Why Gordon Brown hates Jack McConnell
. . and it's got nothing to do with sex
PETER OBORNE
Regrettably there is no space this week to give more than passing treatment to the ailing career of Charlie Falconer. Lord Falconer was last week obliged to make his second apology to Parliament for lying or, as the euphemism goes, giving misleading information to MPs about the financial status of the Millennium Dome.
These apologies from Falconer may in due course take their place alongside the Queen's Speech as an annual event, with attendant rituals. Most observers, it is only fair to say, do not think that Lord Falconer's mistakes arise from any genuine desire to deceive — merely from an inability to understand what was going on.
After the last election, Falconer was moved from his Cabinet Office job, where he stood at the centre of affairs and sat on numerous committees. He was made minister for planning, an important but not uplifting appointment. However, Falconer retained his responsibility for the management of the Dome, as he was in all honour obliged to do. Under pressure to quit last year, he cited as a reason for staying put his wish to see the business of the Dome through to its conclusion.
Unfortunately this admirable steadiness of purpose means that Falconer is now presiding over a second Dome scandal, entirely separate from last year's catastrophic mismanagement which caused the waste of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money. Falconer has failed to find a buyer for the attractive riverside site, which is by any standards a developer's dream. This failure has already cost the public purse tens of millions: and his procrastination and incompetence mean that the Dome must now be disposed of in the depressed post-11 September environment.
In the Lords Charlie Falconer is government spokesman on Railt rack. It is a noteworthy paradox that the same man who continues to insist that the Dome was solvent — a blatant fib — is obliged to take the government line that RaiItrack was insolvent; another whopper (as a parliamentary reply from the transport minister John Spellar to John Redwood two weeks ago makes abundantly clear). But sadly there is no space to do more than touch on the cloudy affairs of RaiItrack, or even Stephen Byers's gutsy struggle to keep his job. The Transport Secretary has become a pawn in the overwhelming conflict between Blair and Brown. Brown, through a series of poisonous Treasury leaks, is manoeuvring to undermine Byers and consolidate his hold on domestic politics; he may well succeed.
This week, however. the Chancellor has suffered a grave personal mortification with the resignation of Henry McLeish and the emergence of Jack McConnell as the new Scottish First Minister. Scotland has hitherto been Gordon Brown's personal fiefdom, the stronghold from which he intends in the fullness of time to descend and seize the leadership of the Labour party in the country. McLeish was Brown's choice to replace Donald Dewar. It was not McLeish's slight and vanishing talents that attracted the attention of the Chancellor; simply the fact that he was the most plausible alternative to McConnell. Brown holds McConnell in hatred and contempt, and the reasons are not hard to find. At one stage the two men were allies — so much so that Brown helped to arrange McConnell's election as general secretary of the Scottish Labour party in 1992. But McConnell went on to disgrace himself by being friendly, or at any rate not overtly hostile, to Tony Blair in the 1994 national leadership contest. To Brown, this was a betrayal and from then on McConnell was a marked man.
If McLeish's disgrace was therefore a blow to Brown, the events that have succeeded it were far worse. In the 24 hours following the resignation, the Chancellor's camp set to work to block McConnell by installing Wendy Alexander, Scottish enterprise minister but more importantly a diehard Brownie, in his place. The well-oiled Brown machine roared into lusty life. The union block vote was mobilised, the TGWU came out for Brown, the AEEU was poised to follow suit.
According to the accounts I have been given, what followed was a political masterstroke by Charles Clarke, chairman of the Labour party, ally of Tony Blair, and, above all, the sworn enemy of the Chancellor. Clarke, a Sassenach who openly covets Brown's job, stated publicly that London would stay out of the Scottish contest. But behind the scenes matters were quietly sorted, the killer blow coming when it became clear that the block vote could not be used. Within hours the Wendy Alexander bid was dead and buried. All that remained was for McConnell to smooth over certain irregularities in his private life. The method he chose to accomplish this deserves a footnote in political history. It was the first occurrence on the British scene of an American-style husband-andwife public confessional. This worked well; a New Labour moment to be cherished.
The Scottish imbroglio is a turning-point in many ways. British politics now has one more heavyweight politician. Charles Clarke, appointed to the Cabinet only last summer, has taken on Gordon Brown and publicly humiliated him. By doing so the Labour chairman has come close to establishing himself, alongside Blair, Brown and Blunkett. as one of the four big players in British politics. He has done what Robin Cook, Stephen Byers and Jack Straw all failed to do. He has, to use an appropriate Mafia term, made his bones.
Of lesser importance, but nevertheless worthy of note, is the performance of David McLetchie, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. It was his questions which, in the face of indifference bordering on outright hostility from the partisan local media (the BBC's Scottish political editor dismissed the expenses scandal as 'trivial' while the headline in the Daily Record on the very morning of McLeish's resignation was 'Go For It Henry'), brought about the downfall of McLeish. There was no help from the SNP, while David Steel, the Lib Dem speaker in the Scottish Assembly, tried to suppress debate on the affair.
McLetchie has provided a model for opposition which lain Duncan Smith and the rest of the Tory party have not yet shown any disposition to follow. While McLetchie has been exposing corruption, Duncan Smith has been happy to collude in the assassination of Elizabeth Filkin, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. Eric Forth, shadow leader of the Commons, is a member of the House of Commons Commission that has agreed, first, not automatically to reappoint Filkin and, second, to ensure that her successor has a fraction of her powers. This outstanding woman is being punished for being too good at her job, while steps are being taken to ensure that MPs never again come under effective outside scrutiny. It is thoroughly understandable, though still disgraceful, that the government should want her out of the way. It is utterly mystifying, as well as disgraceful, that the opposition should agree with this. fain Duncan Smith should be outraged at the treatment of Mrs Filkin, not siding with her persecutors. He has made his first serious mistake since his election as Tory leader on 12 September.
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