Gordon Brown in 2010
Gordon Brown in 2003
Blair's former adviser Matthew Taylor, who devised the original version said:
Sometimes slogans really do provide a framework for a campaign. Other times, they're just words.
The other difference being, of course, is that in 2003 Labour had a super-salesman. In 2010, they have Gordon Brown.
Interviewed on Channel 4, Gordon Brown said this:
I'm very pleased that Tony Blair will be helping us.
We campaigned as New Labour and then governed as New Labour.
Now having governed as New Labour we're going to campaign as New Labour.
In 2002, when he was in one of his regular anti-Blair moods, he made a little speech to the conference and didn't mention New Labour once.
In 2003 there was a slight improvement. New Labour was mentioned once.
In 2004 New Labour got plenty of mentions, but the party is was in pre-election mode.
The life and times of Gordon Brown.
The BBC’s Iain Watson with his analysis of Brown’s speech:
The event resembled daytime Jerry Springer-style chat show; with an invited audience of "real people" and a few audience "plants" - in this case cabinet members who stood up from the floor, not the stage, and said their piece.
And he is spot on with this:
And by inviting people to take a second look at Labour he was in effect admitting that the party and perhaps even his leadership of it had alienated some natural Labour supporters and had failed to win back many who had defected to the Lib Dems at the last election.
In other words, the reason why Brown shouldn't be leading the Labour party at the election.
Dear Gordon,
Point 1 - Never ever, in any circumstances, tease the voters about the election date. This is the second time you have done this and it’s a big mistake.
Point 2 – Do not say that this is your strongest team. It is not and you know this.
Point 3 – Do not hype an event up when you have nothing new to say.
Point 4 – Avoid using 1997 style New Labour sound bites. The electorate have moved on.
Point 5 – Do not attack members of Cameron’s team. That is for others. You are the Prime Minister.
Point 6 – Do not admit to your own failings. They are well known.
Yours
Events Dear Boy, Events
Sometimes you read a blog post that takes your breath away or you are left wondering whether insanity has set in.
Tim Montgomerie has a post up this morning pleading with Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, to support the Tory cause. Here are a few tasters:
But what about The Mail? Alongside The Guardian it is Britain's most important newspaper. If The Guardian is the newspaper of the ideas class, The Mail is the roar of middle England.
Good grief.
We move on:
In the blue corner you have the party of IDS and marriage. In the red corner you have the party of Ed Balls and political correctness.
Dream on. If we are going to vote for IDS’s ideas, Labour will win by a landslide, even under Gordon Brown.
Just one more:
In the blue corner you have the party with ambitions to cut inheritance tax, corporation tax, family tax and freeze council tax. In the red corner you have the party of 100 tax rises.
The Tory outriders just don’t get it. It will be tax rises all the way whoever wins the election.
Montgomerie needs to ask himself why Cameron hasn't ‘sealed the deal’ with the electorate and put the result beyond doubt.
His post is just pompous piffle.
A few general points. The speculation about the election date, like so much, is all Brown’s fault. It it wasn't for Brown’s reputation for dithering and his pathetic performance in October 2007, the debate wouldn't have reached fever pitch.
He could have have ruled out a March or April date by previously announcing the date for the Budget. But, because Brown, Darling, Balls and Mandelson are not at one over the strategy to tackle the deficit, he has been unable to do this.
We have discussed in a number of posts the different dates that are available and the pros and cons of each one.
Yesterday, Paul Waugh suggested that Brown could go for 22 April, one day before Q1 GDP figures are released, which may see a return to negative growth. That would be a very cynical date to choose.
Today, PoliticalBetting suggests 8 April, the Thursday after Easter when many people are away. Remember, Labour needs a high turnout to stop the Tories winning outright.
Now, we come to the two points that John Rentoul posted last night:
1. The Prime Minister is giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, probably in the first week of March. That would be the first week of the general election campaign if there were a 25 March election.
Indeed, but this easily dealt with. If Brown does call an election for 25 March, he doesn't appear in front of Chilcot. Iraq is not an issue that he wants revisited during the campaign.
2. What reason does the Prime Minister give when he explains to the nation that he wants an election six weeks earlier than expected, and therefore requires most of the country to go to the polls again six weeks later to vote in local elections?
If Brown goes earlier than May, he simply says it is time the country made its choice and he wants a mandate. This becomes less plausible in April, but he will get away with it in March.
What can’t be denied is that there is something going on. First, we had the Piers Morgan interview and now, the campaign launch today. This is not some last minute panic measure to deflect attention from Rawnsley’s book.
Then there was this simple Tweet indicating that Mandelson and Bradshaw had pulled out of an awards ceremony this Sunday.
Brown could shut down all the speculation by stating today that a budget will be held, with the date to be announced next week. He could also add (he doesn't need to see the Queen to say this) that he has no intention of going to the country before May, which leaves open 3 June.
If he does neither, and because of the reasons stated above, the speculation will go on.
For that, he has nobody to blame but himself.
PS. Assuming it is a Thursday, there is a useful guide here (pdf) giving the timetables for the dates when the election could be held.
Before we move on to the events that will dominate the weekend (Labour’s campaign launch, Rawnsleys’s book and Mandelson’s interview with Marr on Sunday), we need to pay some attention to the consequences of James Purnell’s departure.
Daniel Finkelstein is correct when he summed up where this leaves the Labour party:
The departure of James Purnell is a disaster for the centre left. Because he really mattered.
So the disaster is not just that his departure robs them of someone brave and talented who understood the need for Labour to appeal to the centre. It is not simply that he was someone who was a spokesman for a talented group of tough minded liberals in the Labour Party.
It's that there really isn't anyone else who can do what Purnell can do.
As discussed, this leaves David Miliband isolated, a point picked up by Steve Richards:
His departure is a blow to David Miliband, a contemporary who stays behind to fight for the leadership after the election. Miliband worked closely with Purnell when they were advisers to Blair in opposition and in No 10. At a Labour conference fringe meeting a couple of years ago, when there was feverish speculation about a coup against Gordon Brown, I asked Purnell how often he spoke to Miliband. "We speak most days ... sometimes several times," he said with a provocative evasiveness. The coups went nowhere but Miliband has lost an ally in the battles to come.
Mandelson, who appreciates more than most what Purnell’s departure means for the Labour party, had this to say:
He has been a very good member of our party and an excellent minister. But I realise that he is looking to his future and wondering what he wants to spend the rest of life doing, and has opted for a different life. Politics and Parliament will be poorer for that and I regret his decision very much.
After the election (let’s not kid ourselves, Labour is likely to lose) there is a responsibility that sits on Mandelson’s shoulders. He has to ensure that the party elects a leader that carries the Blairite project forward.
David Miliband may not be everyone's choice, but who else is there if the party is going to regain the centre ground?
There was Harold Wilson, with his two props. Not his wife or kids, but the pipe and that flame-thrower of a lighter, used to deflect any troublesome questions that came his way. Also, with walk on parts, were the youthful figures of David Dimbleby, Alan Watkins (still a must read each Sunday) and Anthony Howard.
It’s when we get to the presenters that the programme came into its own. How easy it is to forget the expertise and authority that Alastair Burnett, David Butler and Robert McKenzie and Robin Day brought to such programmes.
As the night unfolded, and when it became apparent that there was going to be a hung parliament, Butler and McKenzie were outstanding . No stone was left unturned as they explained in detail what would happen next. Both were faultless.
If we do find, by an act of fate, that we have voted for a hung parliament in a few weeks time, who will be there to bring similar authority to our TV screens that those four demonstrated all those years ago.
At long last John Rentoul has entered the debate about when the election will be. We will return to this in the morning.
One point that we can sweep away is that Brown will not be announcing the election on Saturday, unless be has convinced HMQ to accompany him to Birmingham. A quick look at the Court Circular reveals that he hasn't visited the Palace over the last week.
A Prime Minister can’t announce an election without asking for a dissolution first.
Brown needs an election campaign more than most. It will give him a good opportunity to learn about the different regions of the country and how they relate to each other:
Talking about congestion on the roads in Northumberland when he appeared on a phone-in programme on Real Radio Northeast, he assured a listener that he knew the area very well.
“I was in the Lake District for my holidays this summer so I saw a great deal of it and my children and my wife enjoyed being in the Lake District very much,” he said.
Jonathan Morrell, the presenter of the programme, replied: “Yeah, although that’s the other side of the country, Prime Minister. I think what Louise is talking about is Northumberland.”
Oh dear.
Interesting, though, how much he keeps pushing his wife and kids.
The worst possible news hit the Labour party like a thunderbolt today with the resignation of James Purnell.
He is a huge loss to the Blairite team who know how to win elections. It leaves David Miliband very isolated, but we should not give up hope that he will succeed Gordon Brown. He is the only viable alternative. Purnell should have been part of The Dream Team.
Anyway, console yourselves. Tune in now and watch a rerun of the February 1974 election. Wilson, a four-times-winner, knew how to it, just as Blair did many years later.
Following the news on the deficit, together with today’s figures showing a slump in retail sales, it looks increasing likely that we will suffer a double-dip recession.
Bearing that in mind, it’s worth turning the clock back to the 1970 election. The parallel is not exact, but worth bearing in mind.
One of the reasons why Labour lost that election was due to a bad set of trade figures that were released just before polling day.
If the election is on 6 May, this will be some two weeks after the Q1 GDP figures are released on 23 April that may well indicate a return to negative worth.
Gordon Brown will be every aware of this little historical fact when be finally decides on the election date.
The saga over the election date continues on its merry way.
Two polls are published overnight, one of which gives some comfort to Gordon Brown:
Angus Reed: CON 40%(+2), LAB 26%(+1), LDEM 18%(-2)
The Sun Daily Tracker: CON 39%(nc), LAB 32%(+2), LDEM 18%(nc).
Mike Smithson makes this comment:
The Cooke algorithm rates the hung parliament probability on a seven point margin at just 1.6%.
Whatever this is seriously good news for Brown Central particularly as it suggests that Labour is heading for a GB vote share that is only four points off the 36.2% that was achieved in 2005.
Now, we move to this report in the Indy, which sets out Brown’s activities for the next few days, before we get to this:
This week, Labour also sent out applications for journalists to gain accreditation for its regular campaign events. However, ministers still maintain that the date had not been decided. "Every time Gordon discusses it, he says no one should be so sure that 6 May is the date. April is still a possibility."
Then up pops a report in the Daily Mail, which correctly asks if Brown will call an election before the Q1 GDP figures are published on 23 April.
Finally, Iain Dale has the news, not confirmed, that Brown will appear before Chilcot on 4th or 5th March, which would rule out a March election.
This brings us back to what The Mole had picked up, that Brown is considering 15 April, although this date does not allow for a budget on 24 March.
If Dale is correct, it probably means that Brown has only just taken the decision to rule out March. As we have discussed, the April date is full of practical difficulties.
The only certainty is that by the middle of next week will know for sure about the March date.
Meanwhile let the speculation continue. It is much more fun than the games a few dozen economists are playing.
Here they come, those economists who can’t make up their minds. Scores of this inconsistent bunch of individuals have signed two letters, published in the FT, saying Brown is right and everything will be alright until 2011.
These latest views come on the back twenty other economists writing to the Sunday Times saying Cameron is right. And that is not all. The debate between Finkelstein and Nelson continues and now Guido Fawkes has joined the party, which gets this quick fire response.
One can only imagine what the Corus workers must be making of all this. We move on.
There is a huge splash in the Times highlighting all the wonderful details on the deficit. It is only when you peel away the outer layers of this onion that things start to get a bit smelly.
Hamish McRae, who writes in a way that us voters can understand, reports that some tinkering with the figures may well be going on:
There is evidence that the authorities are holding back reimbursement for overpaid income tax that would normally be paid now. The reason for this may simply be that they have been flooded with repayment requests and been unable to cope, but it may be that they are deliberately trying to make the borrowing figures look less bad than they are really are. Either way, this makes the figures better now at the cost of making them worse in a couple of months' time.
Naughty stuff, but hardly a shock horror revelation at this sensitive time in the political cycle. Gordon Brown is playing his little games with the odd statistic or two.
Just why is it that Our Dear Leader would wish to see “figures better now” than in two months time?
Could it be something to do with the election date?
You may every well ask.
Robert Fisk, a man who knows a thing or two about the Middle East, had rather a lot to say yesterday about the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh:
Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies.
This morning, the Daily Mail is reporting that MI6 and the Government were both tipped off that there was going to be an ‘overseas operation’ by Mossad:
A member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, said the Foreign Office was also told hours before a Hamas terrorist chief was assassinated in Dubai.
The tip-off did not say who the target would be or even where the hit squad would be in action. But the claim from a credible source that the Government had some prior knowledge of the abuse of UK passports will strengthen calls for ministers to come clean about what they knew and when.
And:
A British security source who met the Mossad agent, and has a track record of providing reliable information, told the Daily Mail:
“This is a serving member of Israeli intelligence. He says the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen.
“There was no British involvement and they didn't know the name of the target. But they were told these people were travelling on UK passports”
This last point, if true, is very significant indeed.
Back to Fisk:
Collusion is a word the Arabs understand. It speaks of the 1956 Suez War, when Britain and France cooperated with Israel to invade Egypt. Both London and Paris denied the plot. They were lying. But for an Arab Gulf country which suspects its former masters (the UK, by name) may have connived in the murder of a visiting Hamas official, this is apparently now too much.
He concludes:
There is much more to come out of this story.
Even if there has been no ministerial complicity, this murder could prove a real headache for Gordon Brown and David Miliband, at a time when they wish to concentrate on domestic matters.
Collusion may be a rather strong word to use at this stage, but Fisk’s article and the Mail's report do need to addressed directly by the Government.
As Fisk says, we have been here before.
As we were discussing yesterday:
There is an uneasy calm about the place. Tactical Brown is up to something that hasn't been leaked or trailed in the newspapers.
And just 24 hours later comes the announcement that Labour’s themes for the general election are to be unveiled this weekend. A little rally has been organised for Saturday in the marginal seat battleground of the West Midlands.
So, what do we have here?
Brown wouldn't go to such be lengths because of a few unkind words that may appear in a book. Other methods are at his disposal if he wishes to defuse that explosion.
The conclusion has to be that he hasn't yet made up his mind about a 25 March poll.
Why would he organise such an event if he already decided on May?
When all about you is falling apart, there is nothing like looking to far away lands to divert attention from the small matters on the home front.
And so it came to pass. Feed a story to the mainstream media that has been hovering in the background for a while.
Jess the Dog has a good take on what is going on in the waters that surround those islands, the ones we had to reach for a map to locate all those years ago.
Thatcher was lucky. She moved with speed, after causing the problem in the first place, and eventually her Ronnie came to the rescue.
It is pure coincidence, of course, that this story should hit the headlines on the same day as the dreadful borrowing figures are announced, but that's politics.
The story has done its job.
How Brown wishes he could do as Thatcher did and save his premiership.
It’s rather too late for that.
Cameron, with a clever swipe at Gordon Brown, is warming himself up for the campaign ahead:
I'm not a great fan of the Piers Morgan format... I'd rather do something a bit more substantial rather than that. Let's see what comes up.
Watch out, Gordon. This man means business.
Even if Brown pulls of that miracle, it would seem nothing will save him:
A journalist recently had lunch with a Cabinet minister, and asked him what would happen if Labour won the election. Once he recovered from the shock, the minister said: "An immediate leadership challenge."
How odd that it was all rather complicated to remove Gordon Brown when it was essential to do so.
The unbearable wait is over. The Sun publishes the first definitive poll since that interview:
CON 39%(+1), LAB 30%(-1), LDEM 18% (-1)
Therefore, we have confirmation that all of Alastair Campbell’s hard work has not done the trick. Labour are stuck at around 30%.
PoliticalBetting looks behind the headline figures:
Putting these shares into the Andy Cooke calculator we get a projection of CON348-359: LAB206-216: LD47-56 commons seats with a 100% probability that there would be a Tory majority.
There is no giving up as far as Brown is concerned. Hillary Benn (poor chap) is sent into bat to highlight Our Dear Leader’s latest dividing line; fox hunting.
This time we won’t have to wait long for an indication as to whether this little wheeze will work. The Sun, as part of the service to its loyal readers, is to produce a daily tracking poll between now and the election.
At the end of the day, Brown is left none the wiser about the decision he has to take this weekend. It will be a high risk strategy to go for a March poll without any positive movement in the polls, but the option is still there.
You can’t rule anything out as far as James Gordon Brown is concerned.
Posts
All Comments
