Look Back In Langour - Part 94

Lets go back to a time before we had heard the words “ Clunking fist“.Remember how funny that was as Labour continued to “Languish “as they say. When Brown’s Premiership was still a malignant glare in its author’s eye? Yes that’s right I am doing one of the “Look Back In Languor “ ,occasional series and through the Round window today I have the Labour Party just prior to Brown .Talk of Blair became retrospective and the strange phenomenon of the ghost leadership election ( The deputy leadership ) began to hot up.Fevered speculation about what sort of a change Brown would be followed . Some of it is toe curlingly in error but others were almost clairvoyant. I hope the following brings out the position of Brown in three areas .
1 Constraints of Economic Policy
2 His tricky relationship with the political left of the Labour Party
3 The finances of the Party which clearly have delayed calling an election
……
Jeff Randall “Brown’s raid ( of pensions) according to Terry Arthur ,a fellow of the Institurte of actuaries has reduced the value of retirement funds by at least £100 billion and perhaps as much as £150 billion…The clunking fist is guilty of inflicting GBH “

Blair The inside Years BBC Alan Johnson( Then favourite to become Deputy Leader)”He ( Blair) The thing about Tony is that he’s incredibly posh..we had a chat a couple of years ago and I talked about kids . I said I had three by the time I was 20 and he said to me “ So you really are working class. I said “ Tony , yes I am”

Phillip Johnston ( Of the welfare debate at the beginning of the Blair years) “Within a year Mr. Field was out on his ear and Mr. Brown was entrenching the main elements of the welfare system… ..none of Blair’s good intentions have been fulfilled .
“ 80% of benefits £ 64 billion is paid out on a something for nothing basis “
“ Our welfare spending is at generous European levels but manages to produce the same levels of inequality seen in the US where much less in spent on transfers from rich to poor . WE would have been better off employing Robin Hood”

“John Reid fuelled speculation that that he is planning to challenge Gordon brown for the Leadership….” the Labour party will take the decision” he told BBC1`s Sunday AM programme “ And for us to be trying to pre-empt their right , I don`t think would be the courteous or sensible thing to do “………(sigh)


“ Supporters of Hazel Blears claimed that she is now the leading woman candidate for the post…International Development Secretary Mr. Benn hopes to cement his position as the bookies favourite…” ( Mail)

“ Mr. Hain last week suggested City Institutions should hand two thirds of their bonus pool to charity and threatened other solution if they failed to act .Mr. Hain said he was backing Ireland to win next weeks game in Dublin ( Against England)

“ Harman is voters choice to be Deputy “..a U Gov Poll showed her to be the most popular second best was Mr. Benn

Simon Heffer turns his guns in the right direction for once “If you can bear it recall these promises from the 19997 Labour manifesto ,‘Education will be our number one priority ‘. ‘We will help build strong families and strong communities’, ‘We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ oh and if you want a really good laugh…” We will clean up politics”….he concludes “ 700,000 unproductive people have been put on the pubic payroll where they can gratefully vote for Gordon brown in perpetuity. They , Mrs .Blair, the IRA and those for whom the most important thing in life is to be allowed to sodomise 16 year old boys are the only ones I can think of who have done well out of the last ten years “

“….. had their been as much ferocity employed in the war on drugs as the war on tobacco smoking Britain would be cocaine free by now …”…Heffer again

At Mr. Meachers campaign launch- he shed tears for the lack of house building for the less well off in recent years . Mr. Meacher , who in 19999 criticised second home owners for “ Robbing people of a home “ was challenged to admit he owned 11 properties…Mr. Meacher also lost a libel action in 1988 over claims he had overstated his working class roots by referring to his accountant father as a farm Labourer …”

“ Gordon brown now has an 11 strong court of special advisers costing the public more than £1million per year for the first time . Sue Nye Spencer Livermore and Damian Mc Bride , are the top of the round kitchen table “

Hazel Blears “People voted for Tony Blair in huge numbers . They will take a dim view of us if we say in effect that was all rubbish and we’re different now …If we are seen as only being about helping the porr and vulnerable we lose our connection who don’t get or expect much from the state but who want to be government to be supportive of people who want to get on “..

Irwin Stelzer -” David Cameron’s demand that Blair resign, a demand not unrelated to the Tories delusional notion that Gordon will prove a less formidable opponent than Blair…( over the peerages scandal) ………..ouch

Mr. Blair told close colleagues that he fears the Chancellor… will “ slam his foot on the brake “ in an effort to wreck his political legacy. Mr. Blair is being urged by some of his inner circle to “ Call Gordon’s Bluff and stay on until the late Summer and early Autumn”…from Patrick Hennessey ( who is almost always wrong actually )

Ms Blear said ..“this meant keeping on side with the 2,000,000 voters who switched from the Conservatives to the Labour Party in 1997 to win a working majority

Gordon Brown’s drive to slash Whitehall budgets by more than £20 billion was thrown into doubt ..In today’s report the National Audit office reveals hat the Government claims to have already saved £13.3 billion. …..only £3.1 billion of these savings stood up to scrutiny “

A Standard London Survey revealed “ A little less than 23% think the Chancellor will be an improvement on Tony Blair when ,as expected he take over the keys to Downing Street. In competence where Brown scored best 36% went for David Cameron and 30% for Gordon brown. But on “ Likely y to stand up for London’s interests Cameron wins 34% to 11%

Brown plans a cap spending by political Parties ,. Currently Parties are legally allowed to spend only £19.35 million at the general election while spending between Polls are not capped . The loophole has allowed the to pit money into marginal seats ….

AS a result of the cash for honours , the party’s debt is estimated at £27 million and Labour will have to build up a war chest to fight the next election

Frances Maude The Conservative Chairman threw down the gauntlet to Labour today by warning that the Tories will not abandon their demand for strict limits on donations from Unions . Nr Maude said there would be no deal unless labour accepted an across the board cap on all donations …9 Which is where we are still sitting “

Headline `Brown will rely on Unions to escape £40 millions black hole “

Julia Langdon of Blair “He looked a beaten man.. Neil Kinnock said yesterday that it would tale a considerable period of time for the Labour Party to recover from this shambles , but untypical for him- he understated the case…does the prospect of a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown seem any more likely to command public respect ? I think not. The Chancellor may have clean hands in the present criminal investigation but that is not the point . He has been a member of this Government throughout and to a great extent has been involved with Tony Blair in the exercise of a duopoly ………..Harold Wilson famously remarked during a rough patch , “I can tell you whats going on- I`m going on”That is not an option for Tony Blair

Bill Deedes on an early election- Mr. Brown’s soothsayers tell him that although he would probably win an election by a narrow margin a smaller majority , given the present mood of the Labour Party would be perilous .


(Looking a this period of phoney war I realises how important the cash for peerages scandal was and how Blair and Iraq loomed so very much larger. It seems to have been assumed that everyone knew that brown was part of the government and would carry a share of ignominy and noone saw that Brown was going to be miraculously reconceived immaculately)

You Gov Survey ¾ of Labour Party want a proper leadership election but in a contest between Brown Milliband Meacher and McDonnellBrons wins handsomely with 52% of Party members saying they would back him

The New Statesman “ The internal ecology of the Party is changing even before Gordon brown gets to run the show . Itbis not yet a luch to the left but it is loosening its moorings …The expectation that a Brown led government will be more recognisable and traditionally Labour in its outlook than a Blair one , an impression he has allowed to flourish over the years ( At our best when Labour …etc.)

They fear Brown will go left and lose the election. Irwin Stelzer made the contrary and it appears correct prediction
BTW I notice that Irwin Stezer is extraordinarily perceptive not to say oracular when it comes to Brown , are they chums ? In this article he marvellously summarises the choices brown has for his government …just a snippet…

“Brown cannot have it both ways. As the think-tank Civitas points out, a society in which one in three households looks to the state for at least half its income "create[s] beholden voters rather than independent people".
The Chancellor wants British workers and capitalists to become as hard-working and entrepreneurial as the Americans he so admires.
But a dependency culture is a risk-averse culture, and people who surrender 40 per cent of their income when they earn it, and another 17 per cent when they spend it, are not likely to walk that extra mile in pursuit of the 43p they are allowed to keep from every pound they earn.
Brown will, therefore, have to choose between continuing down the high-tax, egalitarian path that might have been appropriate to the Britain he inherited and going for growth.
That growth agenda necessarily will involve replacing redistributionist handouts with greater reliance on rewarding individual effort, and reducing the share of national income claimed by his Government. “

He predicts that Brown will hold down public sector pay rises but warns that they will be paid of in Pensions



Letter to the Telegraph “ Gordon Brown`s belief that support for marriage is an ideological judgement “ reveals him to tbe that most dangerous man , a dogmatist who believes himself to be an idealist

The rfirst week.

The Blair era has sown a deep distrust of sound-bites , stunts and spin: picture Mr,. Cameron with his family provoked reflex hostility ( Frank Luntz on News night)…The group complained they did not know enough about Mr. Brown but they valued the Chancellor`s experience and his ability to get things one Callowness versus gravitas will be Mr. Brown`s preferred battle lines……- Mathew D, Anconna

Now if you look at what brown knows about the economy and what the financial difficulties of the Labour Party are I take this evenings leak in the Standard that the election will be within the years very seriously . In other words it is as quickly as it was possible to make it . Opposition is building within Labour and the Unions will have to be bought off ( with even better pensions in some opaque way I `d guess). With a reduced majority.Brown will have to depart the middle way just when he has himself sdecided that what he was doing before cannot be continued with if he is to avoid ‘apocalypse later’. Every day the nation begins to recall Brown was Part of the “Duopoly “ and the fears of a high tax Labour administration grow.