Analysis: Another dent in Brown’s armour
Here’s the big question vexing Labour over the weekend: how divorced are its inhabitants of the Westminster village from the rest of the country?
At the beginning of the week I spoke to Labour campaigners from up and down Britain. I might have expected to find them shuddering, not from the cold, but from the prospect of having to fight for a fourth term. Instead they are motivated and ready for the fight.
Candidates are out on the doorstep every day, working “extremely hard”, one activist told me. Another said optimism was steadily increasing as Gordon Brown’s position in the polls improved. The sense was of a party spoiling for a fight, finally given a chance to end years of having its back to the wall.
I wrote on Monday: “The governing party are showing a fighting spirit which was utterly lacking two months ago… Labour have something to fight for. And it shows.”
That piece, published as the clock ticked down to the likely May 6th election date hit the four-months-to-go landmark, swiftly appeared out of date.
For after prime minister’s questions on Wednesday two former Cabinet ministers surprised us all with one of the worst-thought-out coup attempts in the party’s history.
Everything about Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt’s attempt to force a leadership vote was flawed.
The surprise was ruined by a researcher sending out a blank email, giving Downing Street 90 minutes to prepare a response.
The ‘force’ was misguided, as the parliamentary Labour party didn’t even have the constitutional power to force the prime minister out of Downing Street.
And as for its prospects for success – well, the reluctance of Cabinet ministers to stick their necks out has been well-documented in recent years. Now was certainly not the time for anyone to make their move.
I was in the Palace of Westminster watching Hoon hop nervously from one foot to the other as he attempted to explain his move.
His clear unease as hordes of sceptical journalists bombarded him with questions belied the simple fact that his attempt to unseat Brown was spiralling rapidly out of control. Playing the Westminster politics game, was he thinking of how his actions would affect the activists?
It doesn’t take searing political insight for commentators to make the blindingly obvious conclusion that leadership disunity damages political parties. The danger is the voters will not be the only ones put off.
That Labour have been handed a new year setback by Hoon and Hewitt is indisputable. What remains to be seen is quite how damaging the episode will prove, not just at the ballot box but also among Labour’s vital army of campaigners.
Fortunately the sheer scale of the cock-up offers some consolation.
The sheer glee of Labour backbenchers as Brown ran rings around David Cameron in PMQs revealed quite how much the PM’s hold on Downing Street, so nearly prised from his grip last spring, has been strengthened in recent weeks. Labour MPs’ anger at Hoon has been palpable, his rocking the boat condemned his political career for good.
To shamelessly mix metaphors, what might have been a damaging sore has been nipped in the bud.
The complete failure of the ‘Hoonwit’ plot will be forgotten about next week, giving the long-suffering campaigners across Britain a chance to recover their dented morale.
