 | 'Governments don't lose by-elections in safe seats when they're on the way up. They lose them on the down-swing. For all his qualities, even Gordon Brown can't stop the political pendulum. The real lesson from Dunfermline is this: ever so slowly, Labour's moment is ending.' James Kirkup in the Scotsman, 11 th February 2006. |  |
IN THE long, bitter years before Tony Blair and Gordon Brown reached their current accommodation, Blairites used to gripe about the Chancellor's disappearing act.
Whenever Mr Blair was buffeted by events ranging from the war in Iraq to a dozen backbench rebellions, his colleague, like McCavity the Mystery Cat, simply wasn't there.
Such moments are scarce these days, but there were still a few Blairite eyebrows raised yesterday as Mr Brown took flight for Russia. "Fleeing the scene of the crime," muttered one Labour MP.
And in truth, Mr Brown's fingerprints are all over the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election result. Despite the (slightly) unfair attempts to blame Jack McConnell for the fiasco, much of the blame goes to Mr Brown, who friends like to think of as the man who really runs Scotland.
Iron control of Scotland is one of the foundations of Mr Brown's image of infallibility, proof to his colleagues that when he runs things, they work. So the fact that the Dunfermline campaign so clearly didn't work is a real blow to Mr Brown and the myths that surround him.
So was the impact enough to dislodge Mr Brown from his position as Mr Blair's successor? No. Mr Brown's status among Labour MPs and members remains unequalled. There simply is no other man or woman in the party who commands such respect, and suggestions that his ascent to the leadership is in question are either hysterical, malicious or both.
But the ascent now looks far less smooth than once it did.
If Mr Brown's friends yesterday were whispering about John Reid's alleged lack of support for the by-election campaign, it is because they genuinely fear that the defence secretary or another Blairite could make a symbolic run against the Chancellor for the top job. That is still unlikely, but Dunfermline makes it just a little less so.
Nonetheless, the real lesson of Dunfermline is not about Mr Brown's hopes of becoming prime minister but about what sort of prime minister he can be. One party insider familiar with the Dunfermline campaign yesterday worried that the string of mistakes, confusions and spats that sank Labour's hopes showed that "we just weren't serious enough about winning".
Labour's electoral successes in recent years have become so routine that it is easy to overlook the foundations of those victories.
In the 1990s, Mr Blair and Mr Brown forged the Labour Party into a lethally effective election-winning machine. Backed by a massive grassroots membership and a seriously professional staff, the Blair-Brown alliance crushed all before it.
Now, the machine is showing signs of rust. It seems banal to observe that Labour lost in Dunfermline because its voters didn't turn out, but it speaks of an essential organisational weakness. Some feel the party relied too heavily on sophisticated targeted telephone campaigning, forgetting the old-fashioned door-knocking get-the-voters-out operation the Lib Dems executed so well.
Then there is the intellectual fuel that powers the party machine. As the ninth anniversary of the 1997 election victory approaches, many of New Labour's once-novel ideas and arguments have become drab and commonplace: the ideology-light blend of economic competence and social justice is now the political consensus, no longer capable of sparking the sort of fight that gets party hacks fired up.
As Mr Blair - who has ceremonially "relaunched" his government a dozen times in recent years - knows, there is nothing harder than trying to renew a party in office. Mr Brown is also well aware of all this, busily working away on a whole suite of ideas, policies, stratagems and spoils that will define his premiership and draw an intellectual and political line under the Blair Years.
He will also exploit his position at the heart of government. Monday's speech on terrorism will be a not-too-subtle reminder to wavering voters about his experience and David Cameron's lack of same.
No-one should write off Mr Brown. But neither should we overstate his prospects in following on from Mr Blair. He will inherit a party badly in need of new ideas and energy, and he will face a renewed and invigorated opposition. No wonder some in the Labour Party now wonder if Mr Brown really will play John Major to Mr Blair's Margaret Thatcher.
Governments don't lose by-elections in safe seats when they're on the way up. They lose them on the down-swing. For all his qualities, even Gordon Brown can't stop the political pendulum. The real lesson from Dunfermline is this: ever so slowly, Labour's moment is ending.
Return to home page