Wednesday 24 February 2010

Briefing

Wow, the Brown Is A Wanker story keeps running and running, fueled today by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling's, accusation of being briefed against by the PM's office (this basically means that Browns aides - reportedly - spread ill news about him via another official and non-official ('a senior Downing Street official claimed...')  channels).

This seemingly baffling display of disunity would really only surprise those who - understandably, it must be said - don't keep too tight-a tabs on the minutae of British politics, as this has been going on for a long time,  significantly accelerated by Brown's crowning as Labour leader. Let it be said that I don't necessarily think it's because Brown is an arse or anything, but mostly because there's a war a foot in the Labour party and Brown has far more resources at his disposal than the 'Blairites'.

One only needs to look at James Purnell's de facto sacking from front-line political as an example. He was one of the brightest stars of Labours younger members, and now he's even resigned from running at the next election. Rumours of a defection are way off the mark, but It's indicative of the sort of ostracisation that those who end up being briefed against by Downing Street face. Under Blair, there could be no war. Even those (now termed Brownites but at the time just called 'the old left wing nutters') who doubted his socialist credentials couldn't doubt his ability to bring Labour greater electoral gold than any other Labour leader ever. But as soon as he left, the question of the direction became relevant, with no charismatic, election-winning candidate being available. The Millibands too young and inexperienced, ditto Purnell, and Ed Balls, whilst still quite young in terms of politics, is hated by such a large proportion of his own party, its only his mutual symbiotic dialysis of Brown that's keeping him in politics. All the women in the party are useless, and the most talented members are either unknown or Lords, which isnt really a viable option.

Which is why the curious case of Alistair Darling is so interesting. Wanting to avoid the sense that he was transforming the party back to its pre-Clause-4 (the article of the Labour pledge suggesting they try to nationalise basically everything all the time), he installed the inoffensive Alistair as Chancellor instead of Balls, presumably with the hope to change them over later in a reshuffle once the heat died off.

Obviously this never happened. As Alistair has been quoted saying, 'Im still here.' He is, and he's battling Brown quite aggressively in the economy (something for which I think he'll be remembered for when Brown's policy of increasing debt and public spending yet more, not to mention building such high budget deficits even during the high growth years, is historically destroyed as folly).

And now he's basically untouchable. There is no way Brown could ever change such a highly important member of the cabinet this close to the election, especially to one as unpopular as Balls. So, thank god, we have at least one member of the cabinet left who isn't just rubbing Browns shoulders and telling him it'll all be OK whilst trying to avoid having a Coke can or phone thrown at him.

It'll be interesting to see how the Tories face this problem. They have all but united around Cameron, but its an all too familiar story. He's a media savvy, young family man whose moved his party to the centre for the sake of electoral success. If Labour follow the Brownite route after the election, they'll be out I'm the wilderness almost as long as they were last time. So when Cameron either jumps or is pushed, what corner of the Tory party will thrust themselves upon it, a la Brown?

Your thoughts, please!

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