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How long will Gordon Brown last?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

18:15 / 09.05.07

Tony Blair will announce his date of departure on Thursday, after which the ascension of Gordon Brown to leadership of the Labour Party and the Prime Ministership he's coveted for over a decade is assured.

But although not a total disaster Labour's standing in the most recent local elections was poor and the opinion polls have gone against them for a while.

Outside of current affairs and current news Blair has generally come off better than Brown as perceived by others (The Deal, The Trial of Tony Blair, for example), David Cameron has had some success as being seen as bright and new, with fresh ideas (despite an inability to actually articulate what they are, but that didn't hinder New labour and the Third Way either) and Labour are seen as bankrupt of ideas and drive.

Do people think that a Brown premiership is just marking time until the curtain falls on New Labour, or could he do a John Major and win an election or two for himself?

10:59 / 10.05.07

Wasn't John Major's government also a moribund marking of time. He narrowly won an election that but was effectively crippled for much of his first full term.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:20 / 10.05.07

There is the question of whether it's better to win an election decisively, by a small amount or to lose, if you're the leader. For Major the worst outcome was probably to win by a little, because the Conservative Party was an ungovernable mess and he always had to beware fringe elements, like the Eurosceptics. Is this fringe element a natural byproduct of a long time in power or a natural byproduct of Tories? Would a Labour Government with a small majority be likely to go the same way?

13:35 / 10.05.07

I think there might be some sort of Blairite rebellion, if Brown was perceived, as seems likely, to have lost too much ground to the Conservatives in Middle England. But I doubt it would be as extreme as the Tory infighting under Major, mainly because Brown is a much more intimidating figure - if he has problems in his new job, I suspect they'll be first and foremost located in his own head.

At the moment though, it looks as if whoever wins the next election is only going to do it by a small margin, so it's likely to be something of a poisoned chalice, possibly involving a pact with the Lib Dems, and seems too close to call either way.

14:30 / 10.05.07

Hm.

Cameron's popular and Gordon's not particularly popular. I don't think Labour's going to take many more risks after Tony, which was a very risky venture for them. Paid off reasonably well, though, so I think they'll all get behind Gordon. He just *looks* like a stodgy old Stalinist, I have heard tell, and in fact you can't slip a Post-it note between his views and Tony's, but this could be lies of course...

14:45 / 10.05.07

Don't forget that Major ended up with a minortiy government that was propped up by the Ulster Unionist party, now reduced to a single MP. Its successor, the extreme right wing Democratic Unionist party, is not likely to be particularly sympathetic to Brown and if they found themselves as powerbrokers would certainly squeeze him for all they could get.

14:47 / 10.05.07

"He just *looks* like a stodgy old Stalinist, I have heard tell, and in fact you can't slip a Post-it note between his views and Tony's, but this could be lies of course..."

It's not lies, it's exactly true. Check his record. His first act as chancellor was to hand over interest rate control to the undemocratic Bank of England. He was as much part of the creation of new Labour as Blair and, for that matter, Kinnock. If anything, he's likely to prove more authoritarian than Blair, a pretty authoritarian figure to begin with.

Happy Dave Has Left

15:24 / 10.05.07

Ah, just what's required - more authoritarianism. Oh well, at least we're getting rid of Reid.

jentacular dreams

15:38 / 10.05.07

His first act as chancellor was to hand over interest rate control to the undemocratic Bank of England.

Though the government still sets the targets for inflation, so it's not like they have a completely free hand (whilst it is called a bank, I believe that it's functions, powers and limits make it in many ways closer to being a branch of the civil service). And it did seem to work quite well though. Well, except for the last few months.

It also means that there is e.g. no direct political pressure to introduce lower interest rates than might be required to stave off inflation. And of course though the government has largely avoided fiscal regulation of inflation, fiscal effects still take place. Previously if the treasury wished to lower taxes (traditionally a popular move with the majority), they would also have had to make the unpopular move of raising interest rates (ceteris paribus obviously). Now, whilst that same dynamic is still in place, interest rate regulation has essentially been outsourced to an organisation which can make the unpopular moves without the fear of loss of political capital. Do you feel that an elected monetary commitee would have performed better?

All I can say is thank fuck we're losing Reid. For a while there (especially about a year ago) I was getting terrified over the thought of him running for the top job. Terrified.

jentacular dreams

15:39 / 10.05.07

X-post re: Reid.

Happy Dave Has Left

16:00 / 10.05.07

Headmice, I feel your fear. There's a Tory blogger I read called Mr Eugenides who put it very well (warning, he swears a lot):

I've seen guys like Reid before - anyone who's ever drank in a Glasgow boozer has. The rolled sleeves; the fixed, thousand-yard stare; the hair-trigger temper; the barely concealed threat of violence. You leave guys like Reid alone. You don't smile at them as you walk past; you don't try to engage them in conversation; you certainly don't dream of getting served at the bar until they've been poured their refill. And, normally, and as long as you stick to these simple rules, guys like Reid leave you alone. They sit there in the corner with their betting slip, their half and half of heavy and whisky chaser, and as long as you don't bother them, you're fine. Except that this cunt isn't sitting in a Glasgow pub pissing his day away. This cunt's in charge.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

18:55 / 11.05.07

7's in the Continental Fashion Ah, just what's required - more authoritarianism. Oh well, at least we're getting rid of Reid.

Yeah, but whoever gets put in that position immediately swings rightwards to appease News International, Brown could appoint Una Stubbs to that position and she'll be announcing a bill for the beheading of anyone guilty of being foreign by the end of her first week.

Happy Dave Has Left

21:45 / 11.05.07

Hopeful signs.

Telling quote:

Although it was anticipated that most of the costs of the ID cards would be recouped through charges and fees levied on the public and private organisations using the system to verify identity, cancelling the 10-year project would give Mr Brown much needed room to manoeuvre in public finances.

Not the motivations I'd ideally wish them to have when getting rid of this horrifying lame duck of a policy, but it's better than nothing.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:08 / 12.05.07

But Gordon had his own big secret register of people's names, which i think was supposed to be integrated into the ID Card project...

There was a real hope when Labour won the '97 election that all the rightwing stuff they'd been saying and promising would be tossed away for a good old-fashioned Left-wing hoedown, and look where we ended up. Now it's happening again with Gordon Brown and I don't think there's any proof to suggest that he'll be much different to Blair.

14:41 / 13.05.07

Is Cameron popular? Who is Cameron?

14:42 / 13.05.07

There's *no* evidence that brown would be different from Blair. And no evidence to suggest that Cameron would be different from Brown.

17:28 / 13.05.07

Brown will likely last until at least 2010.

01:27 / 14.05.07

It seems as if the next election might be Gordon's to lose.

But, bearing in mind that the cuddly family man (with his 'media friendly' new haircut and smile and refreshing 'no bullshit' attitude and family that he doesn't like to talk about) has recently said 'yes', again, to extending the Trident nuclear programme, might it not be reasonable to assume that he is, in fact, an aggressive, venal kind of a guy? Who is prepared to go that extra mile on the basis that he's acting in everyone's interest, whether they like it or not?

I'd like to be proved wrong, but so far it seems as if Gordon's going to do exactly what he likes (this is the same super-slick politician who failed to successfully oppose the war in Iraq, and the PFI initiatiative in the health service, and the ongoing infringements of civil liberties that he, tiresomely, goes on about in the latest speech,) and that it's a bad thing for somebody like that to be in charge of more than a Cluedo set, really.

That David ('I've spent a night with moslems in Birmingham, and then put it on my website')Cameron would arguably be even worse in the top job should be of no consolation, when the results of the next election, which Gordon could easily win, finally make themselves manifest.

I suppose the best thing to do is to try and make money on betting on who is going to be the King of Britain after the next (proper!) tawdry fiasco.

jentacular dreams

17:10 / 14.05.07

I wonder if Brown could have openly opposed the Iraq war without losing his cabinet position? It would have been a big thing to risk, given that even then he was guaranteed to be the main candidate for the PM job. Even harder maybe *if* he thought he could spend his time at the top fixing TB's mistakes (depending on if/how he sees them).

Sleazenation - are we talking politically or medically?

17:30 / 14.05.07

I wonder if Brown could have openly opposed the Iraq war without losing his cabinet position? It would have been a big thing to risk, given that even then he was guaranteed to be the main candidate for the PM job.

I don't think he could have, no. It would have been all the excuse Blair needed to sack him. However, I don't think there's any real reason to believe that he would have if he could have.

20:38 / 14.05.07

Well, there is a history of Scottish Labour politicians and health problems leading to death in office: Robin Cook, Donald Dewar, John Smith.

But no, Gordon Brown looks set to win the party leadership. Once he is installed as PM I don't seeing him calling an election until he absolutely has to.