Chequers, the country estate reserved for prime ministers past and present, has been a retreat for many an embattled leader.
Tony Blair loves the place and went there when he returned, tanned and refreshed, from his holiday in Barbados. All last week he held court in the Buckinghamshire mansion — a social exclusion summit on Wednesday and “private” chats with Labour backbenchers on Thursday.
He was on good form, limbering up for the last great battle of his political life. Commentators were predicting that he would announce his long-awaited resignation timetable “well in advance” of the Labour conference in Manchester later this month. Left-wing MPs were demanding that he name the day. But the prime minister was not about to cave in.
On Thursday, having confidently hosted yet another drinks party for friendly MPs and aides, Blair told The Times that Labour had to “stop obsessing” about the leadership. He had said that he would not go “on and on” and promised to give “ample time” to his successor to prepare for the next election. So what was the problem? Blair gave his interview holding a mug emblazoned with his birth name Anthony and the legend “You’re a man who’s in charge . . .” Political observers promptly assumed that it was his wife Cherie’s idea.
One Downing Street insider explicitly likened his show of defiance to the refusal of David Cameron, the Tory leader, a year ago to answer questions about drugs use.
“Blair sees it like that; Cameron could have crumbled but he took the questions and the speculation on the chin and was all the stronger for that,” said the insider.
There is an element of ritual about this macho posturing, which has been part of the pre-conference pantomime since the gilt went off new Labour. However, as Downing Street has widely but unattributably briefed that Blair will go after his 10th anniversary as prime minister next May, the play-acting is over and the knives are poised for real blood.
Blair’s aides have a straightforward excuse for not naming the day: “If Tony gives a date, then he feels it will be like one of those old- fashioned union negotiations — you offer a 5% pay deal and then everyone asks for more. People will just say: why not go now?” There is more to it than this, however. As ever with Labour, the war is ideological. Blair’s friends say he is fighting to set the agenda for what happens to Labour once he has gone. He fears that under Gordon Brown, his putative successor, the Blairite drive for an “enabling state” — one that hands the public more power over government-funded services — will be abandoned and Labour will revert to the bad habits of the “controlling” state.
What are his chances of success and what will the effects be on Labour? Could Blair really lose the party the next election by refusing to go quietly, as his enemies claim?
LAST Thursday afternoon three senior Blairite ministers — Tessa Jowell, Lord Falconer and Hilary Armstrong — were spotted slipping discreetly into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. MPs were soon wondering what could possibly bring together the social exclusion minister and the secretaries for culture and constitutional affairs — who just happen to be Blair’s most loyal ministers — on the last afternoon of August other than a council of war.
By Friday morning, however, all discretion was forgotten when the prime minister’s friends and enemies declared open war in the wake of his show of defiance.
While Brown stayed silent — knowing that the assassin never wins the crown — his friends plunged in. Among the first was Andrew Smith, the hardcore Brownite former pensions minister who put a picture of the chancellor, rather than Blair, on his general election leaflets. He said unequivocally: “The debilitating uncertainty over the leadership can’t go on. It’s bad for the country, bad for the government, bad for the Labour party and ultimately bad for Tony Blair himself.”
Tony Woodley, head of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, pulled no punches either, saying: “We’ve got confusion, we’ve got disillusionment and we’ve got dissatisfaction within the Labour party and within the country. And that’s the sort of thing we’ve got to remove now.”
Welsh MPs joined in, claiming that Blair could lose the party next May’s elections to the Welsh assembly unless he laid down a departure timetable. Welsh Labour was never exactly a hotbed of Blairism; but ominously for the prime minister, normally loyal Labour MPs were also concerned by his defiance.
Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South, said: “I am a huge supporter of the government and never voted against it. I am new Labour all the way. In fact, I’ve never even abstained in a vote. But I am deeply disappointed by what Tony said. His attitude seems to be, ‘Leave it to me boys and it will all be all right’.
“But I have been door-knocking in my constituency over the summer, and I would hate to repeat some of the profanities I have been hearing about him.
“I don’t see why he can’t set out a timetable for leaving office and, as a friend, I appeal to him to reconsider. He’s got to think of those of us who are going to fight the next election.”
Derek Wyatt, MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, is one of the 100 or so Labour backbenchers in marginal wards, fighting majorities of 1,000 votes or less, who are seriously worried. “I’ll win the next election on a wing and a prayer. Politics for my constituents are personal and they are all telling me to lose Blair,” he said.
Des Turner, MP for Brighton Kemptown, said: “Gordon Brown is the natural successor and, given enough time, I think he could save my seat . . . There is an overall loss of credibility with Tony Blair.”
Charlotte Atkins, MP for Staffordshire Moorlands, agreed: “Labour voters want change in leadership. In marginal seats Gordon will make a huge difference.”
THE implications go beyond personal survival. With a working majority of 69, Labour has to forfeit only 35 seats to lose control of the Commons. There could be a hung parliament under Brown or Cameron — with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power.
Blairite ultras refuse to see Brown as the solution, however. Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, writes in The Sunday Times today: “Electing a new leader is not a political panacea. Replacing Tony Blair will not in itself renew Labour. Renewal means more than changing the guard. It means updating policy and purpose so that it is in tune with the modern world.”
In other words: elect anyone but Brown. From the ultra point of view, any of the potential contenders — John Reid, Alan Johnson, David Miliband or even Hilary Benn — would be preferable.
Even the Blair camp has its tensions and jealousies, however. Blair aides profess annoyance with Milburn and Stephen Byers, the former trade secretary, who have been fighting a guerrilla war against Brown for weeks. (The Brownites call them the “Hezblairites”.) “Tony is actually irritated by these interventions by the likes of Byers and Milburn,” claimed an insider. “He knows that it only feeds Gordon’s anger and those of his allies.”
Blair’s innermost circle — including Alastair Campbell, his former spokesman, and Philip Gould, his pollster — were involved in transition talks with Brown which broke down. Their view is that the ultra outriders have audiences with Blair barely once every couple of months and that their interventions are pointless. It is also the case, however, that Milburn and Byers have a role in articulating policies that Blair would like to leave in place as his legacy when he does resign.
The argument with Brown about Blair’s passions — the size and nature of the state, the purpose of government spending and public services, the importance of the middle-class electorate — have never been resolved. The prime minister does not want to go until this is settled in his favour, insiders say, and he regrets his decision to declare his hand in advance by telling the electorate that he will give up at some point in this parliament.
In his view, his ideas should define policy for the rest of this parliament and beyond. Brown profoundly disagrees. While he has no substantial argument with the prime minister over economic policy, security or defence, he wants sole “ownership” of Labour’s renewal. This does not imply that his policies would come out of the old Labour handbook, simply that they would be his.
Brown has sent out his main outrider Ed Balls, the junior Treasury minister, to fire the opening shots of a campaign to see off Blair’s cheerleaders. In a barely disguised attack on the likes of Byers, who recently called for the abolition of inheritance tax, the minister warned that Labour “mavericks” should not seek to divide the party.
The chancellor himself intends to issue a pre- conference statement of authority, claiming his right to lead the party for the future — and hoping to leave the ultra Blairites and any other challengers smashed in his wake. He will also need to rein in Blair’s critics if he is to avoid an uncontrollable leadership crisis that could cast the succession into uncertainty.
Reports yesterday that Blair may announce his departure date next April — in advance of the Welsh, Scottish and local English elections — were perhaps evidence of an emerging deal with the chancellor that would get the succession back on track.
The imminence of the new era is also evident in the Conservative camp, which is moving into a “second phase” in Cameron’s strategy to win power, according to a Tory insider.
“The gimmick phase is coming to an end. We will be rolling out policy so we are seen as a real alternative,” said a Tory source. “Cameron is not so much a continuation of Blair but a break with Tory tradition — a modern politician at ease with the modern world. The comparison that can be made with Blair is about style, not politics. Politics and delivery with Cameron will be very different.”
LITTLE SOLACE FOR BLAIR IN LATEST POLLS
Tony Blair’s defiance of his critics comes despite his worst opinion poll findings in his 12 years as Labour leader, writes David Smith.
Both party and prime minister are in the doldrums, according to recent polls, with Labour for the first time in a position where it could lose a general election and the Tory ratings creeping closer to securing a Commons majority.
An ICM poll for The Guardian put Labour on 31%, with David Cameron’s Conservatives on 40% and the Liberal Democrats on 22%. If repeated at a general election this would bring a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party.
A year ago, before Cameron became Tory leader, ICM’s findings had Labour on 40% and the Tories 31%.
YouGov, for The Daily Telegraph, in its latest findings put the Conservatives on 38%, Labour on 31% and the Lib Dems on 18%. This too would produce a hung parliament, though with Labour narrowly the largest party. YouGov found a strong majority, 64% to 22%, disapproved of the government’s overall record.
Cameron was ahead of Blair as the people’s choice for prime minister.
The poll also suggested that changing the leader might not do the trick for Labour. By 43% to 36%, a Cameron-led Tory party was seen as preferable to a Gordon Brown-led Labour party.
According to Mori, in The Sunday Times, 49% want Blair to step down immediately, compared with 36% in September last year. Brown, however, is seen as the most capable prime minister by 31% of people, compared with 24% for Cameron.
But Brown would be wise to take nothing for granted. Most of ICM’s detailed findings were bad for the government, including on the economy, usually regarded as its strongest card.
Those polled dismissed, by 52% to 37%, the proposition that Brown had created economic success.
