Can Brown avoid electoral annihilation?
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Contributing editor
Emily Hohler Jun 12, 2009
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Brown: 'honourable defeat' at best
"Anyone wondering why Labour is so bad at government need only study the party in putsch mode," says Simon Jenkins in The Guardian.
"It is useless." The alleged conspiracy involving the 'rolling resignations' of Hazel Blears, James Purnell, John Hutton and Geoff Hoon was "about as effective as the plot to kill Hitler". Firstly, Gordon Brown had no intention of going and secondly none of his senior colleagues were plausible successors.
The 'rebellion' was "pathetic", agrees Mark Steel in The Independent. The Labour Party is on its knees, yet all it took for Brown to save himself was a few words about finding a vision and a promise he would 'learn to listen'. Next time "he'll promise to learn to crawl and eat solids". In truth, the main reason for Brown's survival is that none of his ministers have a clue what to do in his place; none of them, in all the "billions of hours" of intrigue, "have said a single thing they believe their party should be doing".
Ministers are aware of this "sense of paralysis in the centre", says Rachel Sylvester in The Times; it is part of the reason several resigned. Brown is now trying to prove that his government is "still alive" with a three-part strategy: first, to clean up politics in the wake of the expenses scandal; second, to push forward with economic recovery; and third, to reform public services.
The new domestic policy council will soon produce a 'prospectus for Britain's future'. But the trouble is that Brown is "prone to hyperactivity and initiatives, many of which attract little interest and are not followed through". For example, he has also spoken of electoral reform and a written constitution – both of which are "impossible to introduce this side of an election".
Indeed, the question is whether Brown can implement any aspect of his grand plan, given his "diminishing reserves of money, time and political capital", says George Parker in the FT. On the economic side, most major interventions have already taken place; Brown is now "largely awaiting the results".
Public service reform is overshadowed by "a ballooning fiscal deficit" and "an ambitious democratic overhaul faces fierce pockets of resistance which typically take years to overcome". No wonder some doubt that his plan "will be able to demonstrate anything more than government impotence before the election".
And the strategy as it stands isn't enough in any case. If Brown is to avoid "annihilation" in the general election, he must win back core voters as well as having a clear set of policy goals, says Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. To do that the prime minister and his team have to "make people see Labour as a cause once more". The stakes are high.
Just look at the Conservatives in Canada. Before the election in 1993 they ruled as the majority party; after the election they held just two seats in the House of Commons.
But things don't look that bleak for Labour yet, says Jenkins. "It is not unreasonable for Downing Street to gamble on a return of economic confidence by the start of next year, and not unreasonable to dream of another 'surge' – as in summer 2007 and during the G20 and credit crunch diplomacy earlier this year." Brown is unlikely to win a general election, but he "might sensibly hope for an honourable defeat".
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