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Brown And Desperate
Does anyone out there fervently believe that Chancellor Gordon Brown is going to lead Britain to the promised land when he becomes prime minister? Apart from Brown himself, surely the Guardian's Polly Toynbee is alone in belief. It's ironic really, as Toynbee is one of the media's most ferocious critics of religious belief, yet her case for Brown rests on little else but witchdoctery.
She talks of Brown's "reputation and authority" and how embittered Blairites in the party plan to undermine them - yet no-one has done more to destroy Brown's reputation with the British public than the Chancellor himself, who allowed his lackeys to launch a coup against the PM.
She complains of how "they" want to keep Brown on the Blairite "straight and narrow", preventing him from "shaping his own style and agenda" - but for the past five years, Brown's agenda has been filled with little else but plotting and scheming against Blair.
As for his style, well, this is where things get strange. Toynbee spends much of her column attacking home secretary John Reid, whose tough-guy speech to the Labour conference yesterday appalled her. Reid attacked Muslim nutjobs who declare that parts of Britain are "no-go" for police and government; he criticised the "human rights" industry which puts the rights of foreign terror suspects above those of British citizens; indeed, the ex-Communist Scots bruiser gloated how his policies on crime and immigration were a damn sight tougher than those of Tory softie David Cameron.
Reid is emerging as a possible contender to Brown's succession: He's more popular with the public than the Chancellor, and he knows it.
Toynbee is outraged by this. She points to a pollster's trick used on the BBC's Newsnight show, in which voters were shown videos of speeches delivered by Labour figures. Reid, who was represented by a populist attack on terrorists, scored highly: Brown, by contrast, received fewer votes, not least because the poll organisers had selected a lacklustre and hesitant speech to represent the chancellor.
But to combat this egregious use of opinion poll spin, Toynbee turns to... another pollster. Seemingly without irony, she picks one who seems to support Gordon Brown 100 percent. This pollster obligingly tells her how Reid is seen as aggressive, old, Scots and bald (well, Brown isn't bald, but he's proved how aggressive he is at least when it comes to seizing power, he's as Scottish as cold porridge on a drizzly February morning and as for age, there is a massive four years between the two.
"Labour's navel-gazing must weary voters beyond endurance. Is this a party almost willing itself to fail?" she asks. No: It's just that some in the party are sensitive to what the public would like, rather than what Brown and his cronies are demanding. And the public doesn't want a Brown coronation - it wants to see what else the party has to offer.
Moreover, last month's attempted coup showed an ugly side to a man already suspected of being dour and difficult.
The collapse in Brown's popularity, and its attendant dangers for Labour's chances in the next election, are down to Brown, his circle of co-conspirators, and no-one else.
