Earlier this week Gordon Brown returned from vacation and announced that Labour would win the next general election. A much braver, more accurate and more strategic announcement would have been to say that Labour would not win the next election, and would be taking advantage of the next two years to complete its programme and deliver the promises it made in 1997. Simply put, Gordon Brown is pursuing the bankrupt strategy of attempting to win an election that he is certain to lose, rather than using the freedom that this gives to do the unpopular things which his party was elected for in the first place.
Tony Blair (or was it Alistair Campbell) famously said at the 1997 election victory: “The next general election campaign starts tomorrow.” Clearly this strategy worked for him in terms of giving Labour an unprecedented two, and then three terms of office. But it also tied his hands about what he could actually accomplish in the time. As Charles Kennedy pointed out a little later, New Labour had a massive majority, but appeared to have the ambition of a government leading a hung parliament.
People (even people who liked him) criticised Blair for being all spin and no substance. Many thought this was a surface thing, based around the way Campbell controlled the cabinet press office. In fact, it was the very heart of Blair’s approach — to maximise the length of Labour’s administration, at the expense of its depth.
Brown needs to recognise — publicly as well as privately — that the next election is as good as lost. Even if he somehow clings on to power, he will not have the majority which he does now, which, despite the many rebellionnettes, is still sufficient to push through many much needed programmes. In fact, such a strategy is Brown’s only real hope of an outright victory: if he pursues an ambitious and confident programme, he may find that the public turns to be behind him.
So what should Brown be doing? Three things — first, dismantle cumbersome but failed Labour experiments (but keeping, of course, the things which did work). Second, introduce a long-needed simplification and reduction of legislation. New Labour has been creating new crimes as if law was going out of fashion. They need to turn the clock back. Third, complete the reorganisation of the House of Commons and House of Lords which they have been fitfully working on, and abandoning whenever it became difficult, and settle once and for all the question of either regional assemblies or an English parliament.
None of these things are uniquely New Labour’s fault. The public sector is full of the remnants of failed experiments by many governments. Legislation has been increasing for more than fifty years. The reorganisation of the House of Lords has been rumbling on for almost a century. But these would be landmark changes that would potentially leave Gordon Brown better remembered than Tony Blair.
At the time, John Major, who faced the same unwinnable future, was one of Britain’s most derided prime ministers. Today, with the Northern Ireland peace process now complete, and a slew of medals for British Olympians, people are taking another look. Brown resembles Major far more than Blair ever resembled Thatcher. He needs now not merely to resemble, but also to emulate, if he is to be any more than a blip on British history.
Copyright 2008 martinturner.org.uk
