 | 'If Glenrothes is not to be the breaking point for Brown, we will, over the next two months, have to hear more on how Labour can ease the pain of a recession whose reality they have yet even to recognise.' Sunday Herald editorial, 7 th September 2008. |  |
AS GORDON BROWN PREPARES FOR THE RETURN OF HIS CABINET THIS WEEK, he may look up and see ahead of him a two-month assault course that culminates in the dangerous hurdle of the Glenrothes by-election. As there is no obvious refuge for him to head for, he should be asking himself what will make the difference between a recovering administration and one that looks capable of finding only more rocks to crash into as it sinks.
Brown knows political history as well as anyone, so he might like to recall the simple four-word sign that James Carville, Bill Clinton's strategist, hung on the walls of the Democrats' 1992 campaign office. Carville wanted to be sure that Clinton's staff knew what would make the difference between defeat and victory. The sign simply said: "It's the economy, stupid". Both Brown and the chancellor, Alistair Darling, refuse to accept things are bad (the Guardian interview aside). Yet the OECD, the IMF and other forecasters predict Britain's economy will suffer in the global downturn.
Despite Brown's assurances that the UK economy's fundamentals are strong, many forecasters take their elad from growing unemployment, rising inflation, falling profit predictions and growth at zero, predicted to be negative in the coming quarters. Food prices are up, fuel prices up, transport costs rising. Britain is, regardless of the chancellor's optimism, heading for recession and the pain that will bring. And for those who will be worst off, there is an almost instinctive call to the government, a Labour government, for assistance. The message in return? They are still waiting to hear it.
When Northern Rock hit tough times, the Treasury found billions immediately. But with Brown's decade in the Treasury having saved up little to fall back on despite a record number of years of consecutive growth, the aid offered so far has been limited, tame and barely able to register its effect. A windfall tax on energy companies? Despite the pressure, even from within his own party, Brown is reluctant to deliver this option. The crisis in the housing market? The limited stamp duty holiday will barely affect the wider problem of lenders unwilling to extend their risk. Brown's post-summer economic relaunch seems to have been sunk by Darling's doom-laden forecast before it was even published.
Even in Scotland last week, when Brown should have delivered a speech full of the policy options he had supposedly spent months working on, he indulged in too much nationalist-bashing rhetoric that sounded hollow, ill-timed and inappropriate. Had the CBI audience in Glasgow held up a series of placards that spelled out "It's the economy, stupid" Brown might have got the message. But at the moment we appear to have a prime minister and a government more concerned with their own short-term survival than they are with the storm clouds gathered over us.
The result is that Brown looks out of touch and unable to do or say anything that convinces anyone that their problems are understood by the government. An out-of-touch government, failing in the polls and failing to offer anything but baseless optimism, is heading in only one direction - out of government. If Glenrothes is not to be the breaking point for Brown, we will, over the next two months, have to hear more on how Labour can ease the pain of a recession whose reality they have yet even to recognise. It's the economy, Mr Brown; it always is.
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