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Wishful Thinking?
Are Gordon Brown's faction overestimating the chancellor's support among members of the parliamentary Labour Party - and the voters?
Robert Harris provides an interesting counterpoint to mainstream leftist thinking in today's Guardian. As the writer of alternative histories like Fatherland and Archangel, not to mention a friend of EU Trade Commissioner and Blair ally Peter Mandelson, Harris is well-placed to examine the other side of the coin.
He looks back to the famous Granita restaurant deal of 1994. Labour leader John Smith was dead, and a succession battle was brewing among hopeful replacements. Youthful, media-friendly and ambitious, Tony Blair was the front-runner. Old Labour stalwart John Prescott represented the party's class war, anti-Thatcher grass roots. And between the two, Gordon Brown, a Scottish associate of Smith's who could impress modernisers with his frugality while keeping the left onside.
At the Granita restaurant - since then, a byword for the intersection of nineties Cool Britannia trendspotting and New Labour intrigue - Blair persuaded his friend to drop his challenge in return for top job in the cabinet, and the promise that when Blair stepped down as PM, Brown would take over.
Brown's supporters - never so vociferous as this week, following three Labour scandals and an expected but still embarrassing thumping at the local elections - claim Blair has yet to satisfy his part of the bargain, stretching out his time in office while the chancellor itches to fulfill his destiny. Moreover, they grumble, much of Blair's success in securing three terms as PM is down to Brown's masterly control of the economy, which has performed much better than the UK's big rivals in the EU.
In 1997 media darling (well, then) Blair won over the swing voters and disillusioned Tories: Gordon got on with the hard work, having sacrificed his rightful crown to the pretender. Surely Blair should have stepped down years ago - and he should make amends immediately by giving the job to the chancellor now?
Well, no. The Labour leadership wasn't a two-horse race, and Brown was far from being Blair's challenger:
"A poll of Labour party members on the weekend before the Granita agreement, showed Blair with 47%, John Prescott with 15%, and Brown trailing a poor third, with 11%. Brown could not command an absolute majority even in his main powerbase of Scottish MPs. He knew he was going to lose, and probably lose badly, and having bitterly resigned himself to the fact, then proceeded to play a poor hand with consummate skill, extracting the enormous concessions that have hobbled Blair's leadership ever since."
According to Harris, Blair would be well within his rights to sack Brown. Indeed, a couple of rumours circulated last year that the PM's patience with his grumbling neighbour was wearing thin. However both men would lose out if the PM were to sack Brown: Few leaders, not least one on his last legs as Blair appears to be, could survive sacking an important cabinet figure. Even though the Labour rebels calling for Blair to go number only around a seventh of the parliamentary party, many more would prefer a smooth handover, rather than a year of infighting followed by Blair's resignation, perhaps provoked by a leadership challenge.
For Brown, banishment to the back benches would hardly make for an ideal base from which to plot his leadership campaign: Falling out with the PM publicly might lead to other Labour MPs demanding a contest to succeed Blair, rather than the coronation the chancellor is thought to prefer. While Brown would likely win any poll among MPs - for now, at least - there might be enough resentment of his undermining of the PM to ensure a strong showing for a challenger. The remaining years of a Labour government under Brown, with perhaps a hundred of his MPs having voted for a rival, would be fraught with even more damaging in-fighting.
Blair and Brown still need each other - and unless Brown forces a "nuclear option" which could damage both men, it looks like we're stuck with them.
Incidentally, does anyone out there think that the Guardian will soon regret throwing its comments pages open to readers' comments? The responses to Harris' essay were predictable, but a sensitive and well-thought out review of United 93 by Mary Riddell was followed by shrill protests of ever-increasing lunacy - including references to sites supporting Holocaust deniers.
