Some advice for Brown’s second year: find a John Reid and bring back Charles Clarke
Gordon Brown’s first anniversary in Number 10 Downing Street is passing in the usual whirl of Prime Ministerial hyperactivity. It would have been out of character for Mr Brown to raise a glass if the year had been an unambiguous triumph, but even a more fun-loving leader would balk at toasting the last 12 months. Instead the event is marked by an eruption of articles and television programmes seeking to analyse what has gone wrong. Mr Brown will not have liked any of them.
A less commonly asked question in the media’s volcanic eruption is what, if anything, the Prime Minister can do to change the situation in his second year at the helm. Are there actions he can take which might make his next anniversary in Downing Street a little more upbeat than the first?
Of course there is an increasingly common view that Mr Brown is doomed to spend the remainder of his Prime Ministerial days in the doldrums whether or not he makes it to a second anniversary. Yet there are some astute observers who still believe that with two years to go until the next election talk of a tipping point is premature. One of those is the former adviser to Jim Callaghan in the late 1970s, Lord McNally, who is now the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords. He tells me that he sees many similarities between Mr Callaghan and Mr Brown, in the circumstances in which they inherited the crown and in their relationships with the Labour party. Even so he is adamant that he does not yet sniff the ‘sea change’ in British politics that Mr Callaghan spoke of when he was destined for defeat in 1979, not least because in spite of all the difficulties the British economy is in far better shape now and Mr Brown presides over an incomparably more stable parliamentary majority. This gives Mr Brown many more levers to pull.
Lord McNally says Mr Callaghan was much stronger than Mr Brown in one respect. The former PM always appeared confident in public, telling friends he was determined to appear as calm as a swan even if he was gliding on stormy currents underneath. In contrast Mr Brown seems often in his public appearances as uneasy as the turbulence around him. This is one aspect of his Prime Ministerial repertoire that he could easily change. No one is asking him to transform his personality into a lighthearted chat-show host, but to appear more publicly authoritative as he moves from one crisis to another. Perhaps a bit more sleep would do the trick. Exhausted leaders do not look as if they are on top of events.
Another card available to Mr Brown in the coming months is the Cabinet reshuffle. We must not get carried away by reshuffles. Few make any difference to the standing of a government. But there is one important appointment Mr Brown should make as a matter of urgency. One of the successes during John Major’s first administration, leading up to his election victory in 1992, was the role of Chris Patten as party chairman. The Labour leader at the time, Neil Kinnock, could not move before the unlikely figure of Mr Patten was on his back. Labour has no equivalent under Mr Brown. As a result the Conservatives get away with much more than they deserve.
Downing Street is more than aware of the yawning gap. ‘We need our John Reid’ is a common cry from Mr Brown’s senior allies. For much of Tony Blair’s period in power Mr Reid was the Secretary of State for the Today programme, calmly reassuring listeners that there was nothing to worry about when all hell was breaking loose. He was much more than that. Mr Reid was able to put Mr Blair’s defensively pragmatic leadership in compelling context. He once argued that Clem Attlee would have supported the war in Iraq and that Aneurin Bevan would be a passionate advocate of Mr Blair’s chaotic reforms of the NHS. Much of it was nonsense, but it was brilliant nonsense.
I am told that there are two reasons why there has not been a reshuffle so far this summer. Rightly, Mr Brown concludes Cabinet changes that take place in response to gloomy news are always written off as a panic measure. There is also another more precise reason for the delay. Downing Street is keen for the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, to play the Chris Patten role. It would be daft to move him before the end of the pivotal review of the NHS, due for completion later this summer. Mr Johnson might not want the role even then, but someone has to do it and soon.
Mr Brown could also calm things a little by making sure potential troublemakers stay on board. The case of Charles Clarke springs to mind. Mr Clarke has been the most public thorn in the side of Mr Brown. This is not that surprising in the light of his exchanges with the Prime Minister at the end of last year. The former Cabinet minister had been promised an important job soon after Mr Brown became Prime Minister. After waiting months Mr Clarke was finally offered the dubious role of special envoy to Basra with responsibilities for renovating some of the run-down locations in the town.
This was not exactly a subtle attempt to remove a noisy dissenter. As Mr Clarke has had cause to reflect, if he had not been assassinated en route to Basra, he would have been highly vulnerable as he presided over the town’s renovation. He chose to remain a thorn in the side, a much safer position.
I focus on the smaller matters in the control of the Prime Minister because the wider picture remains so obviously daunting and for an underestimated reason. Even the most brilliant politicians tend to have only one big project in them. The co-architect of new Labour, Mr Brown rose to the immense challenges of the 1990s, winning trust on the economy while still being able to invest in public services. It was a mammoth achievement. Now he must find new ways of reviving an exhausted, confused party. He remains a figure of extraordinary stamina and wilful determination, but if he finds another compelling narrative, a mesmerising sequel, he will break with political precedent.
Steve Richards is chief political commentator of the Independent.
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