Under starter’s orders

tauringhuang.

Jul 31st 2008
From The Economist print edition

The job of prime minister is not yet vacant, but hopefuls are alert
Illustration by David Simonds
THE poetry of Alfred Tennyson is the kind of thing Gordon Brown, perhaps Britain’s most literate prime minister since Winston Churchill, takes with him on the reading marathons he calls holidays. Yet even Mr Brown, now on his summer break in East Anglia (see article), will struggle to enjoy the Victorian poet laureate’s observation that “authority forgets a dying king”. For it hits too close to home.

Mr Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister only 13 months ago, may soon be toppled by colleagues who have lost confidence in his ill-starred premiership. On July 24th his party suffered a by-election defeat in Glasgow East, hitherto one of Labour’s safest seats. It was the latest of many proofs of Mr Brown’s unpopularity, following by-election routs elsewhere, an abysmal showing at May’s local elections, the loss of London’s mayoralty to a Conservative and months of opinion polls that put the Tories up to 20 percentage points ahead of Labour.

Mr Brown, with some justification, blames the economy. Other governments are meeting the same disdain on the part of voters struggling to make ends meet. After his decade as chancellor, few are better placed than he to cope with the crisis. And it is hard to point to real catastrophes on his watch. Data discs were lost but no one seems to have been defrauded. There was dithering over Northern Rock, a troubled mortgage lender, but customers were not the worse for it. Most of the losers from unpopular income-tax changes are to be compensated. And though Mr Brown’s troubles began when he allowed speculation over a snap election to run riot last year, that farce did not materially affect the lives of ordinary people.

Yet none of this moves either voters, who appear to have made up their minds that Mr Brown is not for them, or a growing bunch of Labour MPs, who hope that a new leader would at least avert a landslide defeat at the next general election (which must be held by June 2010), if not actually win it. A politician who once intimidated colleagues into submission is now routinely mocked in the press by Labour MPs (though still under cover of anonymity), including members of his own cabinet.

Mr Brown, for all this, does have a hope of clinging on, though it lies less in anything he does (he plans a fightback under the theme of “fairness” in the autumn, touching on issues such as fuel prices and housing) than in the sheer difficulty of dislodging him. Labour Party rules requiring a challenger to win the backing of 70 MPs make defenestration impractical. It is more likely that senior ministers (such as Jack Straw, the justice secretary) will tell Mr Brown he must go, but no one is anxious to be branded a traitor in a party that esteems tribal loyalty.

The political problems that come with electing a new leader also make it less likely that Labour will cashier the one they have. The spectacle of serving ministers fighting for the crown while the economy deteriorates would not impress voters. And whoever emerges victorious would be under pressure to call a quick general election—two unelected prime ministers in a row would be hard to excuse—that the Tories would still be fancied to win.

Runners and riders
Also in Mr Brown’s favour is the absence of a clear leader-in-waiting. The favourite is David Miliband, the 43-year-old foreign secretary who ignored pressure to run when Mr Blair stood down. On July 30th he fluttered the commentariat by writing an op-ed column for the Guardian, a Labour-leaning newspaper, which outlined his vision for the party. He did not declare his candidacy but championed ideas that Mr Brown has been famous for resisting, such as reform of the National Health Service; nor did he mention the prime minister. Although he is inscrutable ideologically (the left sees him as a Blairite, but Blairites complain that he lacks fervour for public-sector reform), he appears to have the backing of James Purnell, a reformist minister also thought of as a future leader.

If Mr Miliband has the right of the party to himself, the left may throw up a host of candidates. Ed Balls, the schools secretary and Mr Brown’s closest ally, is a likely runner and can match Mr Miliband for youth, if not smoothness. Further to the left is Jon Cruddas, a backbencher who ran a strong campaign for the deputy leadership last summer and pitches thoughtfully to Labour’s core vote. Harriet Harman, who defeated him and four others to become deputy leader, may also fancy her chances in another multi-candidate race.

Yet much of the focus is on two men who don’t fit easily into either of these camps. Mr Straw, 62 this month, has been a steady performer for years in high offices of state. He could attract support throughout the party—even his friends concede that he travels lightly when it comes to fixed beliefs. And in the dusk of his career he might be happy to mind the shop until the next election, after which the party would have time and space (most likely in opposition) to make a longer-term choice.

Alan Johnson, the 58-year-old health secretary, shares many of these virtues and may offer others. If Labour’s main area of weakness is communication rather than competence, Mr Johnson, a natural on television, may be the cure. Tories fear this genial Everyman. But there are doubts about his appetite for the job, and he once declared himself not up to it.

Counting against Mr Brown is his questionable right to demand loyalty—as chancellor, he let his allies destabilise Mr Blair. And there are limits to the parrying argument that a leadership contest would create a vacuum of power at a time when Britain needs a firm hand on the tiller. Little happened in Whitehall during Mr Blair’s last year in power, for civil servants knew that long-term commitments could be undone by his successor. If Mr Brown is now seen as certain to lose the next election, a similar stasis could afflict the government for two years—rather than the few months a leadership race would take. When authority seeps away, the kingdom suffers no less than the king.