How long in the
wilderness if they make an enemy of this most unforgiving of men? What will
remove him, and will a postBrown Labour Party be a hospitable place for a
David Miliband, a John Hutton or an Alan Johnson? What will they inherit?
My opening question rested on two premises: that a general election is coming,
and that Labour will lose it. The first is certain, yet closer in our
diaries than in our thoughts. A parliament cannot run beyond five years and
usually runs for four; and we are two years in already. Assuming Gordon
Brown does become prime minister this summer, the hoped-for “Brown bounce”
could tempt him to chance his arm and go for a popular mandate next year.
This Christmas, if Labour is close to the Tories in the polls, the new prime
minister may be seized by a nightmare in which the Ghost of Christmas Yet To
Come shows him a 2009 election where he rues the day he funked it in 2007-08.
Do not, therefore, rule out an early election, though we may doubt Mr Brown is
that sort of a gambler. Otherwise — and if (as I predict) a Brown
premiership fails to refresh Labour’s chances — an election in 2009 might be
postponed a year. Mr Brown may end up simply hanging on as long as he can,
as John Major did. So, facing Mr Brown’s potential rivals is the prospect,
if they back off this time, of between a few months and a couple of years in
Cabinet posts while a turn-of-the-century Labour Government heads
dispiritingly for the buffers — that is, if the bookmakers, and the
Parliamentary Labour Party’s own gloomy instincts, are right.
Are they right? That Gordon Brown is not capable of winning the Labour Party a
fourth term in office is, of course, a big assumption. Forgive me, but I’m
simply going to make it.
Sometimes I worry lest, immersed in my world of Westminster gossip and policy
debate, I may lose touch with the mass of the electorate whose judgments are
more instinctive; I ask myself whether the picture I see may be diverging
from those of the electorate, who will have the final say. But I heard last
week from a most unpolitical friend who, for £75, had agreed to take part in
a forum organised jointly by the Equal Opportunities Commission and the
Fawcett Society, to examine and discuss the problems of single mothers. On
arriving the young mothers were told they were to have a special guest. It
turned out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
My friend, who had not been unsympathetic to Mr Brown, had until then only
seen him on TV. She said he was a dreadful disappointment. In fact she was
shocked by how bad he was. A forced smile, a prescripted announcement, for
which this visit and these women were really just the media frame, and an
apparent inability (or disinclination) to listen to or engage with what any
of them were saying, answer their questions or show openness to their ideas
and testimony left her feeling cheated and angry.
Her response will in time spread through the electorate. Mr Brown is set to
become better known, and for a politician whose appearance is confounded by
the reality, the consequences of becoming better known are bleak. People
think Mr Brown, though wintry, is straight-talking and brave. The truth is
that he is indeed wintry, but that he is also shifty and timid. Voters will
hate this when they find out.
So what will happen, when Labour loses? I doubt Mr Brown will volunteer his
resignation. Both publicly and to himself, Mr Brown will blame his defeat
personally on Tony Blair. There will be some force in the argument that
after 11 years of Blair, after the Iraq war, after the vapidity and the
spin, a year or two was not enough for Mr Brown to rebuild and rebrand his
party. He will apologise handsomely for the defeat, remind us that his
predecessor bequeathed him a Tory lead in the polls, suggest that Mr Blair
left too big a mountain for him or the party to climb in a short time, pledge himself to rebuild Labour in opposition, assure Labour members that
David Cameron and his “new” Tories are a giant windbag that a few sharp
years (or less) government will soon prick, and invite the Labour Party to
entrust him with that task.
On balance, I think the party will. Labour’s history betrays no taste for
regicide, and many will think it hard on Mr Brown to kick him aside after
only one defeat. So he will stay. And in opposition — robbed of the only
thing he does do well, — which is to sound as though he’s running something
— he will prove a failure. But this may not be definitively shown until the
election of . . . well, do the sums: about 2013-14, I reckon. OK to hang on
a bit, then, David, John, Alan?
But say I’m wrong. Say that in the aftermath of defeat in the coming election,
the Labour Party panics, decides it got it all wrong — wrong about the
Leader, wrong about direction, wrong about the way to win — what then? Here,
Mr Brown’s potential “modernising” rivals must face a most unwelcome fact.
If Labour ditches Gordon Brown in a few years, they won’t be reaching for
the likes of a sleekly metropolitan moderniser such as David Miliband, the
Environment Secretary. They will descend into a bitter civil war in which
the voice of the Left, and of “old” Labour will be stronger, not weaker,
than it is today. From such circumstances, only Alan Johnson (from among
today’s possible contenders) might just be able to extract advantage, but I
doubt it. Association with Labour’s years in government will be poisonous.
Look at the face (so far as a crowd of rebels can be said to have a face) of
the 95 backbenchers who voted against Trident this week. I happen to agree
with their argument. But I do not recognise in this gang of mostly
left-of-centre exemplars of a party that has certainly not learnt (as Tony
Blair once hoped) to love Peter Mandelson, a mood that would want to replace
a defeated Mr Brown with something more right-wing. In nostalgia for the old
days of CND marches, I do not see the ingredients of a new Labour
renaissance. Wednesday’s rebels were not the shock-troops for a Miliband
leadership bid in 2009.
No, the best hope for those who do not want new Labour to be cast aside in
favour of old Labour or (more likely) a long and confused internecine
struggle is that Mr Brown stays on in defeat.
Now — the spring and summer of 2007 — represents the best and probably last
hope for any leadership contender who calls himself a Labour moderniser to
reach for the crown. If not, it will have to be Brown. And he will lose the
general election. And after that, in Opposition on the other side of that
defeat, only Gordon Brown would have any chance of holding the new Labour
line.
There is, of course, one possibility I have overlooked. This is that Gordon
Brown might actually win the coming general election. I said that was
unimaginable. His potential rivals, however, might care to imagine it. I
hope that cheers them up.
So if you’re ever going to go for it, David, John, Alan, go for it now, not
next time. There isn’t going to be a next time.
For the best
political opinion articles on the web, go to Comment Central
Mathew , I was in Cannes last week and read your opinion on Labour's losses . Most people would sympathise with the reasoning but the bit about the the bayonet and the will to activate the deed is too much to consider in modern politics while there is still trouble in the middle east.
David T Williams, rhymney, caerphilly
If, as appears likely, the economy takes a serious downturn shortly after Gordon Brown is 'crowned' Prime Minister, he is going to have a devil of a job trying to shuffle the responsibility off on to someone else. But it will be great sport watching him wriggle.
Ton Jones, Grantham, UK
It's blindingly obvious that the Tories will win at some point since this is a 2-party state and sooner or later there's always a change of government. The only party to have won four general elections in a row since the war was the Tory Party, with 3 wins under Thatcher and the 4th under Major. But they paid the price of being in power for so long by going down to their biggest defeat in over 100 years. So even if Brown wins the next election (which I think far more likely than Matthew Parris does) he'll certainly lose the one after that. Five election wins in a row for any party simply won't happen, as modern historical precedence shows.
K Philips, London,
The supporters of Brown are stuck in this fantasy world that come his time, he will pronounce such radical policies (domestic and abroad), of course because of his much superior "intellect", that the columnists like Parris will be bowled many times over. I say go on dreaming lads. To assume that those who are careful or disdainful of Brown are purely so because of his dour personality is to assume the large swathe of society is simply not capable of understanding the "intellectual" Brown. They fail to understand that intellectual or not Brown is an idealist and defeats the whole purpose of running a country. His socialist idealism puts Wilson in shade. The tragedy of Parris' article is that he doesn't go far enough to even question the suitability of David Miliband, who has not seem a career outside politics in his professional life. What a despairingly horrible line-up of prospective labour leaders (except Hutton).
Prabhat, UK,
Looking into the crystal ball I can see one way for Brown to win, undeservedly. He took over a strong, healthy, structurally sound and reformed economy with falling unemployment, inflation etc - he has presided over that inheritance a long time but will bequeath a weaker, structurally indebted economy, with major bubbles, rising inflation and unemployment.
If he loses in '09/10 then a bad recession happens, caused by his term as Chancellor, but under a Tory government, the public will wreak revenge on the Conservatives while Leader of the Opposition Brown cries on about "Tory boom and bust" and Labour get re-elected after one term. Wouldn't be deserved at all, but the idea is concerning.
Philip Thompson, Warrington, England
Gordon Brown will totally outclass Cameron and his lightweight policy free Shadow Cabinet.
That is what the Tories fear, hence nonsense articles like this.
Chris , Chippenham, UK
Unfortunately we live in a celebrity -based culture. In this age of freshed faced images splashed across our newspapers and TV is it any wonder Gordon Brown is behind in the polls? In days long since gone of course dour grey haired politicians were the order of the day - nowadays of course, if David Beckham were elected leader of the Tory Party (or the Labour Party for that matter) he'd win by a street, regardless of what they had to say.
Personally, I think Gordon Brown has been one of the most successful politicians of my lifetime (I'm 41 years old). In Government. But sadly I don't think this fact alone will elect him. And the irony is that the first man to grasp this new order was his boss - Mr Blair.
Dave Brown, Düsseldorf, Germany
I'm afraid to say I voted for Labour in 97 and the last election, OK I realise now I needed a brain transplant at the time, but glad to say I have now woken up and will never be voting Labour in any guise again.
John Fox, Essex, UK
If Matthew Parris doesn’t see Gordon Brown as a serious threat, then why does he keep talking about him? I suspect he knows that Gordon Brown will be much more popular in his new position and fears the implications on the Tory party and David Cameron of a resurgent Labour.
Darryl Matheson, Elgin, Moray, UK
I don't give a damn what happens as long as this shower of incompetent War mongers and wastrels are thrown out on their ears.
Michael J Rigby, Blackburn, England
Your friend wasn’t being too bright. She might have paused to consider why Gordon Brown wasn’t bothering to engage their sympathies. It has to be because he isn’t keen to be prime minister and is concerned to make that clear, because he is fully capable of taking an interest in such an undemanding subject. Obviously there are people connected with the progress of political careers who are more important to Mr Brown than voters. Alternatively, she could have paused to reflect that if he had been so successful as chancellor with this charm gap, why should he not be just as successful as prime minister. Or is the prime ministerial position substantially a charade demanding good acting skills? Whatever the outcome of this present debaaate on personalities, at the next election it will be either Tory, Labour, or LibDem for all but a tiny, misguided minority, whoever is leading.
Henry Percy, London, UK
This is a great article. I always love Matthew Parris's way of giving out a lot of information combined with a sprinkling of personal feelings and sentiments. The're always guaranteed to make youl smile a little, think a bit , and generally give you the impression that you've learned something new in an enjoyable way.
Margie, Frankfurt,
Peter Thompson believes that only a "fraction" of Scotland's tax contribution is returned to that country. A recent study has shown that only approx 160,000 Scots actually pay more in tax than they receive in benefits of one form or another from the rest of the taxpayers of the UK. By all means go your own way - but Scotland will still be hooked on handouts long after the oil has dried up - where then will you get your freebies?
Steve, St Albans, Herts
You're quite right, Matthew, Gordon Brown won't do! To call him shifty is an insult to shify people; I've never heard him do anything with a question except to talk at great length and great tedium about something else.
Yes, Gordon Brown won't do, and I'm sure Blair knows it. I'm sure he knows that if the General Public get a really good look at Brown before the next election, then it's curtains to government.
The really big assumption is that Blair really will go this year. Why do we think he will? Because he said so? Yes, we can readily believe that pretty straight kinda guy, can't we? I think we can look forward to him reneging any time soon. You heard it first here!
Dave Mangnall, Wilmslow, UK
"John Major was a decent man.." ????
This was the Prime minister who told us to go "back to basics" (which I assumed to be morals) and was having an affair with Edwina Curry.
Major...Decent ??? Stop please.
Steve Byrne, Ft Lauderdale, Florida / USA
Brown will not get the majority of pensioners votes we feel he has betrayed us not least by bringing in means testing we saved long and hard through good times and bad only to be penalised I would not vote for Brown under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
Sydney Hobson, Leeds, England
Mathew Parris is a gem, the political commentator's equivalent to the Michael Pallin's geographical adventures dialogues.
I love them both with the same passion as I detest the rivalling political parties.
Robbie Rohan, Great Chart, kent, UK
jj in Cambrideshire - I would not be so sure of your assumtpion Scottish Labour appears to be on the ropes, opinion polls are indicating an SNP majority in Folyrood and the fib/dems are already making noises that says they will join a coalition with the SNP.
The difference is that in Scotland this time round the tipping point against Labour and for the SNP has been reached.
Labour are campaigning on a negative basis - the SNP are actually talking about Scotland and the growing wishes of the people for a future free of the Westminster dependancy culture which sees only a fraction of Scotland's taxation contribution returned to Scotland. Read the McCrone Report if you do not believe me.
Peter Thomson, KIRKCUDBRIGHT, Scotland
Whatever the colour of the party that wins the next election, it will fail miserably over both climate change (which depends on the people delivering a massive change in their lifestyle) and the Olympics (which depends on David Brent clones delivering a magnificent spectacle).
Any ambitious politician under 45 may well be hoping that his party loses it.
Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK
"It's the economy, stupid"
Brown cannot rely on the last ten years of economic management as his entitlement to office.
Forget Balir's legacy - what's Brown's right now? A housing market that simply defies belief, emaciated manufacturing, doctors and nurses without jobs due to public spending squeeze, high taxes, declining disposable incomes, etc.
This is what will ensure he is out of office sooner than he thinks.
MarkS, Leeds,
Absolutely fascinating stuff. Best article I've read for a while.
Jimininy, London,
You forget easily, MING told the lib-dems the '5 point agreement' that was made with Brown 'on the Train back to Scotland', in that the 'coalition' aka LIB-LAB pact for perpetual 'conservative' opposition is already in place.
So Matthew -dream on & all at Westminister (excepting yourself), know it!
ps times editorial, what does Matthew do at westminsiter (sic) all week
M A Patel, Dewsbury, England
With Brown as Prime Minister (and he'll still be Chancellor in practice if not in name, which ever mug he persuades to front that office), labour will be wide open any time he opens his mouth on a domestic issue. He will have to confront his lack of democratic legitimacy. The sound bites will need some work, "Education, education, education! Er, except in my own constituency...."
He'll make John Major look very, very good. Labour will be pining for the days it had Blair to kick around.
But Matthew - did you HAVE to let the cat out of the bag? Now there's an outside chance they may do something about it.
Peter Dunford, Bournemouth,
This is just a lazy piece of writing dressed up as a serious political commentary. It is nothing more that gossip on Mr Brown's personality traits. More like breakfast television commentary on the sofa! The majority of the voting electorate will vote as they do in most elections on economic issues. Personalities do not win or lose elections in the UK. Any reasonable knowledge of British election history would demonstrate this. I think it has been said before. " It's THE ECONOMY stupid! "
Marcus Walsh, london, UK
It is still all about the economy - silly.
With the UK's economy becoming even more excessively over-borrowed by the day, time is rapidly running out for Gordon Brown to remain in the top slot to succeed Tony Blair.
To hurry things along, it is really a question of what dirt can be dug-up by Brown so that he can go around to No.10 and say....Tony on your bike.
Blair's Achilles heal is still those WMD that even now 4-years on have never been found.
The man most likely to be able to help Gordon in this is probably the MP who was Labour's war-whip 4 years ago.
AS a quaker, Tony Blair must have given him assurances about those WMD before he would muster his MPs into the Lobby?
The strange thing, as demonstrated this week in the Trident vote, is that the Tory Party needed to keep well clear of asking the obvious about WMD.
a realist, Brisrol, UK
If the SNP in Scotland, or if any party than Labour get in for the UK, the odds are stacked that the English will gain their own parliament anyhow....... in which case the Labour Party will be the best part of irrelevant as a contender for leadership to the 50M people in England. The irony is so sweet that their keynote policies of 97 will finish their party for the foreseeable future in England.
Andy Iddon, London, SE4 1EA
If you think you are better off than you were 10 years ago then vote for Brown. Tell the truth now. I am considerably worse off and I absolutely despair for my children's future in this country. They are having a really bad time. Think carefully now before you put your x in the box and be honest.
The alternative to Brown makes me want to run screaming to the nearest river to throw myself in! Champion of single parents and minority groups Alan Johnson?...... I don't think so. Barmy " there is a a beauty and a simplicity" in carbon credit cards Milliband, (I'll have some of what he's on)....I don't think so. Gordon Brown himself? He has been very careful to manipulate the electorate through back breaking taxation and run away and keep his head down. Very clever. As I said at the start think carefully before you place your x.
judy, liverpool, england
History has an uncanny knack of repeating itself. Could it be that Gordon Brown will win the next election and then lose by a landslide at the following election in 2013 - 2014 having made a complete mess of the country and the Labour party. The situation is not entirely the same. John Major was a decent man who, to his political cost, didn't understand that running the country well is not a requirement for a Prime Minister. I am sure Gordon Brown knows that.
Richard Evans, Huntingdon, UK
If Gordon agreed with Tony over the Chianti years ago that the Labour Party was less electable with him at the helm, why would he or anyone think that had changed?
John Bowman, Sarlat, France
Stop given Labour ideas, Matthew! The country needs Labour to lose. It needs it desperately for so many reasons. New Labour is poisoning Britain in all departments, whether education, crime, immigration, transport, the NHS. Our civil liberties are being trashed. Will we soon have CCTV at home? Well, if it saves the life of one child! Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! Gordon Brown's Waterloo will arrive when the Battle of the Leaders is televised. Ming will come across as a nice old gentleman who has no hope of winning the election. Dave Cameron will seem totally on the ball on every issue. And Gordon Brown will just look sullen, repeat parrot-fashion his mantras, and the public will write him off, long before the programme has ended.
So, Matthew, please! Encourage the Labour Party to accept and support Gordon every step of the way, right up to the point where it disappears, rightly, into many years of oblivion and the name Tony Blair is but a skidmark in the underpants of history.
Mike Mitchell, Spalding, Police State
Of course, Labour is a tax and spend party th emore so sinc epublic-sector unions hold the strings (look at the Warwick Agreement).
However, why should the electorate rate Cameron more than Brown. We know women do because the boy David is more attractive than grumpy Brown. However.
There are 4 issues that govern elections
Crime and Immigration - Tories have opted out of this as they wish to be the 'nice' party now
Education - no movement there
Health - no movement there. Could be done better (hardly could be done worse) but this and the rest of the public sector employs so many people that it would be like turkeys voting for Xmas.
Economy - the electorate do not understand economics and as long as they can pay the mortgage it all plays as good.
So unless people struggle with their mortgage (unlikley) Brown will win.
eddie reader, birmingham, uk
I said it when it three years ago and will always say it, especially from a female point of view: Gordon Brown will make a really bad prime minister and has not a hope of winning the next election because he has no charisma, no personality which our appeals to 51% of the population, he cares very little for people and, judging by the way he has behaved while waiting for his 'crown', he lacks leadership and empathy. If he is really smart he will leave a name for himself as the the Greatest Labour Chancellor that ever lived, or something like that, and leave the leadership of the party to others more capable, because the day he takes over as prime minister is the day Labour begins its downfall.
Elaine Sihera, Maidenhead, United Kingdom
He has steered the economy for the last 10 years - whether rightly or wrongly - experience does count in his favor . He will probably state to the electorate , what he did in 97 and agree to keep to his own fiscal policy for two years post election as leader, to allow the transition to Prime Minister occur naturally without large ambitious statements regarding his own policies, and after two years give the electorate a choice by calling an General Election, to get a true mandate for the next 5 years.
Adam Jarvis, Carmarthenshire, UK
I am an ex labour supporter aged 54 and cannot bring myself to vote for the tories . So the only alternatives for me are the lib dems or the greens, i am anti war, anti nuclear weapons and for a fairer society , and they are both unlikely
to form a government in my lifetime. So what should someone like me do? Not vote ? It took mew a long time to see through Blair but now that the penny has dropped I cannot wait to see the back of him and his failed policies and unjust wars with ill-advised support for Bush. My fear is that brown only represents more of the same and that I just cannot stomach. david cameron is as much of a Tory put up job as ever Blair was and we all know that the Tories are still full of arrogant right wingers who will lean anyway to get power back before showing their true colours.
WILLIAM BEEBY, dover, england
Brown is guaranteed the top job for the next seven years.
The Boundary Commission for England can only advise government to keep the parliamentary constituency boundaries fairly reflecting the geographical balance of population. It is a fact that in a General Election if the current boundaries remain unchanged, Labour would have a 60 seat advantage over the Conservatives even if they polled the same percentage of the vote. Will Labour allow all the appropriate changes before the next election to let the voters' voice be heard fairly? Would turkeys in the UK vote for Christmas?
And remember that Scotland will give about 50 Westminster seats to Labour (just arguing past trends). Seven years of Gordon Brown seems a certainty at this point. - and holding a working Labour majority.
jj, Cambridgeshire, UK
Very good analysis Mathew,
I am with you, & I am sure , pink pigs will fly over 10 Downing st , before Gordon Brown wins a general election.
He has always struck me as shifty , he just has an aura [ which sounds far too glamorous for this man ] of is hiding something personal , about himself.
Maggie Millington, Brittany, France
Gordon Brown would make a great undertaker, such is his dour depressive demenour he really makes my tummy gurgle with bilious juices every time I watch and listen to him but then when a Miilaband talks I fall asleep so no improvment there.
He also frightens me with his arrogant belief in himself on a par with Nigel Lawson and this from a man the "Judge Jefferies" for taxing who sold our gold reserves losing the country billions of pounds and he is rated an intellectual giant of formidable intellect? That very statement triggers alarms in me to steer well clear of this sad man of yesteryear.
phinias gribble, Sheffield,
Mathew, excellent - you have said what a large number of Labour voters think and are now dreading. This deal of passing the leadership of the country to Brown will blow up in their faces and place them in opposition for some considerable time. But what of the alternatives? Yes if they wish to compete with the Conservative leadership they will need to find talent and ability, and a leader not completely tainted by the Blair years, but from where? Those who may fit the frame are lying low, faced with the prospect of political perda if they face up to Brown, and the leadership of the Labour party is marching it's MPs into the political wilderness again. There will be many Labour back benchers looking through the situations vacant soon, with only themselves to blame!
Al Lockwood, Lincolshire, UK
I hate myself for saying this, but Tony was very smart to announce his departure prematurely; he gave Gordon enough rope to hang himself before the election and allowed the other contenders time to emerge from Gordon's glowering shadow.
Yes, Jack's the long shot. And viewed from the grandstand, he's so dull you can't see him behind the front-runners.
And fundamentally, Labour don't want a charismatic leader. They're happier with a Foot or a Benn or even a Prescott - all ideologs with lttle regard for practical politics.
Nev, Rudkøbing, Denmark
Matthew – it’s no good thinking that Miliband, Johnson or Hutton are going to run. Miliband may make it in 10 years, but he struggled over a few sick turkeys. Johnson caved in pathetically to the public sector unions, and would be completely out of his depth at the top. Hutton is one of the most competent Ministers in the Cabinet, but who has ever heard of him – he’s not even updated his own web site in 6 months (“latest news” 29 August 2006), so you wonder if he’s heard of himself. Charles Clarke is now a figure of fun, and John Reid blew it at the start of his time at the Home Office by being far too noisy. There’s only one person who could put up a serious challenge to Gordon Brown – Jack Straw. He’s competent and experienced. He’s not associated with wasteful tax and spend, uncontrolled immigration, or the demonising of the middle class. And is there any other member of the Cabinet that voters actually know and like? Straw is 50-1 ... think I'll back him.
David W, Aldershot,
Brilliant, as usual. Paris flags up a very serious point here. Will Labour, post Blair and Brown, slide back into its old ways and return to being the country's premier pressure group? As he says, the Trident vote suggest it still might. And in the constituencies are NuLab candidates still being selected, or is it quietly sliding backwards to old Labour?
Perhaps, MP can re-visit this in future.
H Holloway, London,