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Leadership elections have many functions: to legitimise a leader, give Party members a choice, and to change direction of march. Ours look calculated to avoid all of them.
The Deputy race is a policy free zone. Everyone is bound by collective responsibility and only John Cruddas proffers new ideas. In the leadership “election” Junior careerist Blairites jump ship to Gordon, claiming a contest will split the Party. The mere threat of a Blairite candidate causes Gordon to nail himself to every shard of Blairism, to head it off and on the left Michael Meacher and John McDonnell struggle for 44 nominations. Even if either gets them a left candidate would expose its prescriptions, however necessary, to ridicule. Everyone will gang up to denounce them. Meanwhile Tony is busily fastening his legacy on the Party. Like concrete boots.
We need a real contest to compel Gordon to differentiate and be himself but Miliband won`t make a futile gesture, John Reid rumbles on, and Charles Clarke parades his indecision, so we won`t know if the coronation is to be disrupted until “Make Up Your Mind” week. Yet since it`s unlikely that anyone will do a Gould we`re well on track to get the worst of all worlds. Our non-elective election could be a fitting for a Blairite straight jacket.
Yet Blairism was only a temporary deviation to win power and show that we could govern and are safe by cosying up to the middle-classes, embracing Thatcherism and diluting everything Labour, from public spending to trade union influence and equality.
It worked but now it`s reached the end of the line. The middle-class alliance fell apart on Iraq. Cooperation with business ends in a clamour about “excessive” taxation and over-regulation. Public services are creaking. In Health we`ve foolishly combined a requirement to balance budgets by reducing provision and staffing with a massive restructuring to create Superhospitals by closing local facilities. Everywhere else tight spending is producing confrontation with the trade unions, serious over-stretch in Defence and impotence in Housing.
Tories can`t attack this or promise change, because their policies are ours. Or vice versa, but they aren`t working for ordinary people. They`re better off, as we tell them at length, but screwed down by the low wages of a service economy (as distinct from a manufacturing one) and by rising council taxes and utility charges. With disposable incomes static, life becomes less bearable for our people, however good for the middle-classes and wonderful for the rich.
Rather than mid-term blues it may, therefore, be a symptom of the failure of Blairism, pointing to a two year diminuendo towards a hung Parliament. In the 2009 election the nation will choose between Gordon Brown, a serious leader of real stature, and David Cameron`s blancmange. It`s bound to prefer Gordon. But that preference will be alloyed by all the grumbles and complaints accumulated in twelve years of power by “time for a change” and by the lack of gratitude which always afflicts Labour. All of which points to Labour as the largest single Party, lacking the majority to govern and build the better society.
Avoiding that needs the change of direction from a contested election to allow Gordon to differentiate himself and be his own man rather than heir apparent. He won`t reject all the legacy but he alone has the stature to boost redistribution, renounce restless interventionism and relax his own self-imposed rules on borrowing and taxation of wealth which keep borrowing and spending low compared to competitor countries. We can`t have the massive housing drive, particularly in public rented housing, we need to ease the crisis and re-power the economy without change.
A serious election contest would involve and energise the Party, give it the choice and influence it feels deprived of and legitimise Gordon. Then with a man trusted by the Party installed we can seize the benefits of the bounce with an early election on a new mandate. By contrast a coronation would be an endorsement of failing Blairite policies with which Party and country are unhappy. It will be accompanied by a vicious press campaign to denigrate Gordon (compounded by disloyal carping from within Labour) which will then allow our enemies to claim that a damaged leader has been foisted on the nation by a Party plot. I want Gordon as leader, but unless we give Party and people the say both desire the change is going to be tainted. |
