THE END GAME?

[Stanley]

THE END GAME?

8 May 2006

I think there is little doubt we are looking at the end of the Blair attempt at presidency of the UK. The only question is how long and messy the end game is going to be. What is quite obvious is that Blair’s ploy of bouncing the media out of an analysis of the miserable local election results by announcing a re-shuffle of the Cabinet on Friday morning has backfired badly. His classic tactic of diversion which has served him so well in the past hasn’t worked. It was too transparent, a classic case of shuffling the deckchairs and favouring his loyalists. Booting Clarke into touch was only to be expected but the really intriguing sacking was terminating Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary. Lots of speculation on this and the favourite seems to be his less than whole-hearted support of the US position of keeping open all options on Iraq including force. I think this was probably a factor but let’s not forget that in the run-up to the second Iraq incursion Jack Straw was the cabinet minister asking the awkward questions. This was whitewashed over and he had to come back in line once it was a fait accompli but I don’t think TB ever quite forgot it.
We are now in a position where we have Margaret Beckett, the woman whose most recent disaster was to preside over the complete cock-up of the Single Farm Payment at DEFRA opening us up to fines from the EU and a looming disaster in agriculture and related industries, is in New York asserting her authority over the ambassador to the UN. I’m not going to go through the rest of the appointments, it would be boring but in most cases they are equally suspect. If you had shares in a public company and the board re-shuffled on a regular basis with the same flawed personnel I think you’d be considering offloading the shares.
This raises the old question as to what exactly is the minister’s role. It is patently obvious that you can’t move someone into a new job and expect them to be an expert in every field immediately. In days gone by the minister was the figurehead and lent authority to the permanent secretaries who advised and in effect guided the policy. This has changed, a whole new level of ‘advisers’ and ‘consultants’ has been inserted above ministerial level and hold much of the power and influence with no responsibility. This is deeply resented by the civil servants and has been corroding the machinery of government for at least the last ten years. I say this because this process started under the Tory government when the drift towards presidential status without the checks and balances of a written constitution started. The end result is government by diktat instead of a process of distillation of the results of experience from below.
This basic flaw runs through the whole of government and party. We had the amazing sight yesterday of Peter Hain apologising to the voters of Blenau in Wales for mistakenly trying to impose a woman candidate on the local party in the last general election instead of allowing the local party to decide. The local agent retired from the party, stood for election and won a 19,000 majority over the New Labour candidate. What made it worse was that this constituency is holy ground for old Labour, previous MPs include Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot! This U-turn is the tip of an enormous iceberg, the effects of re-organising and centralising party funding thus alienating the grass roots membership. It is the same fault, running the party in the same way as the government, by diktat from Downing Street instead of as a partnership with the voters and under the guidance of the constitution. Like many others, I pin the present difficulties on the basic fact that a party with an enormous electoral majority and no effective opposition seems to be automatically doomed to provide proof of the accuracy of Lord Acton’s dictum, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Some of us said this in 1997 and were ignored as pessimistic party-spoilers.
That’s the back drop; where is the danger going to come from? I believe that the Downing Street machine is in a flat spin, they are going to make the same fundamental mistake again. They are going to demand media-grabbing action from new ministers who will take decisions based on bad policy from the top which will lead to further mistakes. Tony Blair faces a press conference this morning and a party meeting this evening, he will be predictable, he will bluster and then say I’m a good guy, trust me, it isn’t going to wash. He may be able to paper over the cracks temporarily by using the black arts of spin and obfuscation but there are cracks in the foundations which are opening up. He will inevitably go down. As Enoch Powell once said, all political careers end in failure.
One final fascinating proposition. I have never been comfortable with the concept of an automatic transition from Blair to Brown. There has to be a process and twelve months ago there is little doubt that a Brown premiership would have been the end result of a leadership election. However, the situation now is completely changed. It looks as though the egregious John Reid, Blair’s most loyal human shield, is being groomed for the leadership contest. I don’t think he would beat Brown but that isn’t the point, the fact is that a Brown succession isn’t a shoo-in any more. I never thought I’d say this but I would be a lot more comfortable if Brown would come out of the closet, nail his flag to the mast and force a leadership challenge. He is damaging both the party and his chances by dithering in the background while Downing Street burns. Blair is now a lame duck and should forget his ‘legacy’, others will decide what that is, the sooner the party takes control and cleans house the better. In the long run this is the healthy course to follow and is the only route back to proper representative government based on the wishes of the electors regardless of the ruling party and moderated by an effective opposition. Blair has always talked about pursuing change but in fact has stuck to the basic tenet of the Tories, preservation of the status quo. The plain fact is that the present status quo is damaging the proper governance of the country. Action this day!

8 May 2006