Opinion - News Analysis   

The unravelling of Gordon Brown

The stunning defeat of Labour’s London Mayor Ken Livingstone at the hands of a Tory lightweight like Boris Johnson pretty much sums up the state of Britain’s ruling party which has been lurching from one crisis to another since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister barely 11 months ago.

London may not set the political weather for the rest of Britain but it is good at reflecting the national mood (mostly by imitating it), and in voting out Mr. Livingstone it did exactly that: followed the fashion set by voters in other parts of the country where local elections were held.

For a huge political figure like Mr. Livingstone, whose legacy is secretly acknowledged even by his critics, to have lost so ignominiously to a man regarded as a bit of a “bumbling buffoon” in his own party is an indication of the depth of anti-Labour public sentiment. His defeat capped the party’s humiliation elsewhere in England and Wales, with its share of the national vote crashing to an all-time low in its worst performance in local elections in 40 years.

There is an ominous echo here of what happened to the Tories under John Major in the 1995 local elections, two years before their historic defeat by a resurgent New Labour. With the Labour vote now at the same level as the Tories’ was before their fall from power in 1997, pundits are asking whether Mr. Brown is approaching the “John Major moment.” Will 2009-10, when the next general elections are due, be for Labour what 1997 was for Tories?

Pollsters say: yes, the Tories are not only on course to winning the next election but on the strength of their current vote (an unprecedented 44 per cent, well beyond their expectations) could expect a landslide victory. No wonder Tory leader David Cameron has hailed it as “big moment” for his party while.

And, in the words of a Guardian editorial, as things stand Mr. Brown is in “great danger of becoming the least successful Labour Prime Minister ever.”

Indeed, Labour has never had it so bad. Even in the worst phase of Tony Blair’s premiership it was in much better shape. And despite the anger over Iraq and criticism that he was out of touch with the public mood, Mr. Blair led it to a third consecutive victory in 2005. Yet, he was forced to quit and Mr. Brown stepped in vowing to revive the party and to “reconnect” with its “core” supporters.

Less than a year later, however, Labour seems even more out of touch, making the much-maligned Blair era look almost like a golden age. Many, both within and outside the party, are now recalling it with a touch of nostalgia. For all his faults, Mr. Blair could at least win elections for the party.

So, what went wrong with Mr Brown? How come a man once hailed as Labour’s “Iron Man” has managed to bring the party and his own reputation to such a pass that he is now widely seen as a liability?

In a sense, Mr. Brown has been the author of his own tragedy — a fact acknowledged even by his own supporters. Things began to go wrong for him in October-November 2007 after the controversy over the famous election-that-never-was. For those who may not have closely followed the story, it is important to recall it because that was the seminal moment when Mr. Brown’s leadership really started to unravel.

Remember, Mr. Brown started off well and the first few weeks of his leadership, especially after the failed Glasgow airport terror attack, were marked by a huge surge in Labour’s poll ratings. This tempted him to toy with the idea of calling an early election to seek a popular mandate for his leadership, and for weeks there was feverish speculation of an “imminent” election. But then, Labour ratings started to wobble with the Tories taking a lead after announcing a series of populist tax proposals. Suddenly, all talk of mid-term elections stopped. And Mr. Brown made the astounding claim that there never were any serious plans for an election. In remarks that voters found insulting, he claimed that poll ratings had nothing to do with his decision and that even if Labour were topping the charts he would not have called an election. Really?

Mr. Brown never quite recovered from that fiasco, and the image of a “dithering” Prime Minister who could also be economical with truth has continued to haunt him. This has been compounded by a series of damaging policy flip-flops and U-turns, not to mention the brazen theft of at least two major Tory plans (raising the threshold for inheritance tax and imposing a tax on rich non-domiciled foreign businessmen) designed to woo middle-class voters. At the same time, he alienated tens of thousands of working class voters by abolishing the lowest tax rate without providing for compensation — provoking widespread public anger and a backbench rebellion, just days before last week’s elections.

There is a sense of drift in the government, and the general perception is that Mr. Brown has lost the plot. Attempts to blame the election debacle simply on the economy or to dismiss it as “mid-term blues” have failed to impress his own loyalists.

In a scathing assessment, one of his closest aides and favourite Ministers, Ed Balls, said: “I don’t think we can dismiss this as [being] simply about a mid-term normal set of problems. I think people are worried about the state of the economy, but on the doorstep they have also been cross with us. They think that their tax bills are going [up], that their fuel prices are going up, that their utility bills are going up, and they want to know that we’re doing more to help them through difficult times and that we are on their side.”

There is already talk of a possible leadership challenge if things do not start to improve over the next six months. Mr. Brown has promised to “listen and lead” — a formulation which commentators have called absurd. And The Times commented that if he “actually listened” to the voters there was only one course open to him: “he would leave.”

Ironically, during a tense Commons exchange just a day before the election Mr. Brown contemptuously dismissed Mr. Cameron as a “shallow salesman.” In the light of the events since then, though, the cap seems to fit Mr. Brown more.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

A bold decision
Lemmings head cliffwards
Mismeasuring inflation
The unravelling of Gordon Brown
Quiet, sweet company
Food security concerns in East Asia
Unrelenting inflation
Blasphemy laws
Sarabjit case
European Islam
RTI in judiciary
Shame or honour?

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu