Brown will find a way to Labour on
By all accounts Gordon Brown is clinging to power by his chomped-down fingernails. The disastrous constellations of an election mauling and his botched handling of expenses have aligned. Even the image in his toast must look like the moving vans outside Number 10.
But as bad as it looks, I think there are three important reasons why he’ll survive.
Number one: the survival instincts of Labour MPs are telling them to do nothing that might risk triggering a general election and Brown’s whips will be exploiting this ruthlessly. In hundreds of phone calls to backbenchers the message will be the same: if the Prime Minister goes down it will go to the country and you’re out of a job.
And they aren’t exaggerating. I spoke to a Labour staffer who was knocking doors last weekend and received a face full of expenses-pigs-troughs-all-bastards vitriol for her trouble. She told me of the “mortal terror” in her MP’s office and in the party in general at having to fight an election in a climate like this. It’s mutually assured destruction – Brown’s boat may be sinking but backbenchers are all in with him.
Secondly, although Brown may be seriously weakened he is still in charge of Labour’s strongest faction. If the events of the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that the mythical Blairite wing is just that: a myth. James Purnell walked out and nobody followed. David Miliband presumably hid under his desk, as he has during every crisis of the last year.
Perhaps most important is the Faustian pact Brown has done with Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Dark Arts. Mandelson gets the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and virtual control of the government in return for doing whatever black magic does to rebels. Brown has traded his soul in return for eternal life. Or at least eternal until June 2010.
Finally, it is almost impossible to overstate the timidity of the cabinet. Say what you will about the House of Waxworks that made up Thatcher’s final cabinet but at least they knew where the knives were kept and how to use them. The current lot’s capacity for dithering is exceeded only by their abilities at hand-wringing. While we’ve seen fiery resignations from individuals, I would put the chances of an organised cabinet putsch at virtually nil.
By the time you read this on Tuesday I may have been proved spectacularly wrong. Gordon may have joined the back of Britain’s growing dole queue and I will be deeply regretting this column. But, for the moment at least, I would bet Gordon is here to stay.
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