I don’t unequivocally support Gordon Brown for the leadership of The Labour Party. Of course critics could claim that this is predictable. After all, it’s easy to sit outside the tent throwing shit at it, than it is to pin your loyalties to the leader, and defend his policies against the inevitable groundswell of criticism that mounts. But I trust dear readers will understand my concerns.
Government means compromise, which means that some factions within any given political coalition will be dissatisfied. But I am a realist. I’m not a socialist per sé; I genuinely believe that Economic Ordoliberalism is the best model for a modern liberal democracy. Indeed, if anything, Blairism didn’t go far enough with its market reforms and modernisation.
Socialists are idealists, and while there is nothing wrong with utopianism, I believe that the middle ground (a mixed economy with mechanisms to help alleviate wealth disparity and poverty) is where power – and therefore the capacity to improve our collective lot – lies.
Brown appears to understand this. He believes that a strong economy is vital to enable the state to help poor families to raise themselves out of poverty. This is of course the platform on which Labour fought three successful elections, and is therefore, a proven theory.
I would also agree that Brown is not to blame for the fact that the fiscal pot is empty. Yes the Tax Credit IT system is culpable for massive overpayment, but Brown has done his best, at the expense of upsetting his cabinet colleagues, to prevent overspending and public debt. However, the realities of elections have meant that Gordon’s rules have had to be broken. Generous budgets, with Brown no doubt under pressure from Blair et al, have meant that spending and borrowing have got out of hand.
Brown could also argue that he hasn’t seen value for money for the cash he has released. Whose fault is that: the Chancellor’s or the man who picks the Cabinet (i.e. the management)? The rightwing, and Brown’s enemies in the Labour camp, have, in my opinion, greatly exaggerated his role in shaping government policy.
It isn’t Brown who has failed to reform the public services; it was the various ministers who have comprehensively failed to deliver the changes that were dependent on the extra funding. Brown is pictured as the brooding control freak, but wouldn’t you be suspicious and vigilant, if you were constantly badgered by a brigade of former student communists desperate to tax and spend the party into obscurity?
Now for my criticisms…
I have no time for Machiavellian scheming. Brown and his loyalists have constantly sniped against the Prime Minister. They have sulked, they have skulked, and they have plotted. The ‘Granita Agreement’ is nonsense and the Chancellor has no divine right to become the Prime Minister.
The Cult of Brown is preventing the party from having a choice as to the direction of the organisation, and without an election at party level, a Brown government will have even less of a mandate with the people. If Brown succeeds, he must call an election within the year. Without giving the people a choice, they will become evermore resentful and disillusioned. And Labour will lose the next General Election.
I also have concerns about Brown’s ability to work with the civil service in governing the country. We have all heard the stories about his penchant for micro-management and his atrocious social skills. Well, such characteristics may well suit the minutiae of the Treasury, but Number Ten will require delegation, trust, and supreme man-management. I am unconvinced this CFO is suited to take the role of CEO.
So I don’t question Brown’s ideological position, nor do I doubt his colossal intellect and grasp of finance and economics, but I do have grave concerns about his personality and his management style. As someone with significant experience of large organisations, I am disinclined to support the unelected succession of Mr. Brown.
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Who will Grumpy Gordon have to sulk at now? The Queen, I suppose.
He may cheer up, you never know…
In a sense, there was a contest for the leadership - there was a contest in the parliamentary party for nominations. Brown won handsomely with over 300, and McDonnell and Meacher got 27 and 24 respectively. There is no official contest because some of Meacher’s lot wouldn’t nominate McDonnell.
Given that as Prime Minister, Brown can only deliver with the support of the parliamentary party, the number of his nominations bodes well. As for the constituency members, they are happy with the outcome. I certainly didn’t detect any overwhelming desire for Milburn, Miliband et al to stand. A few old-timers pined for McDonnell. People mainly just seemed to want the delibitating drift under Blair to end. As for the trade union voters, I don’t think most of them care quite frankly, who leads Labour. The leadership issue matters most to the parliamentary party and the constituency parties, who between them do all the work in getting Labour elected.
Joking apart, I think the ‘Independent’ has it spot-on when it says that now there isn’t going to be a leadership contest, there’s no good reason for Blair to hang on any longer and he should go immediately.
At risk of repeting myself…
Reson 1..It’s better to be inside the tent urinating out, than the outside of the tent urinating in. As there is a piece of urine the proof material between you and those you wish to urinate on inside. With that piece of material between you and them, they don’t care how much you urinat,and the chances are that your feet get wet.
Reason 2.. Go find another tent to urinate out of. Although now you have two layers of urine proof material between you and those you originally wished to urinate on, and the chances are that when you look around in that tent you want to urinate on its occupants even more than the occupants of the first tent you were in .
Reason 3.. Urinate off completely, and no one will give a defecation where you urinate.
moral.. Stay in the first tent
Brown has had a reasonable run as Chancellor, but I would note a couple of points.
First, he has not implemented any major changes to the economy; he certainly hasn’t gone back to Labour of the 70s. All he has done is tinker, with some increased public expenditure, but I doubt he has been any great thinker or innovator.
Second, there is a view that Brown has prospered at the Treasury because he has a small group of loyal advisers whose interests – maintaining growth and not doing anything too radical – haven’t required much leadership from Brown. Once he gets to No. 10, however, and has to deal with a myriad of people whose views and demands are incompatible, he will find the job very much more difficult than anything he’s faced at No. 11.
One further point that rubs me up the wrong way is that Brown was reported in the Guardian as claiming he wasn’t just going to be a new face, but a “new governmentâ€. That being so, it is incumbent on him to call an election, which he has ruled out doing. So much for democracy.
Oh and a final point – Brown lied brazenly and appallingly about the schoolgirl Laura Spence, in a pitiful sop to ‘old Labour’, with a bit of ‘class war’. That is not the conduct we are entitled to expect from a Prime Minister.
What do Chancellors of the Exchequer actually DO? They always strike me as being nothing more than highly paid official shamans or witch doctors, making usually vague and often wrong predictions, and judged ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by how often they are wrong. They would be as usefully employed reading duck’s entrails or tealeaves. Even after reading Roy Jenkins’ lengthy book on the topic, I remain mystified.
For that matter, what do Prime Ministers do….?
Good essay, and I learnt something new with ordoliberalism, that´s exactly what I think, and is all that is wrong with the US model.
Brown´s problems will be, as you say, moving from CFO to CEO, moving from management to leadership. I don´t think he´ll convince enough, though he may well grow into it too, you never can tell - people used to think Thatcher was wishy-washy and weak when she first took over from Heath.
Finances will not be finances if those whose field they are did not perform correctly, that is in this society of free market the only thing a Chancellor of the Exchequer has to do is to pave the road for the real financiers to walk on, without hurdles of any kind,you know taxes, import duties, agreements with foreign countries, treatment of unions, the lot.
So to sum it up if Chancellors perform as they are instructed they will be successful, otherwise…
And it happens, too, with the Prime Minister. Although this latter’s job is more complicated as he must put his two cents into the whole thing, he is the real representative of the what Richard calls the Master Puppeteers and I call the system.
Surely ‘the system’ performs some necessary and useful services for the community? Is not the issue effective regulation rather than replacement [by what]? It is the effective will to curb excesses, rather than the machinery, that is lacking. The political will is lacking because too few people reaqlise how they are being conned.
I am reminded of the words of Aneurin Bevan, who I once saw give a speech at Blackpool.
“People who stay in the middle of the road get run over”.
I’m happy to give Golden Gordon a chance. He’s not been the worst Chancellor in history, and has been much maligned by the Blairites ever since they won out in the early ’90’s.
I like your blog, by the way.
Hi Y’all,
Thanks for all your comments.
I’m happy to give GB the chance, too. Though Bill, I’m not sure Bevan’s quote still stands up. The Third Way has had a significant impact on the electorate. Most politicos miss greatly political ideology, but I’m not sure the rump of the electorate do. Certainly not the safely-safely middle classes.
Of course the Middle Ground has forced the marginalised - the poor and/or ethnic minorities - to seek a stronger brand of politics. Be that the BNP (in the case of whites), or groups sympathetic to terrorism and violence (in the case of some marginalised minorities).