Brown's Downfall

This is a fitting way to close off Brown-out... closing because its basic idea is no longer novel and is widely accepted - namely that Labour's problem is above all Brown, that Brown's problem is his personality, and that Brown's personality is in a state of psychological tension driven by his belief about his moral convictions and the ever-present image of his father, and the reality which is that he a dithering coward, a manipulative bully, and obsessed with short term advantage. Which he seems to always get wrong.

So here is Brown's Downfall (Parental Advisory!) - as he comes to terms with Glasgow East.

Sneering Brown fails to grasp public mood on Davis

Ha ha... but they're not laughing now... (Peter Brookes / Times)

David Davis resigns from parliament to much scoffing from the political cognoscenti and Westminster village. And it is an odd manoeuvre... what is he resigning from given his own party and he were agreed, he has the support of his constituency and that they won the argument if not the vote? All of this has prompted scorn from Westminster circles and its media sirens (eg. this) and raised jaundiced eyebrows at the BBC - see Nick Robinson here and here.

So duly emboldened with air cover from the Westminster scribblers, Brown decides this is one for him, and declares:

"everyone now recognises that this is a stunt that has become a farce and has revealed the deep divisions of the party."

Oh dear... it turns out that smug and out-of-touch Brown misread the public mood, which doesn't at all dislike what Davis has done, however bizarre it may seem in Westminster terms. Brown's confidence in the media buzz was misplaced. So today the Guardian says, Suddenly Labour is not laughing at David Davis,

Gordon Brown thought his luck had changed when the shadow home secretary said he was resigning over 42-day detention. Conservatives, by contrast, thought he had gone mad. Yet to judge from the emails sent by Tory activists, Labour voters and people who had never given a thought to politics, the MP for Haltemprice and Howden may be on to something

Matthew Parris says Davis may strike a chord, and Nick Robinson has to lecture his readers on why they are wrong to register their support for Davis, A divisive Davis in which he gives ten reasons why this will be bad for him and his party, but also admits:

The BBC has been inundated with calls, texts, e-mails and blog comments praising David Davis' decision yesterday and some have questioned why I have suggested it may be a nightmare for the Conservative Party.

Actually, real people don't think like the political class - they are much more instinctive and far less calculating. A man has resigned from something vague on a point of principle and put his job on the line after participating a squalid battle of bribery, manipulation and skulduggery in which things that matter were traded like Cup Final tickets by a bunch of greedy ticket touts. Davis appears like a man emerging from this grotesque orgy on the losing side intending to purge himself and take a cold shower.

Cameron would be better to get behind Davis: show admiration for his courage and conviction , even if he is a little headstrong and join in with the Davis accuses Brown of supreme political cowardice line about Labour's refusal to fight. He can worry about what Davis is really up to later.

Brown of course jumped in when he thought he had the media behind him and could sneer and jeer at David along with the rest of them with impunity. But he overlooked the public disdain in which he is held, and how that can be channelled through a man acting on principle (at least apparently).

EU treaty - errors, lies and conceit

Cowering, lying and contemptuous

With Ireland giving the EU treaty the boot, the British government is now in a very stupid place of its own making... and Brown's lying and obfuscation is a big part of the reason why.

The error... was to have ever to have agreed to put the constitution or treaty to a referendum in the first place. At least to a referendum where the choice is: "agree with the changes in the treaty or carry on as we are?". Compared to what we have now the treaty is mostly tidying up, better accountability to national parliaments and some pooling of sovereignty that will make the EU more effective and mean that Britain can more easily get its way. It's technical, it's dense, it's dull and it is the proper role of parliament to settle such things. Much greater issues than this are dealt with by parliament and without bothering people with a referendum on a question which has implications that are barely possible to comprehend.

The lie... having made the error of promising the public a referendum on something so obtuse (and knowing it would lose), Labour then tried to wriggle off its own hook by pretending that the 'amending treaty' and the constitution rejected by the Dutch and French were totally different, so that the referendum promise no longer applied. Brown was the most barefaced liar of all in this, closely followed by Miliband. The treaty and constitution are very different in form: the treaty is dreadful to read or use because all it does is amend other treaties, whereas the constitution was a clean rewrite. But in substance and effect they are almost the same, save from a few ludicrous symbols of European nationhood (any doubt, see here).

The conceit... is to ignore how strongly people feel about the EU, and to manoeuvre them out of having any say -believing they can't understand such lofty matters of state. The mandate for EU membership was settled in 1975 with a referendum on the Common Market. Things have changed so much now, that mandate has run out. The EU operates as an elite project that simply doesn't comprehend or care what its 450 million public thinks. Just look at the reactions to 'no' votes: Barroso says to ignore it and Brown says Britain to go ahead with ratification . The beauty of a referendum is that ministers and Eurocrats have to get out and make the case and set out a vision for how it will change in the future. But in doing this, they have to present people with a meaningful choice at a referendum, not some impossible-to-understand adjustment to the machinery of government. But Brown has never stood up and made a case for the EU, and his embarrassing late showing at the Lisbon signing shows he has no stomach to make a case one way or the other.

The answer is to have a referendum. But to have it on whether or not to continue with EU membership on the terms of the new treaty (subject to parliamentary approval), or to move to a looser relationship with the EU - like Norway has. People really do need a say, and politicians need to make the case for membership. I think that would be a bold and right move by the government now, which is why it won't happen with the current worn-out, has-been in charge. The right question is 'in or out?' not 'EU with changes or without changes?' The Lib-Dems have been trying to go for something like this, but are so inept they have completely failed to explain themselves to an incredulous public.

Disclosure: I'm a sceptical supporter of the EU. This is not the place for a discussion about what the EU does well, does badly and shouldn't do at all. But I think Blair's European Parliament speech in 2005 was a fair effort at a grown up approach to the EU in a globalising world.

Labour MP in truth-telling shocker

Normally, I'd just put anything from Dianne Abbott in the box marked 'annoying' and ignore it. But she made a splendid, passionate speech (part 1 / part 2) on the 42 day thing. She put the grubby little favour-seeking lobby drones in her own party absolutely to shame. And she told the truth about her leader's motivation:

It is the purest politics. It is about the polls and about positioning. It is about putting the Conservative party in the wrong place on terrorism. I put it to colleagues that we should not play ducks and drakes with our civil liberties in order to get a few months' advantage in the opinion polls.

Worth watching on video:

If Brown's father was alive he would disown him

42 day detention: a dog's breakfast

It does take a special talent to win a vote in parliament and for most commentators to declare it a failure and symptomatic of your weakness. Fancy winning a vote and getting this:

It's not just Gordon Brown who looks like a dead man walking, Labour now looks like a party of zombies.

And that's from Polly Toynbee! (In an excellent rant about the dumb passivity of Labour MPs and their completely groundless auto-reassurance about a turn-around and sticking with Brown). If Polly is saying that about Labour, then they really are deep in the doggie do.

Let's just remind ourselves what Brown says about himself (conference speech 2007)

I believe in British values. My father and my mother taught me about family and the great virtues of hard work, doing your duty and always trying to do the right thing. And I have never forgotten my father telling me to “treat everyone equally with respect”.

I wish Brown Senior was still alive so he could fix his errant son with an austere glare of a Church of Scotland minister and tell him to stop misusing his name. Like in the film Terminator, where robot Arnie comes back from the future and tries to kill the mother of his future enemy before he is born, I wonder if something similar couldn't be achieved by Gordon Brown's father? Only instead of being a brutal cyborg killing machine, he would punish Brown Junior for lying all the time and send him off to train as an accountant instead of going into politics. Then we would have been spared all this.

And then Brown says this about himself in the speech..

Put something back. And by doing so make a difference. And this is my moral compass. This is who I am. I am a conviction politician.

Actually Gordon, most people allow others to decide what sort of a person they are. And most people are deciding you are a useless politician utterly lacking in conviction and a dithering coward guided only by narrow calculations of short-term advantage (which you usually get wrong).

Brown has been completely disgusting on this 42 day thing... here's how I see it.

1. It was pure dog-whistle stuff. Not an ounce of principle, just another ruse to wrong foot Cameron in an unprincipled authoritarian gesture so he could look tough. Not 90 days, but let's just say 42 - a made-up number lacking evidence of need or unequivocal backing from the security services, who almost always err on the side of authoritarianism. It was another of Brown's silly little playground games.

2. It is incredibly inept legislation. A botched together package of constraints and compromises designed only to quell a rebellion, and little to do with designing well-functioning machinery of justice. So the Home Secretary has to approve and say there is expectational terrorist threat, the DPP and police have to prepare a report, and then both houses of parliament must approve. What business is it of parliament and how on earth would it work? Then, when even that wasn't enough, £3,000/day compensation would be available for each day of wrongful detention (undefined) over 28 days. At PMQs Cameron correctly called it:

"draconian and incompetent at the same time" and "ineffective authoritarianism".

Some Labour MPs even managed to take comfort in the incompetence - reasoning that they could support the Bill and save Gordon's neck without compromising civil liberties because it would never work or would be eviscerated in the Lords (not a bad definition of a Toynbee 'zombie' and another reason why parliament should have no say in judicial matters). See this ramble by Austin Mitchell for an example of the 'thinking' of Labour MPs.

3. Sleazy deals have been done to get it through. As usual when in a corner, Brown has opened up the public purse and incinerated political capital in an orgy of pork. The religio-fascist DUP were brought in (aka bought out) to save the day - probably with some deal on abortion, military bases, water rates and positions on select committees. Anne Widdecombe has became a bedfellow (park that vile thought right now!), and dozens of creepy Labour MPs were given mirrors and trinkets in order to sell off civil liberties (knighthoods, safe seats for the son and heir, sanctions against Cuba to be lifted, miners' compensation scheme have all been mentioned)

4. Then lying about it. No Gordon Brown story would be complete without a bout of dishonesty. Conservative blogger Iain Dale points out (Brown's mendacity knows no bounds) the slippery language Brown used to deny a deal with the DUP...

Brown responded by quoting two DUP MPs saying there was no deal. He also said he personally had not done a deal.

To summarise, the Guardian leader was scathing and right (A shaming victory):

The prime minister did not win last night because he convinced parliament of his case, but thanks to backroom deals. It was a forced victory in the worst of circumstances, a law no one wants imposed by a government that wanted to look strong but ended up too weak to accept the obvious.

Fire, flood and plague revisited

Fire, flood, plague: did Brown actually do anything useful?

One mystery is why people ever thought Brown was any good as PM, even during that brief honeymoon. It is widely arguedthat he handled terrorism, floods and foot and mouth well just after taking over... Andrew Rawnsley says.

He had been in Number 10 less than 48 hours when he was faced by a terror attack which was closely followed by floods and an outbreak of foot and mouth. Jon Cruddas, a critic of Mr Brown in other respects, speaks admiringly of how brilliant he was at positioning himself as a sort of 'father of the nation'..

Allow me to take a less charitable view.

1. Terror. We were lucky that the comedy terrorists that had a go at Glasgow Airport were so amateurish that they failed to do any harm, except to themselves. But they did get to the scene loaded with the means to do harm and mounted an attack. Nothing Brown did stopped this or assisted in apprehending them.

2. Flood. Did a single person get less wet because of Gordon Brown? It's hard to show he did anything useful at all, because all these floods are shrouded in a kind of fog of war and dealt with locally. What is much clearer however is the role played by Brown in the long-term underinvestment in flood defences, which as Chancellor he should have known save more in than six times as much in flood damage as they cost to build.

3. Disease. Lucky escape follows unfortunate escape. In this case of foot and mouth virus. Shoddy management at a public sector lab allows the virus into the Surrey countryside. DEFRA had learned some lessons from the multi-billion pound cock-up the last time it happened and swung quickly into action. But we were bloody lucky and the lab went unpunished.

All that happened was that the uncritical media allowed their rhetoric about Brown's stability and solidness to infect their writing about these incidents. All he actually did was look serious and busy, come back early from his holidays and call endless meetings of COBRA - where others could be allowed to take decisions for him. In each case, the response is down to a professional cadre - police, fire brigade, Environment Agency, local government, DEFRA, State Veterinary Service. You can bet that if he had ever had to take a serious decision during any of these three episodes, he'd still be making it now.

The really appalling thing is that the political media, which should know better, bought into this idea that he was a tower of strength and refreshing antidote to Tony Blair and presented this false prospectus back to the public. Now they are saying the opposite.

Right strategy, wrong leader

Andrew Rawnsley says that Gordon Brown's best - and only - bet now is to be bold. That is probably true, given that the 'vacillating coward' strategy doesn't seem to be working too well.

Rawnsley points to two things that don't work - short-termism:

it would mean abandoning the pursuit of short-term advantage, a course that has so consistently and spectacularly backfired on this Prime Minister. Chasing crowd-pleasing headlines got him into terrible trouble over tax. He abolished the 10p band to finance a cut in the basic rate of income tax. This was supposed to stuff the Tories and seduce Middle Britain. For 24 hours of applause, he ended up shooting himself in both feet.

And trying to please everyone:

self-defeating habit of trying to resolve tricky choices and difficult dilemmas by splitting the difference between opposing points of view. He knew that the Eurosceptics didn't like the Lisbon Treaty; he knew other European leaders would be offended if he didn't turn up for the signing ceremony. His attempt to square that circle - flying to Lisbon, but deliberately arriving late - simply irritated the other leaders while provoking the scorn of the anti-Europeans

Same with the Olympic torch and Dalai Lama visit. He just looked feeble and rightly the nation poured a bucket of steaming disdain over him. And now it looks like the same again as Gordon Brown blows a hole in ban on cluster bombs. Try to appease everyone. Please no-one.

Rawnsley's thesis is that Brown can bring about near-total change in his personality by adopting the assumption held by everyone else that he will lose the next election. Thus freed of the imperative to fight (incompetently) for every vote, he would be liberated to be bold and get a few things right.

My thesis is that he simply cannot do this. His weird father-complex drives manic approval-seeking - the tactical calculation, the short-termism and doomed attempts to please everyone are just what he is like. If you want someone with the confidence to accept that Labour will lose and to act accordingly, then get someone else. Rawnsley's ideas are the right strategy for Labour, but Brown is the wrong person to deliver it.

Forget Brown, concentrate on his successor

Jack Straw says Brown leadership speculation is 'nonsense':

"Speculation about the leadership, frankly, is nonsense. He is the best leader that we could possibly have and he will see us through these difficulties,"

If this was right, they really would be in the deepest possible do. In fact, they do have far better leaders to take them into opposition and with less collateral damage in terms of seats. And the leadership candidates don't have to be exceptional to be far better than Brown, so there is a good potential field.

In my view, David Miliband is the man for the longer term. The main question for the Labour party is what is the optimum route and timing for getting Miliband as leader, rather than the best way to dump Brown. Once you see the Brown problem as a detail in succession planning, it all becomes more straightforward.

Danger: coma risk

Bodice-ripping, pot-boiling, page-turner... ?

A comment by 'truth will out' draws attention to a fabulously enjoyable and splenetic review of a book Gordon Brown's speeches. The review by Dominic Hilton for the Social Affairs Unit is here.

Gordon Brown thinks he is doing us a favour. Hence all this stuff at the moment about him being "the right man to lead this country". Who says that about themselves? A man who spends his days involved in "activist politics" and using terms like "mediating structures" when talking about your family.

Characteristics of Brown speeches in my view...

• Long
• Dull
• Hectoring
• Misleading stats
• Re-announcements
• Long on soaring rhetoric
• Usually mentions his father or some other device to suggest he has integrity
  
• Constructed to win applause from his audience and therefore rarely a clear statement of what he believes, if anything
• And most importantly... a very considerable gulf between what he says in speeches and how he acts in practice...

It's a shame Nelson Mandela offered an endorsement for the cover of this tome.
What Mandela says is a reliable guide to what he thinks and how he acts. Brown's speeches are not.

Who are the people that really want Gordon Brown to continue as Labour leader? Matthew Parris thinks it is the Conservative leadership.

To those Labour sympathisers who call for the party to regain its composure and carry its sickly leader through two more years of power, I reply that this is exactly what David Cameron hopes for too.

This is of course right... and it would give the Conservatives the easiest run in to power. They have the upper hand now and labour needs to be a more effective 'opposition'.

Brown cannot recover, because the problem isn't fuel prices, food, credit or whatever he is blaming his misfortunes on this week. It is him and his woeful leadership, and that isn't going to change by much and is as likely to worsen as to improve.

Dalai Lama visit - the results are in...

Did the cunning evasive action of meeting the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace rather than Downing Street eliminate criticism by the Chinese...? Er, no... China rebukes Brown for meeting with Dalai Lama. The Foreign Ministry spokesman offered the usual condemnation:

This is interference in China's internal affairs and also seriously hurts the feelings of the Chinese people

Did the Dalai Lama act graciously and with dignity in the face of Brown's insults and hand wringing? Of course.... (BBC)

For me - no differences. So long as meeting and talk - that is important. I always meet on the level we are human beings

Did Brown look vile and cowardly, and further damage his already hopeless reputation? Indeed... and the stunningly good Peter Brookes, political cartoonist for the Times skewers him absolutely correctly, noting Brown's tendency to talk up the courage of others in his books....

End of New Labour?

Odd man out: which one doesn't understand New Labour's centrist consensus?

Though I am trying to stick to Brown's personality, a brief political comment in the aftermath of his crucifixion in Crewe...

David Cameron correctly says (as reported in The Guardian):

Labour ran the most negative, the most backward-looking, the most xenophobic, the most class-war sort of campaign they could have done and it completely backfired.

For Labour it was the end of being the party of aspiration. It was the end of being the party of opportunity.

But I'm not so sure about this...

It was the end of New Labour here on the streets of Crewe and Nantwich.

It's an audacious claim perhaps too easily made, but I believe the genius of Tony Blair was to create a centrist consensus around aspiration and opportunity, addressing structural causes of inequality, public service reform based on choice and competition between providers, a tougher welfare settlement to encourage self-help, embracing globalisation but tackling its dark side, and a foreign policy based on new alliances and liberal intervention.

That consensus includes Cameron, Blair and Clegg. It just doesn't include Brown, and now Brown's Labour party. Perhaps it now goes by the name of the Third Way or The Progressives or even The Conservatives - but the thing that New Labour created is alive and well, and in safer hands than Gordon Brown's. Cameron, Blair and Clegg are more similar to each other than they are to large swathes of their own core supporters and MPs. They understand that winning is about creating a coalition that goes well beyond your core - a winning leader will occupy the centre of political gravity in the country, not their own party.

Brown doesn't get that. Cameron has just shown he does and is able to win with it. It's not the end of New Labour, it's the beginning of the end for Old Labour, which no longer has the services of Tony Blair to keep them relevant.

And the result is... PANIC!!!

A Conservative majority of 7,860 with a 17.6% swing (BBC). Worse for Labour than its worst expectations, worse than the betting and polls suggested, and some way beyond the 'panic' threshold of 5,624 implied by expert opinion in the PoliticsHome poll (see entry below).

The result is rejection of the puerile local campaigning that insults the intelligence of voters, deep weariness with Labour - but, above all, a great clunking fist banging the table and demanding the dumping of Gordon Brown: failed leader and flawed man.

Panic, relief or joy?

What would be a good, reasonable or terrible result for Labour in the C&N by-election? My reinterpretation of the polling data from PoliticsHome panel of 100 wise people is as follows...

Panic threshold: = defeat by 5,264 or more
Relief threshold: = defeat by no more than 1,224
Joy threshold: = victory by 1,203 or more

The panel data and original questions are here... I took weighted average of the opinions expressed as illustrated in the chart...

Brown: nothing left to offer

Jenni Russell in the Guardian captures the Zeitgeist rather well in the following:

Brown has nothing left to offer as prime minister. He never had any ability to inspire or charm or communicate. His management skills have always been legendary for their absence. His reluctance to trust people outside a tiny circle, or to delegate, has been a continual handicap. His paralysing indecisiveness has become notorious.

To counter so many disadvantages, Brown made great play of having the three most important qualities needed for the job: principle, vision and competence. It's now horribly apparent that he doesn't have enough of any of them.

I can't really see how a leader ever recovers from people thinking these things about him, especially in the case where it is true.

Cowardly equivocator insults him and embarasses us

Listen sunshine, don't get all temporal with us - this is strictly spiritual

More 'Britishness' on display by the Prime Minister as he ducks and slides around the visit of the Dalai Lama attempting appease everyone, but of course pleasing no-one. So the Dalai Lama is to meet the PM but not at Downing Street. The meeting is to be defined as 'spiritual' in character and held at Lambeth Palace.

Erm... isn't this man the leader of a nation under occupation and in exile, with a vibrant world wide campaign showcasing of China's Tibet policy against the backdrop of the world's greatest sporting event? Okay, so let's have a chat about the universal truth and best route to an afterlife in paradise...

This is Brown at his worst - like the moment where he allowed the Olympic torch into Downing Street but refused to hold it. A message of support for all sides, which of course is no message at all - except that the Great Ditherer can't decide. What would the Chinese do? Invade? Stop selling us cheap shoes? As The Telegraph puts it:

Mr Brown has now sought to mitigate any "offence" by holding the meeting not in Downing Street but at Lambeth Palace, on the less than convincing pretext that the Dalai Lama is a "spiritual" leader. Such diplomatic contortions denote an unhealthily subservient relationship with Beijing.

What else do you expect from a man who writes books about courage? He's insulting the Dalai Lama, embarrassing Britain and demonstrating again that he is a coward, and not the courageous moral leader he believes himself to be.

Spot the loser

Which leader has the look of a winner about him?

This guy (right) campaigning in Crewe for a critical by-election

Or the gloomy looking bloke (bottom centre) spending his time in the comforting embrace of the Scottish church and going nowhere near any troublesome by-election?

Stalking horse talk

Danger! Assassins at work - dirty job, but worthwhile

Rumours that Alan Milburn (here) or Charles Clarke (here) are ready to unseat Brown after humiliation at Crewe and Nantwich... The usual response to this is to suggest that turning over the leader and replacing him with someone else unwilling to fight an election would be bad politics and cause an even bigger defeat in 2010. There are a few reasons to reject this argument:

• These guys will do it because it's personal - Clarke and Milburn hate Brown. If they are seeding rumours about a challenge, it is to hurt and humiliate him as much as to stake a claim.
• This is the last roll of the dice for Clarke and Milburn - neither would beat Miliband in 2010 following a Labour defeat.
• It could hardly get any worse than it will continue to be for Brown. It isn't just bad luck - it's the man himself. His economic credentials are destroyed; the relaunch attempts are flat-lining; he faces ridicule and derision; and the path ahead is strewn with elephant traps.
• A period of humility and preparing for opposition with a new leader would limit rather than aggravate the damage.

A couple of weeks ago it was inconceivable, but now the commentariat is debating pros and cons. I would say it is now more likely than not - it depends on the scale of the defeat in Crewe. And the odds on that are shortening with each passing day of the relaunch...

Preaching and smearing

Official Labour by-election campaign material

The vile smearing 'Tory-boy toff' campaign that Labour is using for the Crewe and Nantwich by-election - due on Thursday has attracted harsh criticism from friends an foe alike. John Harris of The Guardian says: The tactics of Crewe expose a truly nasty party: Labour and Bruce 'the brute' Anderson says: Mr Brown will do anything to stay in power.

But I thought it worth contrasting the extraordinary juvenile and loutish tactics (well described in the articles above), with Gordon Brown's supposed moral universe, as set out in his speech to the Church of Scotland.

Brown's makes the usual references to his father, who brought him up ...

.... to believe that the size of your wealth mattered less than the strength of your character; that a life of joy and fulfilment could be lived in the service of others; and that to be tested by adversity is not a fate to be feared but a challenge to be overcome.

Hmm... but doesn't the Tory toff in question come from a family that were self-made through hard work in the shoes business? And didn't they, by adopting dozens of children, live a life of service to others...? But in any case, according to Brown, that isn't what matters...

for me, a life is best measured not by what office or title you hold but by what difference you can make by seeking to do what you judge the right thing, however difficult, and by the causes to which you dedicate your efforts.

So we would judge someone seeking elected office by what they do, not by their status in society?

And so it goes on... a torrent of pious cant, reaching extraordinarily pompous heights...

But in the next fifty years think how much more can be achieved with this new great power at work in our world: the power of people united by conscience, armed with unprecedented means to communicate and mobilise, determined to turn moral values into common action and shared vision into a global reality: to 'undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free'.

(I think he may be talking about the internet at this point...! Main uses: pornography, gambling, copyright theft, organising jihad, exposing him).

This is Brown method acting someone his father would have been proud off. When he is saying all this, I fear he believes it - he is not merely lying, but delusional (see post). The problem is when it comes to the clash with the real world, the party he leads is mounting a vicious, thuggish, dishonest, patronising campaign on anything but the big issues that matter. The contrast is the same contrast that split's Brown's image of himself from the person he really is.

The election that really matters

Belatedly, the results of the Madame Tussauds poll on whether to immortalise Brown in wax... "nah".

Merely lying or scarily delusional?

Matthew Parris produces another sublime offering: Help! Gordon Brown may not be a liar. Parris observes that when Brown has to face up to consequences, he just cannot do it properly. He identifies two major character failings...

What Brown really, really, won’t say is that he has been pressured by anyone else into doing anything he did not want to do in the first place; or that on any central question it is his own judgement that has been wrong.

Pressed, he will allow that circumstances have changed and decisions varied or revisited in light of the new situation. Pressed further he will admit that mistakes “were made” or that “we” made mistakes. Pressed even harder he will even use the “I” word and admit to failures of diplomacy, tact, consultation or explanation. But what he cannot allow is either that he has been pushed around, or that a big decision was wrong at the time he took it.

This gets to the heart of Brown's cognitive dissonance (I commented on how this may end in a mental health emergency in Cracking up?) and Parris draws the similar conclusion that Brown may not be a mere liar, but something far worse (in a PM)... and that is delusional...

I’ll tell you what scares me, and scares (I believe) a wider public who may not always be consciously aware why. It’s not the thought that the Prime Minister may be lying. It’s a more disturbing thought: that he may not. That under the terrible internal pressure created in his own head by a refusal to accept either that his will may be thwarted or his judgement questioned, the PM is having to warp the external world to make it fit.

Brown had tried to make the £2.7 billion tax bribe to get of the 10p tax hook sound as though it was all a good move to stimulate the economy. The trouble is, he may have adjusted the world to believe this and maintain the cognition that he is a sound economic manager and responsible leader. He is fighting with reality, not facing up to it.

Teletubby Brown adopts La-La economics

What a difference 3 months makes!

Liam Halligan points out that Gordon Brown faces economic tragedy as public loses faith. He highlights the racing inflation, astronomical and rising borrowing and an obese state, and wonders why Brown has, or at least had, a reputation for "sound" economic management...

Those of us who follow the public finances closely have known for years that this reputation was built on spin. But as the UK slumps, the whole electorate can now see Brown for what he is - an economic incompetent who has splattered the Government's books with disgraceful amounts of red ink.

This is true - as Chancellor, Brown always wanted to do the easy and applause-grabbing job of increasing spending on things that won him acclaim and assisted his manoeuvring for the top job. But he never liked the Mr Hyde of public spending, which is the tough and alienating business of reforming public services, clamping down on rent-seekers and eye-balling public sector unions. Halligan is both scathing and right...

That's entirely because of Brown - and his indulgent, six-year campaign of public largesse. As Chancellor, he tried to spend his way to Number 10 after 2001, attempting to buy popularity. Brown borrowed, and borrowed big, in a desperate bid to bribe us with our own money.

So Mr Halligan, what do you think of Mr Brown as a leader?

Political leadership is about making decisions which favour some, but annoy others. Brown spends his life avoiding such choices - spending willy-nilly instead, trying to please everyone.

This is la-la land economics - sustained only by borrowing. Such leadership is not only expensive and counter-productive, but also cowardly.

And what do reckon the public might make of all this...

The public feels Brown lacks the guts to make tough decisions. And that - above all else - explains why this Government now has the lowest opinion poll ratings since the 1930s.

But this was the week when the scales fell off - and the electorate lost patience with Brown and his claims to sound economic management.

Quite!

Lead balloon inflated with hot air

Moreland understands the limits of a relaunch when no-one cares what you think any more

Let us consider the shape and effectiveness of the relaunch of Gordon Brown's premiership.... I think there have been five main elements...

Element 1: have a go at 'human'. The ever more awkward Brown sent out to tour TV and radio studios. The problem here is the false belief among his advisers that this will help. But to no-one's surprise it hasn't. The simple reason is that it increases the exposure of Brown to the public, and they do not like what they see - patronising, boring, petulant, evasive etc. Anything but honest, straightforward, likeable, humble or... well, human.

Element 2: free beer for the workers. A quite incredible buy-off of the 10p tax rebellion un-making of a budget with a tax give-away of £2.7 billion financed by borrowing, offered with a lot of transparently fake justification about the economic cycle and stimulus. A budget is supposed to draw together tax, spending, investment, borrowing and be conceived as a whole... but not when you are in a hole, it seems. No-one should trust Labour with the public finances after this - and it's effect will be short term gain in advance of a by-election but longer-term pain as confidence in Brown and his government's reputation for economic competence erodes still further. So in no time he was on the back foot claiming: Tax move a necessity not a political ploy. An argument that leaves us only to debate whether he is Merely lying or scarily delusional.

Element 3: produce the vision. With little interest and even less acclaim, the legislative agenda is set out in a draft Queen's speech. But this is no more than a bunch of bills produced by civil servants, some worthwhile most tinkering, with a top coat of gloss in the form of four themes. But how is 'economic stability' reconciled with the 10p tax bribe and raging inflation? How does 'handing back power to the people' square with the row over the Scottish referendum? And what a shock to find that Gordon Brown favours people achieving their potential and better and more personalised public services (through unstated and ambiguous means).

Element 4: blame and claim. This means blaming everything else other than Gordon Brown for the current mess and claiming that no-one else other than Gordon Brown can see us through it. So Gordon Brown insists I am the right leader to see us through difficult times. Following the absurd ploy of borrowing to pay for a tax cut Simon Heffer is rightly excoriating about this element: This is no time for a spendthrift in No 10.

Mr Brown is as fit to preside over economic recovery as Harold Shipman would be to chair a conference on medical ethics.

Element 5: strut and fret. Brown has continued the approach of making costless and essentially vacuous statements of concern about far-off things he can do nothing about... for example, on Burma: Brown condemns inhuman junta - but proposes nowt to fix it, because it's their responsibility. But some people like this sort of thing, so he does it.

I don't think any of this is working at all.... perhaps for a moment it has impact, and then it can be picked over and comes apart with any analysis or cross-referencing with reality Brown is now like a patient flat-lining with ever larger doses of adrenaline injected into the neck and electric shocks to the heart... Despite the relaunch, he remains on the most-critical list.

Is Gordon Brown hated for honourable reasons?

Former Blair spin-doctor Lance Price writing in the Telegraph informs us that: Gordon Brown doesn't deserve this. Then he spends 1,000 words telling us why he does deserve it...

He argues that the crop of biographies pull their punches:

When Prescott calls Brown ''frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly" that's not the half of it, but he's not telling us anything new.

He's made a lot of enemies:

Gordon Brown has a very long past indeed and it's littered with the bloodied but breathing bodies of those he crossed on his way to the job he wanted rather too much. [...] Many, many others who will probably never write books just recall him being hurtfully rude or dismissive for no good reason. As a result he has very little loyalty in the bank and at times he must wish he'd retained a bit more of it. It would have earned some useful interest.

But isn't that the art of politics? That is, to create a winning alliance or movement, not to run roughshod over your colleagues when you think you have the upper hand. Brown is paying for the way he does politics...

But are there mitigating circumstances?

So we are left with the impression of a man whose bullying and tantrums and sulks and scheming were all designed to secure him a job in which he's now floundering. To be fair once more, he often had good reasons as Chancellor to say no and he made enemies in the interests of the Labour Party as well as his own.

Actually the 'good reasons to be unpopular' theory is incorrect. Had he behaved honourably, and been merely firm and fair, he would have been feared and respected. But he just didn't... because it was all about Gordon. About Gordon's agenda, Gordon's war with Tony, Gordon's war with Tony's cronies, Gordon's publicity stunts and burnishing Gordon's image in the public mind of the supreme politician. That's why he has no friends, not because he ran the economy and public finances rigourously.

Faint hearted friends

Health Secretary Alan Johnson rushes to the aid of his Prime Minister.

"I'm not a great Brown Fan Club leader but I respect him as a really, really decent, good, able politician," he told BBC radio. "Is he perfect? no he's not, nor is anyone else in the world.

"Some people see an opportunity to just put the knife into somebody they dislike."

Translation: I don't like him much and nor does anyone else, so I'm hedging any sign of support or loyalty for now. No-one's perfect, but not everyone expects to be Prime Minister, and he make a good councillor in somewhere like Scotland. If it carries on like this, I'll be wielding the knife at some point soon.

Frank Field reminds us why Brown is so widely loathed... he had endured Brown's

"tempers of indescribable nature. Shouts, rage"

Brown spent much of his 10 years alienating colleagues by his domineering abusive attitude, tinkering and control freakery. One of the reasons for his present struggles is that he has relied so much on his clique - Balls, Alexander etc and these guys are also loathed first by association, but also because they are cut from the same cloth.

Quotes from AFP

Spinning and smearing

It has become clear what listening and learning (TM) will mean in practice...

With Brown incapacitated by fear and panic, the Prince Regent, Ed Balls, has been lowered over the ramparts to speak to the press. And what does he do? He immediately starts spinning, bullying and scheming... having a go at Frank Field for his principled and dogged stance on the 10p tax fiasco.

"I think people took his views [about the 10p tax row] at face value. They thought that to negotiate with him was the right thing to do.

"I think people could look at what he was saying a few weeks ago and believe at that time that his intentions were honourable. As for what he said this morning, I think I leave you to draw your own conclusions from that."

So he isn't honourable and his views can't be taken at face value. Furthermore, he's a loner...

"We have all known Frank for many years, and I think he used to work on his own when he was in opposition. He used to work on his own on the backbenches. I think he used to work on his own when he was a minister as well."

Whatever you think of his ideas, I think it is hard to doubt Frank Field's motives and integrity. What you have here is a prima facie case of the Brown-ite MO. Personal, bullying, vindictive, pompous... Listening, learning, humble, connecting... oh no, they haven't learnt a bloody thing from the Mayday Massacre. This is some sort of Balls regression in which he revisits his halcyon days as sleazy spinner-in-chief for Brown.

With friends like these...

ICM poll for Mail on Sunday

Labour voters in Crewe would rather have Cameron

Brown's personality is a liability

Manoeuvring and positioning - Byers

Former minister and self-styled 'Blair outrider' Stephen Byers point at the contrast between what Brown says and what he is...

To be a party of government requires courage and conviction, not tactical manoeuvring and political positioning. Now is the time for the Labour party to demonstrate that the days of easy options and avoiding difficult decisions are over.

Er, when were the days of easy options and how long has Labour been avoiding difficult decisions?

Found out

Astonishing brutality in the news today... For example, Andrew Rawnsley says Gordon Brown's reputation has collapsed on every front.

The power of Brand Brown during his successful early months in Downing Street was to be seen as competent, straightforward and decisive. [...]

This was essential to Labour's hopes of winning the next general election - the idea that Mr Brown was perceived as a tough and capable leader who could be relied on to see Britain through difficult times. That was the core of the Brown leadership offer. And it is here that he has suffered the most catastrophic implosion of his public reputation. If you are a Labour MP, you have to be frightened by the high number of voters who now pick indecisive, ineffective and weak as the words to describe the Prime Minister.

This all comes from a 5000-person poll at politicshome suggesting Brown's personal; ratings are about the lowest ever. The poll shows that 'utter failure' of the relaunch and shows that Brown's popularity has declined since he toured TV studios...

...Attempting to do human, he has told voters that he 'feels your pain'. The public are not responding with empathy for his plight, but with an even bigger urge to inflict pain on their Prime Minister. His personal ratings have actually turned for the worse since he attempted the relaunch of his premiership.

It is not just the depth of this collapse that is stunning. It is the sheer width of it, the comprehensive shattering of his reputation in all the areas that matter to the public.

Rawnsley sums up...

The brutal but inescapable truth revealed by this survey is that the voters do not want to change anything about Gordon Brown. They want to change absolutely everything.

This is the intriguing idea... that Brown's effort to restore his standing only serve to expose his more of his weaknesses to more searching scrutiny, all leading to a pleasing downward spiral of decline and rising tide of contempt. This isn't a change in Brown, it is the process of revealing what has always been there... Gordon Brown has been found out.

Going to the dogs

One of the most dislikeable things about Gordon Brown is the easy slide from pompous declarations of integrity and long-termism into unprincipled political gimmicks designed to appeal to the baser instincts of the public... sometimes known as dog whistles.

Dog whistle 1. the "British jobs for British workers" line, now made real by "Tighter rules for skilled workers" introduced five days after the May Day Massacre and illustrated with this tasteful graphic, which attempts to make a virtue of the Home Office's staggering bureaucratic incompetence - because at least we'll be using it against foreigners.

So... you want to come here, boost our economy and pay a lot of tax???

Businesses should be squealing like mad - why constrain the pool of skilled labour available? What do those skilled migrants that are already here make of this?

Dog whistle 2. Dissolute youth are also easy, so the Home Secretary says: Police should harass young thugs. The idea is that the police:

...should be harassing badly behaved youths by openly filming them and hounding them at home to make their lives as uncomfortable as possible, the home secretary will say today. The crime initiative is part of a government strategy to win back voters by proposing more radical approaches to tackling deep seated problems.

Radical???

Dog whistle 3. You don't hear much about the environment now. Waste charging, fuel duty, congestion charges... forget it. Expect a rolling back of green commitment- as foreseen by Andrew Grice in the Independent.

We might just look back on May Day 2008 as the moment when the power of green politics peaked and went into reverse.

As recently as April 2006, the pious Gordon Brown was saying: The environment must be centre of policy worldwide:

For too long too many governments thought their objectives began and ended with economic prosperity and jobs. But I believe that the world needs a new paradigm that moves the environmental challenge to the centre of policy.

Now we haven't heard that line recently!

Dog whistle 4. I've already blogged about cannabis and how Brown has gone against expert advise for low political reasons. Matthew Parris applauds with cynicism...

So those like me who have no doubt that cannabis should stay in Class C can console ourselves at least with this: that the present Cabinet will never again be able to duck behind a panel of advisers when challenged on an unpopular decision. If they can overrule this most impressive of advisory councils, they can overrule any others.

Dog whistle 5. Tough on terror - 42 days detention without trial. As Charles Clarke said,

This Parliament settled the matter in March 2006 at 28 days

But it's back again only for reasons of hang-tough image and to push opponents into uncomfortable civil liberties positions.

No wonder the dogs are restless. Any others...?

I must work harder

The pundits just don't buy the argument that it is all down to the economy, 10p tax etc... Take Martin Kettle of the Guardian, who says that the denial is so deep that it could "consign Labour to the margins for a century". The problem, he says, is Gordon Brown, the man himself:

The problem is that Brown is Brown. [...] His response is to work harder, like Boxer in Animal Farm. But working harder does not mean working differently, as the clumsy handling of Scotland this week showed.

Brown is set in his ways. His ways are tactical, triangulatory and increasingly old-fashioned. He remains fixated on the Daily Mail. His response to Frank Field's campaign about the effects of his tax changes on the poor was classic old politics: first he vehemently denied it; then he sent out his nasties to try to take his critics down; then, I am told, he tried to buy Field off - twice - with a government job. Only when that failed did he then concede, extremely grudgingly, that he had got anything wrong.

These were not the responses of a man who understands change. His preposterous 20-hour days - the Sarah Brown profile in the June issue of Vogue reveals that he is often still working at 4am - will become 22-hour days and at some point, he believes, the voters will realise that he is right.

The theory proposed on this blog is that Brown's personal failings mean that his response to adverse political developments will tend to be inept and counter-productive - including being tactical, pitching dog whistling measures, dire TV appearances and, of course working harder. Working harder, to the point of a mental health crisis for himself and complete exasperation and alienation of those who he counts on to deliver but bullies and harasses. As his situation worsens, so the responses become more desperate and the crisis deepens. This terrible amplifying feedback of negativity is now building to an ear-splitting crescendo. Commentators that only recently dismissed the replacement of Brown as unrealistic are now moving from seeing this as possible, then likely, and now on to essential.

The end for Brown is close. The May 1 relaunch has failed. The decline continues and gathers pace. Chaos and spinning over Scotland. 10p tax thing is not fixed. His 42-day detention gambit, a political manoeuvre from the start, will backfire. The airwaves are jammed with critics and plotters in his own party. The by-election looms.

Control everything but control nothing

Philip Stephens in the FT sees it all ending in tears: A wounded Brown limps towards an unhappy ending. I was drawn to the comment on the governing style...

With the odd exception, Mr Brown's cabinet was chosen to be unthreatening rather than effective. It shows. Officials speak of a chronic indecisiveness in 10 Downing Street; and of a desire to control everything that leaves the prime minister controlling very little.

On the subject of indecisiveness, what happened to the launch of the policy packages that were initially spun for release "24 hours after the local elections" then for Tuesday 6th May....? Does the relaunch need a relaunch?

The agony of Gordon Brown

26 points adrift: welcome to Gordon Brown's world of pain
YouGov provides the worst poll of all time for Labour

But luckily, the The Economist is on hand to explain The agony of Gordon Brown ... After acknowledging that some of his troubles are down to factors beyond his control, the top-person's weekly comes closest yet to an accurate diagnosis of Gordon Brown's failings:

It isn't all his fault [...] But Mr Brown is responsible for most of what has gone wrong for him.

And what are things that have contributed to his dramatic slide?

Mr Brown's character does not help. His new job requires a set of traits —ruthlessness, boldness, a malleable charisma, decisiveness—that might not be attractive in a friend but are necessary in a leader. His leadership defects were especially exposed during the hinge of his premiership thus far: the weeks last autumn when he considered holding a general election. The game-playing exposed Mr Brown's efforts to appear ecumenical—the great Tory-hater taking tea with Lady Thatcher, for instance—as so much cynical manipulation. Worst of all was his behaviour after he pulled back. He first comically denied that opinion polls had affected his decision, then over-hastily emulated a crowd-pleasing Tory tax proposal, leaving an enduring impression of intellectual surrender.

And this leads to something that Labour MPs ought to consider very carefully - the way his failure is feeding on itself, nourished by Brown's own ham-fisted efforts to restore his standing...

That sorry episode unleashed another near-unstoppable political force: momentum. All political news is now interpreted through the refractive lens of Mr Brown's failings. His few good ideas go unrecognised; unrelated mishaps congeal into a narrative of defeat.

And Brown does not deserve and should not expect mercy at the hands of his colleagues:

Mr Brown can scarcely complain about disloyalty, for he helped to inculcate a taste for plots and mutinies during his long march to Downing Street. But would his removal improve things?

The Economist answers this question 'not yet'... too much 'undemocratic chaos', chance for him to turn it around, no credible alternative with better ideas, Tories may slip etc. But the case made about Brown's character and his downward spiral would point to the opposite conclusion.

Warning: these drugs may cause you to spin

Now that's better...! Chill-out time at No 10...

At last a good headline for the PM... and in the Daily Mail no less, the paper that matters most in No 10. But the problem is this headline itself is the goal of Brown's cannabis policy, not doing the right thing about drugs.

The right thing being to accept the carefully weighed advice of experts in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Or at least to provide a reasoned argument to the contrary, not to reject it on the day of publication. Of course, challenging 'tough' drugs policy in parliament is almost impossible... which is why courage, conviction and leadership is needed. And in this case woefully absent.

In fact, the Brown approach is cost-free in political terms and allows him to look tough on drugs, though mostly by wilfully misunderstanding the way drugs work in society.

• Criminal justice interventions are the wrong way to deal with public health problems - they don't work and never have.
  
• No user in their right mind calibrates their view of the harm of a drug from it's legal classification, not least because this is an area politicians use to posture - again if you want to inform people, it's a public health intervention.
• 'Skunk' is a scare story - users control their intake of the active ingredient. In any case, what logic says that higher penalties are justified for more dangerous self-harming drugs? Surely, penalties should be related to the harm done to others?
  
• A 'B' classification hits users with a hugely disproportionate penalty (for what? who else is harmed?). Over 4 million people use cannabis in the UK, the vast majority with no significant harm. And the reclassification only clobbers users - dealers were always dealt with harshly.
  

All these points in some form or other are there in the evidence base, but evidence and doing the right thing for the long term are not what an embattled Gordon Brown is after. He wants good headlines in the Mail and he wants to stride around parliament strike unchallengeable postures.

I don't doubt this manoeuvre works politically, but please can we have less of the pious Brown cant about how he is a serious individual doing the right thing for the long term?

Update 9 May: Politicshome releases a poll of 'insider' opinion which shows: Cannabis: good politics, bad law, ugly science

To wax or not to wax?

Demos would approve: everyday democracy in action

Wax museum Madame Tussauds has decided its test for immortality-in-wax is not being merely Prime Minister but the political achievement of winning a general election. Instead of rushing to boil and cast, the venerable institution...

“...chose to wait for a General Election to confirm Gordon Brown’s status. Ten months later there is still no sign that Mr Brown intends to go to the polls – so Madame Tussauds is holding its own election to let YOU decide the question: Gordon Brown – in or out?”

The voting is open to 13th May, and voting is here.

All this reminds me that Gordon is rather shy of elections:

• He settled his role in New labour over dinner at Granita and declined to face up to Blair, then spent 10 years imagining that he had been robbed
  
• He avoided a straight leadership challenge to Blair despite endlessly destabilising him, notably in 2006
  
• There was no election to be party leader and PM - just a lot of intimidation of potential opponents and their potential supporters, followed by a North Korean-style coronation
  
• There was no general election in Autumn 2007, though Brown was clearly in on the idea, then bottled, then blamed everyone else for letting speculation run too long
  
• There will be no general election until the last minute

Contests away from his safe seat are tough for Brown... he doesn't have the charm or empathy to connect with any electorate...

Object of ridicule

With news that 55% of Labour voters want Gordon Brown to resign “to make way for a younger, fresher, more charismatic alternative” (and in response to a somewhat loaded question), the papers refuse to buy the argument that it's all down to economic hard times, and insist that Brown's personality and leadership is a major issue.

The Indy asks: Has the real Gordon Brown been replaced by a robot? The Telegraph parodies Gordon Brown's listening tour of Britain, remarking that he will have learnt:

Above all, he has heard that the British people need to keep their personal items with them at all times. The Prime Minister understands this. He sees that is not just a question of keeping personal items with you when leaving the train, but also as a long-term aspiration.

And loyalist Michael White of the Guardian points out that the PM is haemorrhaging authority as Brown gets another political soaking, as Wendy Alexander declares UDI in Scotland and Charles Clarke piles on the pain (see here), which remarkably White sees as somehow 'loyal'... Haroon Siddique in the Guardian surveys the media landscape and sees it going From bad to worse for Brown.

Once the Prime Minister becomes an object of ridicule to anything approaching this extent, there is virtually nothing that can be done to restore his position. The contempt feeds on itself, fortified by whatever leaden, predictable and calculating moves Brown makes in response. It's a feedback loop, and it's getting worse, not better, as the relaunch proceeds.

Great clunking fist

Only this time, the fist in question belongs to Charles Clarke...

"Make my day, you dithering, blundering loser"

In a new article for 'Progress' (here) Clarke goes off-message and starts to tell the truth about Labour's woes, including the problems with the Prime Minister's leadership style.

[restoring confidence] can only be done by conducting our politics differently, establishing our long-term strategy and eliminating short-term errors. So, first, we have to change the conduct of our politics. We should discard the techniques of ‘triangulation', and ‘dividing lines' with the Conservatives, which lead to the not entirely unjustified charge that we simply follow proposals from the Conservatives or the right-wing media, to minimise differences and remove lines of attack against us. We should finish with ‘dog whistle' language, such as ‘British jobs for British workers', which flatter some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society. We should suspend the black arts of divisive inner-party briefing and bullying which penalise and inhibit debate and discussion about the future.

And the important word in the next paragraph is 'instead'...

Instead we need to be authentic, frank and direct as we answer questions and explain what we are doing; we should respect politics and elected politicians with proper transparent funding arrangements and accountability for what we do; and we should govern openly and confidently on the basis of a programme which properly expresses Labour's values and beliefs

And on Brown's survival prospects Clarke has some messages of his own...

However their predictions [of defeat in 2010] could come true if Labour does not clearly resolve its direction and approach well before this year's party conferences. Everyone in the Labour party and outside will be constantly alert to progress we are making in this respect.

We should start immediately by winning the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. Some seem to have accepted defeat already but I think that we can most certainly hold the seat if we communicate a clear and attractive sense of political purpose

So it needs to be fixed 'well before' the conference and a by-election failure will be a fatal indictment. The implication must be that Clarke will provide the necessary violence if they lose the by-election or are still hopelessly floundering by the summer recess. Clarke also tells Brown to fix the 10p fiasco, stop upsetting everyone over Post-Offices and to abandon the 42 day detention thing... but if doesn't, then what?

Clarke has a speech at Progress on 13th May... [see here]. Kremlinologists are standing by.

It was 'beliefs' wot won it

Brown's attack hamster: people's 'beliefs' are to blame

For an insight into what 'Listening and Leading'(TM) means in real life, and to understand the mindset in the Brown Bunker, listen to Douglas Alexander, probably the most inept member of Gordon Brown's political inner circle and architect of the vanishing election, on BBC Today 5 May... [Real audio here].

There's a couple of beliefs that came together.... Firstly in relation to the economy, people were undoubtedly feeling the pinch whether in terms of housing, fuel or utility bills... The first belief being that the government should be held accountable and responsible for each of these areas ...

The second belief being that all politicians are the same, that there's no difference between them, and therefore you can vote for an alternative simply for change.

So there you have it: 'lecturing and sneering' in action: stupid people don't realise the problems are all inflicted from outside and its not our fault, and that they make irresponsible choices at the ballot box because they don't understand politics.

Interviewer Evan Davies points out there is a lot of talk about visions, but its hard to work out what this vision is. There follows a waffle-fest of banalities from Alexander, that articulates no distinctive vision and is indistinguishable from what all the main parties say they want - fairness, growth etc.

Words without understanding

Unauthorised!
Required reading for Labour MPs deciding
what sort of man they have made their leader
and whether to dump him to save themselves
Available here.

Tom Bower, biographer-without-blessing of Gordon Brown, weighs in on John Pienaar's weekly podcast with analysis of Brown's psychological limitations following the election results [BBC MP3 download].

Can Gordon Brown change?

He uses the words without understanding it. He's set in his ways... He can't understand what's gone wrong, and if you can't understand what's gone wrong, then I don't think you can change.

Can he admit a mistake?

That is of course one of his great weaknesses; he can't. When he admitted the mistake of the 10p (tax change), I think he was told by Stephen Carter, he he's got to once, for the first time ever, admit a mistake. But he doesn't really understand the mistake he made, which is that it was a gimmick at the time when he introduced it and a gimmick when he ended it... and he doesn't see that as a mistake, he sees that as part of politics.

Can he survive?

I'd love to be charitable [!] but I don't think he can ... the cause of their problem goes right back to 1997 and the way Gordon Brown himself set the domestic agenda and the budgets, and undermined so much of what Tony Blair wanted to do in health and education and he's done so much damage with PFI, tax credits and overcomplicating the tax system ... to unravel all his own work is more than he can do in two years, and in any case is beyond his ability. ... having seen what the public view is of him, I think it is pretty impossible.

But what if the economy picks up?

... it's not just the economy, it's that taxes are too high and there's a sense he hasn't delivered on health and education. Also, he doesn't have the cheerfulness that Blair had when things went wrong. It's the demeanour. He just unfortunately lacks leadership qualities.

Will there be a challenge?

I don't think 50 to 100 MPs are going to willingly go to the slaughter without thinking very hard in two or three weeks time whether they don't need a change to save their professional lives. ... Charles Clarke and others will say that the only hope of survival will be to arrive at the party conference in September with a whole new image and if Brown can't provide the relaunch they are going to have to change.

Will he pull it off?

It depends on whether Gordon Brown over the next two or three weeks is able to restore his position. But I think looking back over the last 10 years he hasn't proven himself able to understand his weaknesses and to actually develop.

Bower argues that a decision will have to be made before the summer recess, and that MPs will judge him by the confidence they have in the relaunch, as it pans out over the next 2-3 weeks.

Fox hunting

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said a couple of memorable things in his Sunday interview on the Andrew Marr show...

On Brown's reputation for competence:

Labour are still caught in this mental rut that Gordon Brown was a great Chancellor, they've got economic stability, and if they say it often enough people will believe it.

But the reality for people out there is they've got the highest tax rates for 25 years, the lowest savings ratio for 44 years, the government have stripped more than £50 billion out of the pension funds, Gordon Brown sold our gold at the wrong time in the cycle, we've had the first run on a bank for 150 years.

.... Labour need to understand there is no economic stability out there, there is economic fear out there.

People are seeing real inflation, the start of a slow-down with employment fears, bad news about their main assets (houses), apparent chaos in the City where people feel their other assets (pensions, savings) are stored safely, but are in fact gambled recklessly. Brown repeatedly describes all this as arising from 'problems in America' - as if our institutions are not somehow trading in duff mortgages, leveraged and illiquid financial products or that he has no real control over the economy here. A good critique at: Brown's reign of error...

And Fox on the vision thing:

...the trouble is that the government is a political vacuum. Gordon Brown is a philosophical vacuum, it appears. He's a man who's spent his entire life trying to get to be Prime Minister but doesn't seem to know what he wants to do with it now he's there.

Yes, that is the tragi-comic and pathetic truth about Gordon Brown - power without purpose. Listen to him endlessly going on about the long term things he's doing for the good of the country one is left with the simple question: what are the long term measures that Gordon Brown is taking?

Dead man walking

Peter Brookes in the Times - divinely inspired

How do you listen and learn if no-one wants to talk to you any more...? In the Brown Bunker do they really think people will get busy refloating the sunken ship? I think only shrugs, yawns or mockery will greet offer to listen, learn and lead or whatever it is.

So how might we expect a 'listening and leading (TM)' relaunch to unfold...?

1. Masochism strategy - he will allow himself to be flogged in interviews today and show 'courage' - and that he is being tested as a leader. Blair did this at the 2005 election and it was a qualified success. The problem is that Brown is rubbish under fire, will lose his temper, revert to statistical triple-A and make things worse.


2. A blame-distracting reshuffle - virtually certain because they have been saying there will be no reshuffle. I'd expect only a minor movement - perhaps the humiliation of the feeble Hilary Benn, compromised Des Browne and that ever-willing receptacle for blame, Alistair Darling.


3. An emergency would help - Brown got his best PR when he was endlessly calling COBRA meetings or supposedly dealing well with the 2007 floods (ps. did anyone get less wet because of Brown? It was he that underspent on flood defences for 10 years). So expect a new terrorist threat, the arrival of an African insect that will eat the face off cow... or possibly a trip to one overseas if God can't deliver one in the South of England.
   


4. Stress the long-term - not least because it gives a rationale for poor performance in the short term.. Brown keeps saying he is doing the right long term things for the country - but it's hard to work out what he thinks these are, or whether anyone believes they will work or be good for us if they did...


5. Policy blitz - because we do have ideas... really we do. A blizzard of tough-sounding bills, policy initiatives, reviews... all fouling up and crashing into each other like Day One at Terminal Five. These will serve only to further alienate the public and encourage the Opposition. How can you listen and learn if a few days after your humiliation you come out with a load of new stuff.


6. Start the listening bit - expect an attempt at mass consultation. But are the public and activist base ready to devote their time to helping a 'dead man walking'? Consultation has a cost to the consulted, and they have to think it is worth it.... expect a raspberry in return.


7. Go global - Brown is at ease on things like the 'food price crisis', which have amorphous distant causes that cannot be fixed in the UK or blamed on the government... with issues like this, he can talk the talk ("moral challenge to each of us threatens the political and economic stability of nations"), strut the stage and be visionary... win friends by being the scourge of biofuels, for example. But he can't actually deliver any of it (and has no ideas for what to do about transport emissions instead of biofuels). He's already written to the G-8, produced an article for the No 10 web site and held a summit on the subject. Expect more of this...


8. Go negative - expect to be deafened by barely audible dog-whistles - tough signals on immigration, asylum, police numbers, Europe and its evil works, thugs and alcohol, boot-camps, cannabis reclassification, speed cameras, fuel tax - all in the face of evidence and sound policy to the contrary, but designed to 'reconnect' with England's core values of selfishness, xenophobia and bigotry.

Meanwhile more icebergs in sight - BAE inquiry, a re-rebellion over the 10p thing, the judicial review of the referendum on the EU treaty, detention without trial, PMQs coming up, etc etc

No way back for Labour under Brown

Prior to Labour's dark night of the soul, it was widely held that dumping Gordon Brown before the next election would only make matters worse - a display of crisis and chaos, and a prima facie demonstration of poor judgement on the part of the Labour MPs that orchestrated Brown's coronation 9 months ago - almost all of them.

But now the depth of failure is sinking in, and the seats at risk are becoming apparent, a more subtle calculation is cutting in. Matthew Parris, as ever, leads the cruelty, as he puts it, by coming down from the hills now the battle is over and bayoneting the wounded. He advises the Parliamentary Labour Party:

Give up. With the leader you've got and led as you are, all is lost.

And there follows, the case for regicide:

If it becomes clear to most where the path is leading then one way or another a means may be found to abort the journey. I have no idea who might challenge Mr Brown, or how; but, reasoning backwards from an outcome that many of his tribe must wish for, my instinct is that a way to produce it might be found. Things happen. Where there's a will, there's a bayonet.

From the Guardian, Martin Kettle points out how much further Labour under Brown has sunk since the electorate punished Blair for Iraq and draws a similar conclusion This carnage marks the end of Labour's great revival.

The answer that stares these MPs in the face is that, echoing Cromwell, they should tell him: "In the name of God, go." Brown has not rescued Labour from its post-Iraq decline under Tony Blair. He has made it decisively worse. Those who thought Brown was the answer have been deceived and have deceived themselves.

Kettle doesn't think Labour has the bottle to do it. Actually, I think they will.

Now they realise how far they have fallen, they will have to decide if Brown can lift them, saving their seats, if not the government, or whether he will drag them down further. Yes, there is a 'chaos penalty' to pay for changing leaders, but that might be worth paying if the electorate would be sated by the spectacle of human sacrifice. A different leader has two positive possibilities for the soon to be drowned MP - a new leader is not Gordon Brown, and they are likely to be better at leading the party, have fewer personality disorders and perhaps save a few seats.

Who could do it? Simple: Charles Clarke. He at least had the guts to warn his colleagues about Brown, when the then-Chancellor was busy with his plots and coup attempts against Blair. In an interview in The Telegraph, (Clarke attack on Brown 'the deluded control freak' - Sept 2006 ) Clarke's views were clear and he has been proved correct:

He says the Chancellor has "psychological" issues that he must confront and accuses him of being a "control freak" and "totally uncollegiate".

Mr Brown is also "deluded", he says, to think that Mr Blair can and should anoint him as his successor now.

Raising doubts about whether Mr Brown is prime ministerial material, Mr Clarke asks: "Can a leopard change its spots?"

I doubt the true heir, David Miliband will want the job at this point - while he still has 25 years in him why chose the next two years to start your run at the top? Clarke may may not be the man for the longer term, but a solid run as PM with success in damage-limitation would be a good outcome for Clarke. If he waits for Brown to go in his own time, he won't ever get the job.
But if he is bold and goes for it now... he just might.

What's in a slogan?

"Listening and leading" (TM) is to be the theme of the relaunch in the coming months... How about something more realistic...?
Bleeding and pleading
Listening then leaving
I don't know what I stand for, can you help?

Sorry seems to be the hardest word...

One might have hoped for an incendiary Livingstone losing speech, roundly denouncing New Labour for torpedoing his London bid... but in fact Ken played it rather well, accepting responsibility, even though it wasn't all his, and taking the blame, even though it could be more generously shared. BBC

"There is absolutely nothing that I could have asked from the Labour Party that it didn't throw into this election, from Gordon Brown right the way down to the newest recruit, handing out leaflets on very wet, cold days.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get an extra few points that would take us to victory and the fault for that is solely my own. You can't be mayor for eight years and then if you don't at third term say it was somebody else's fault. I accept that responsibility and I regret that I couldn't take you to victory."

Of course, Ken is a smart guy - that will go down well with his fans and his opponents, and keep his opportunities open in Labour politics. And we can't even discount the idea that he meant it.

But contrast that with the surly Brown response (Brown promises to listen and lead)

“It’s clear to me that this has been a bad night for Labour. We have lessons to learn and then we will move forward. My job is to listen and to lead and that is what I will do.”

Translation: we've been hammered by mystery forces we don't yet understand. I am going to say I will do what all politicians say they will do and have always done without admitting I haven't been doing this for the last 11years. Listening and leading is my new inclusive-sounding slogan, which obliquely recognises the criticism that I was a pig-headed and arrogant over the 10p tax fiasco.

“We face testing economic circumstances with rising fuel and food bills and uncertainty about mortgages and about bank lending.

Translation: it's all down to American investment banks, Brazilian biofuels, and the oil market (ie. anyone but us)

“People want to be assured that the government will steer them through these tough times.

Translation: it isn't really the government's fault for the problems you face, which are product of uncontrollable forces in the world economy, and there's a limit to what we can do - please just grin and bear it while we do our best to save you.

“Over the next few months it will become clear that the decisions that we have made to help people on mortgages, food and fuel bills, and the decisions we made about the future of the economy will see the economy through. We are preparing the economy for the upturn and for prosperity to follow."

Translation: we were right all along and pretty soon it will be you ignorant Tory-voting traitors that will be doing the listening and learning.

At no point does he accept any personal responsibility in direct and candid terms. Even when consoling defeated candidates he can only say "how sad I am" not "how sorry I am". This carefully crafted response to the failure is too slippery and evasive to amount to an honest reconnection with the public. The trouble is they don't quite understand how deeply in the do they are.

May day massacre

Sky news is leading with the headline May Day Massacre ... And it seems to be worse than the worst feared outcome... Here's what politicshome was saying the results would mean before the polls closed.

And here's the BBC's summary of the results...

So if >200 loss is a panic button, what icon would represent a loss of 331? Amazingly, this is a worse performance than the Labour government managed when hated by most of the country for the Iraq adventure. How has Brown, seemingly in a commanding position last summer, managed this astonishing feat of failure? Well, here we believe the electorate has been on a voyage of discovery - discovering Brown the man - and given a vast raspberry.

The question now is how Brown will handle the aftermath - it will not be easy to find the balance between humility and decisiveness, between contrition and confidence, and between policy innovation and an announcement spree. In short, it requires deft leadership. So we can be confident that the decline will continue.

Cutting into Brown

Just remembered this excellent flourish of rhetoric by David Cameron at PM Questions on 23 April

Does that climb-down not tell us all we need to know about this Government?

It is always about politics, not policy.
It is always about calculation, not conviction.
It is always about his self-interest, not the national interest.

Does the Prime Minister think that his reputation can ever recover?

Not only does this conform to many of the 'rules' for inspiring verbal delivery, it is pleasingly apposite and accurate. That gets Brown rather well.

No road back

Steve Richards, a left-ish sort of chap, helps us navigate to the bottom of the Labour abyss in Disastrous night for Labour by pointing out how broken the party is...

More worrying for Labour is that there is no clear route towards rebuilding an election winning coalition of support. Listen to the banalities from ministers today and you can see how they are struggling to cope with the tide that is sweeping over them "We will listen and lead" is the most common mantra.

Having just seen the normally perky James Purnell struggling and humbled on Sky, I think this is right - and it looks like a real crisis of confidence is taking hold of ministers, who no longer know what to say. And Brown himself is looking ever more beaten and unhinged?

Hollow man looks empty

Brown's team is ready with a big consultation and six policy packages for straight after the election - but these will be ideas dredged up from long forgotten reviews and commissions by harassed civil servants [probably from here] and largely borrowed from Blair's ideology, given nothing coherent has replaced it - see Wind generation posting. If he launches them too soon (and he apparently it will be next Tuesday), they'll be lost in a storm of mockery and there'll be yet more comment on how tactical and shallow he is. I'd recommend a month on self-examination and public contrition before a re-launch.

What went wrong...

The Guardian decides the 10p tax debacle has been a big factor in his local election wipe-out - What went wrong for Labour?.

...as he analyses what appears to be the worst set of local election results for Labour since the 1960s, the prime minister may be regretting the sleight of hand he used to fund his surprise headline-grabbing announcement – the abolition of the 10p starting rate of tax.

It was certainly sleight of hand and a politicking gimmick, and it deserves electoral punishment. However, the cause of labour's woes run deeper than that. It arises from a steady a stream of developments that have revealed the ugliness of underlying Brown personality and eviscerated his reputation for economic competence. The trouble for him is that the image of seriousness, long-termism and intellectual strength has failed a reality check. Some ingredients:

• His long war against Blair, dirty tricks with coup attempt - then lying about it
• Initial crude attempt to distance himself from Americans followed by fawning attempt to make up whilst being over-shadowed by the Pope
  
• Posing with soldiers in Iraq during the Tory conference
• Dithering over 2007 election that never was
• Saying we should wait for his vision then failing to produce one
  
• Lost data fiascos
• Unclear approach to public service reform, choice, competition, markets in public services - is he continuing the Blair approach or not?
  
• Bungling over Northern Rock failure, rescue and sell-off
  
• Apparent failure of the financial regulatory system
  
• Rumours about his personal behaviour and ill-treatment of staff
• Weird behaviour over signing the Lisbon treaty
• Pretending the EU Treaty is very different to the EU Constitution to provide a bogus and implausible justification for not having an EU referendum
  
• Unmasking and unwinding of the 10p tax / basic rate wheeze
• The grudging, vague and half-cocked U-turn on 10p tax
  
• Clumsy self-serving efforts to promote 'Britishness'
  
• Posturing on terrorism - going for 42 days detention without trial with inadequate supporting evidence
• Attacks on his style and competence by colleagues and rumours of in-fighting and even fist-fighting
  
• Endless boring speeches, dull interviews, stilted Commons performances and embarrassing encounters
• Cameron has the measure of him and hits where it hurts...
  

Add to this a sense of economic malaise, high inflation and worries about house prices and Brown's troubles look deep indeed.

Arguing with a tuba

John Pienaar's amusing description of Brown's interview with Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio Five, as reported here:

...it sounded, as John Pienaar put it afterwards, as if the presenter was having an argument with a tuba.

For his first question, Campbell asked Brown what his first thought was when he woke up today. How's my son? I need a coffee? Nope. The Prime Minister launched into an interminable drone about housing policy with his usual machine gun-like delivery.

No doubt it was an attempt at seriousness, though when it suits him he makes frivolous claims about his early morning routine... such as his supposed use of the Arctic Monkeys to get going in the morning and the resulting pickle this casual dishonesty caused: What I really meant about liking the Arctic Monkeys.

A competent politician would know that Campbell is the cheeky court jester of the BBC, and had a little banter with him. Trouble is - Brown just can't do human or take risks with humour.

Expedient apologies

The papers report Gordon Brown's confession to the BBC Brown admits 'mistakes' over tax, claiming he was learning and listening.

Apologies do actually work: many people are prepared to forgive if they see a display of appropriate contrition and recognition of error. However, in Brown's case we need to examine the direction of causation: do apologies work because he is sorry, or is he sorry because apologies work?

This morning's Telegraph leader shares my view:

We find Mr Brown's protestations that he is really listening to people unconvincing, and suspect they were urged upon him for reasons of electoral expediency.

Actually, it wasn't even quite an apology - more an admission of error and promise to do better. All too late, all too contrived and all designed by his handlers to humanise Brown before people vote today.