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What to do about Gordon - Part One

Michael Crick | 20:29 UK time, Friday, 5 September 2008

Despite the frosty response to Charles Clarke's intervention this week, 'What do we do about Gordon?' has often exercised the minds of many Labour MPs over the last 12 months.

The options for the future of the Brown government broadly break down into four categories: Brown muddles on, Brown radically changes his style of government; Brown is successfully challenged, Brown resigns of his own accord.

Until recently, I thought the fourth option - resignation - was very unlikely. Prime Ministers are not like ordinary mortals.

If you or I found that large numbers of people were publicly saying we were doing a bad job, then many of us would get the message and step down, or move onto something easier.

But the kind of people who become PM, who have spent their lives seeking power, are not the sort to let go very easily. They hold on amidst the stormiest conditions, and it's very difficult to dislodge them.

But a few days ago someone who's been advising David Miliband convinced me that it's not wholly implausible that Gordon Brown might be an exception to this rule, and suggested circumstances in which Brown might just call it a day.

The theory stemmed from Gordon Brown's famous Macavity tendency - the way in which in the past, whenever there was trouble, he would often disappear from the public eye.

If Labour was heading for a disastrous result in the next election, would Brown be able to face the possibility of a humiliating campaign? Instead, my source suggested, might not Brown step down just before the election, avoid the ridicule and misery, and allow someone else perhaps to carry out a damage limitation exercise. Put that way, it did seem a possibility.

Another scenario would be for Brown to step down because of illness. Indeed three other Prime Ministers since the war - Churchill, Eden and Macmillan - have resigned on the grounds of ill health, though they all lived for many years afterwards.

Gordon Brown, however, appears to be in pretty good condition, especially since losing a lot of weight over the summer. Unlike Tony Blair, who had slight heart difficulties, Brown is not known to have any health problems, and it's hard to believe that in the modern world he could get away with feigning illness without it being discovered.

Over the next few weeks I'll explore the other three options.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Michael,

    Are you sure you have 'the next few weeks'?

    It seems to me that it would only take one more misfortune - a bad conference performance for example - to force the issue.

  • Comment number 2.

    SYSTEM PATH PRODUCT

    While agonising over Gordon, will any of them consider how such a narrow personality with tell-tale mannerisms and fingernails, was progressed upward, ultimately to acquire a position he can never fill? Will they realise that if Gordon was thought best, it does not say much for them!

  • Comment number 3.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 4.

    DEMANDEZ A LA FEMME

    Churchill, Eden, Macmillan - what part did the wife play? Gordon will depart when Sarah says: "Enough!" A man's a man for a' that.

  • Comment number 5.

    I fear for my country when it is being suggested by a top political insider from our national broadcaster that a credible scenario (avoided only by fear of discovery) is that 'we' limp along (some might argue going further downhill) until our leader pulls a fake sicky to avoid looking silly when arriving at the precipice.

  • Comment number 6.

    JUST OCCASIONALLY . . .

    My thanks to Junkkmale - a helpless laugh, so early (for me) sets one up for the day.
    The phrase: 'to avoid looking silly when arriving at the precipice' is PRICELESS. For everything else, there is unquantifiable debt.

  • Comment number 7.

    its less a leadership problem more a labour party problem. when a party becomes ungovernable then it must fall apart.

    the lefties do not believe an average labour govt is better than a tory govt. With a tory govt they can highlight their policies better. Opposition is a habit and state of mind.

    in the markets, psychologically, people are naturally bulls or bears. These thought patterns come from early childhood and so are deeply ingrained. Bears are driven by fear and bulls by greed.

    As lefties prefer opposition politics they are bears driven by fear. Their policies come from fear of loss which helps explains why the 1930s brought out lots of lefty policies. So they are always in fear and therefore lack confidence.

    The success of New Labour was that it was not lefty ie driven by fear. Blair and mandy are bulls they have no fear over action. The downside of bulls is that they are greedy and so their policies end up in excess like 'hand of history' talk and iraq.

    it maybe be interesting to note that the blair brown was a bull bear balance. While they were together they were undefeatable. Apart they are both losers.

    Brown has no Blair.

  • Comment number 8.

    Book'imDanno said
    "Blair-Brown was a bull bear balance. Whilst together they were undefeatable. Apart they were both losers"
    Do you mean like Morcambe 'n Wise or Little 'n Large?
    I think not; more like 'Off his Hinge' and 'Broken Bracket'.
    Perhaps it's nearer a Bull-s**t pancake, once the worms have finished it turns back to dirt. Shame the general public just need a shepherd to follow like sheep. I say teach the sheep to read and give them more say.
    Time for a totally new political party perhaps, because D.C. is no substute... Lets call it the 'Mandate Party'

  • Comment number 9.

    OR GIVE THEM THE TOOLS (ref. #8)

    JJ's IQ data notwithstanding, I am of the view that FUNDAMENTAL MATURITY (albeit to a different level of competence, dependent on a basket of factors) should be our goal for every child. It should be the soul concern in the years between birth and puberty. A fully mature child, in a world where 'reading' (language skills more broadly) is the key to wider competence, would not fail to read. I have said before that I believe maturity is diminishing; Blair's 'education X 3' as a replacement for 'mother x 1' playing a vital role. Maturity at puberty would equip our young to cope with their newfound imperatives, while preparing for other aspects of life from a position of strength. The talk by Robert Trivers (link from Jaded Jean) is germane.
    He was moved to say: "I fear we will spend our lives always describing, in retrospect, what deceit and self deception JUST DID TO US." I suggest the solution, at least in part, is to nurture maturity in the immature masses, OVER ALL OTHER INPUTS. Maturity is the Swiss Army Knife of human competence. With it we might cut through the deceit - internal and external - before it can undermine reality.

  • Comment number 10.

    Brown is not up to the job and there is a dearth of talent to support him. His fate is in his own hands. He will loose the next election. And he will not be Labour leader after the next election. So oblivion awaits. Gone are the glory days. But what will finance his days post PM? Books? Directorships? MPs salary? The other house?
    If he needs the money he'll hang on as long as possible. What did Major do?

  • Comment number 11.

    #10

    What will finance his post PM days? His pension, that's what. Next year, GB will have been an MP for over 26 years, entitling him to a pension of almost £37,000 per year. Having been Prime Minister (for a paltry 2 years), he gets another £62,000+ added on top. So, his reward for plummeting the country into £billions of debt and then being quite possibly the most useless Prime Minister in history, is a near £100,000 per annum pension. Nice work if you can get it.

    It's just as well really - surely no one would want him as a director for their company?

    It's quite funny how much uproar there was about expenses earlier, when in actual fact, they are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of Parliament wasting public money.

  • Comment number 12.

    "Brown is not known to have any health problems..."
    Some of us have questioned his mental health for a long time.

  • Comment number 13.

    What price Gordon Brown?

    I would not give you a 'whole pooned'! (In the immortal words of John Laurie of Dad's Army fame and a fellow Scot.)

    But I guess he will stay there until the last possible moment - May 2010. It is to none of the possible assassins advantage to do away with him before as they know they will be slitting their own throats!

    He may choose to go - chance (1/100)

    It is the USA economy that has done for him and unfortunately not much to do with him.

    (OK I know he has blotted his copybook here by rigging the statistics to force too low interest rates for the last decade and running an economy based solely on a housing bubble, but, hey nobody's perfect!)

  • Comment number 14.

    Time for Part 2 methinks - while you still have some.

  • Comment number 15.

    He could have himself sectioned under the mental health act before someone else tries it ?

  • Comment number 16.


    Dear
    Stroszekbassit
    If you want read more about M.P.s perks read supperkennet
    on the Molatov Cocktail blog

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