Comments on: Gordon Brown should probably resign, shouldn’t he?

By: Richard J

Richard J — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:57:08 +0000

It’s yer decline of political power blocs outside the party heirarchy, innit? The collapse of the union power bloc in Labour, and the (literal) death of the Local Conservative Association means that there’s not the career paths for an aspiring politico – the prospect of losing one’s career tends to put a crimper on the independence and rebelliousness that’s cuased most government collapses in the past.

By: ejh

ejh — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:35:09 +0000

Also see the Ruts – “who’s gonna rule when the government falls”.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:59:02 +0000

these incredibly long runs at Government, which just leave everybody pissed off

I was thinking, a bit back, about the Scritt Politti song “The ‘Sweetest Girl’”. There’s a line in there about when the government falls – and it struck me that the last time a government fell or even changed hands was eleven years ago, and the time before that was 29 years ago. This time next year, if Labour make it that far, we’ll be able to look back on 30 years with precisely one change of government (I don’t count Thatcher/Major or Blair/Brown). In the 29 years up to 1981, the government changed hands six times – and of course there had been a seventh the year before.

Something seems to have happened to British politics in the early 80s, something weird and damaging. (Quite possibly something called the SDP, now I come to think of it.)

By: Backword Dave

Backword Dave — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:32:01 +0000

Oh, and I’ve never doubted that Brown would win an election. That’s not the problem. The problem is that without one he doesn’t have a proper mandate. I agree completely that not wanting an election reflects badly on him. My belief in him had been ebbing away (I thought that if he wanted to be PM, for instance, he should have taken at the least the Foreign Office and the Home Office – and learned a lot more – while he waited; and he did seem to lie down and take a lot of flak, like the “psychologically flawed” thing), but it pretty much collapsed when he didn’t.

Rob, you say “they chose not to”. True, but I haven’t counted Blair as a member of the Labour Party for a long long time. I really do think almost anyone else would have done more. Not a lot more, though.

By: Backword Dave

Backword Dave — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:20:15 +0000

Chris, I was confusing two events. I meant Patten of course. Portillo’s defeat sprang to mind for some reason. My bad.

By: Chris Brooke

Chris Brooke — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:06:53 +0000

Oh, I agree, completely. This is the great, great failure of the Labour government. What I said earlier wasn’t meant as exculpatory.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:57:35 +0000

“…having the left party in power for a long time doesnâ€™t really do that much to push politics leftwards across the board”.

It may be that I am displaying political niavety here – and I don’t mean that sarcastically; I may be, since I haven’t really lived through a period of Conservative political effectiveness as an adult before the last year or so – but that line seems to be far too exculpatory towards the left(er) party in question. They had the political capital to spend – a broken Tory party, an economic boom, shiny new leaders etc… – and they chose not to.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:51:18 +0000

The 1992 thesis goes something like this: that a Labour Government elected in 1992 would either have had to devalue the pound almost immediately or would have had whatever economic policy they set out on derailed by something like the same sterling crisis that blew Lamont out of the water in the Autumn. Either outcome would have ended any honeymoon the government enjoyed with voters or press. Had the Tories lost in 1992, Michael Heseltine would have become party leader, and he could have beaten Labour in a 1996 or 1997 election, and weâ€™d have a pro-Europe Tory administration for the better part of the last decade.

This seems pretty unarguable to me – and it’s also worth emphasising that Black Wednesday (or whichever day of the week it occurred on; there’s not much doubt that it would have occurred) would have done far, far more damage to Labour than it did to the Tories.

Which may, given the damage that it did to the Tories, seem like hyperbole – but consider this: throughout the 1980s and early 1990s we were bombarded with Tory propaganda about how Labour weren’t fit to govern because they lacked economic competence. Labour gets in in 1992, and six months later they get clobbered by Black Wednesday. The Tories crow “See? We told you so!”, Labour loses the subsequent election by a landslide, and remains unelectable for (at least) another generation.

That part of the thesis seems all too plausible, and the one about Michael Heseltine isn’t that far-fetched either. But it seems absolutely certain that had Labour won in 1992, they’d have lost the subsequent administration, and the Blair administration would probably never have happened.

By: ejh

ejh — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:45:18 +0000

I always thought that choice resided with the Labour Party.

The Labour Party for quite a long time now has done precisely what it is told.

By: Chris Brooke

Chris Brooke — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:51:20 +0000

Dave & Simon: Had there been a leadership election last year, Brown would have won it, and overwhelmingly. He was very popular on the front and back benches, and among the party’s membership in the country. It’s a shame that there wasn’t a contest, but one of the big reasons that there wasn’t a contest is that nobody apart from fringe figures on the left of the party like McDonnell or Meacher were prepared to stand against him. Sure, a chunk of Brown’s support came from people who had been intimidated into signing his nomination papers, etc. But only a chunk. Brown didn’t want that contest, which is one reason why it didn’t happen, and that reflects badly on him. But there’s no doubt at all that, if it had taken place, he would have won it.

“Serious” in this Blairist lexicon just means right-wing, doesn’t it?