It won’t be leadership speculation that hurts Brown but leadership positioning
James Forsyth 4:25pmOne poll already puts Labour below 30 percent but there’s almost no chance that Labour will replace Brown as leader. Collectively the party seems to know that it made its decision when it chose during conference to stick with Brown.
But what will undermine Brown, as James Kirkup argues, is ministers jostling for the best position post-defeat:
One minister sighs that there are "at least four of my Cabinet colleagues who think about nothing else but how they are positioned to succeed Gordon" after Labour loses the next election. Their names are no surprise, but some MPs say that Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband are doing the best job of wooing backbenchers and Labour activists in the country. By contrast, shares in David Miliband have fallen so low he may soon need a Government bailout. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary thought his late conversion to Bush-bashing would win him some friends on the left; he would do well to learn from his brother, whose Heathrow runway rebellion was a much defter bit of politicking.
…
As long as Labour people think the party is continuing the slide towards the abyss, these tensions are only going to grow. Expect ever more obvious appeals to the party faithful by would-be left-wing ministers (How long before a convenient leak details a demands in Cabinet to bail out steelworkers or other union favourites?) and, possibly, ever more obvious retaliation from No 10 trying to enforce some discipline. Make no mistake: all is not well in the Labour Party. By the time this is over, there will be tears, and maybe blood too.’
The more openly people start to lay out their stalls, the more Brown’s authority will be undermined. Already, the actions of the Cabinet are beginning to be seen through this prism.
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Don
January 27th, 2009 5:19pm Report this commentEd Miliband, Harriet Harperson, not scraping the barrel at all there. Looks like electoral oblivion followed by a few decades in the wilderness for this lot. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
TrevorsDen
January 27th, 2009 5:38pm Report this commentThe record time for a headless chicken to live is 18 months - lets see if Gordon can beat the record
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Gordon Musgo
January 27th, 2009 5:48pm Report this commentIf Brown is Callaghan, they are queuing up to be Michael Foot. Once Labour go, they won't be coming back for a while. Blair was the fourth leader in opposition.
starpworld
January 27th, 2009 6:10pm Report this commentLike the rats they are, in a sack! I do hope none are re-elected!
drakes drum
January 27th, 2009 6:20pm Report this commentAND SLEEZE!!!
Look what the London Evening Standard are printing:-
ONE of the peers at the centre of corruption allegations has claimed nearly £400,000 of taxpayers' money in expenses, the Standard can reveal today.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn ran up the bill over seven years. The former council leader has by far one of the best attendance records at the House of Lords - turning up on average 148 days a year.
However, his extensive list of work as an adviser to companies and his directorships have raised questions over whether he is using the Lords to pursue his business interests.
The Sunday Times yesterday released a recording of a meeting between the peer and an undercover reporter in which he boasted that he could earn up to £100,000 a year from his work for companies.
He is one of four Labour peers being investigated over cash-for-influence claims.
Lord Taylor, 79, claimed the expenses between April 2001 and March 2008. He billed the taxpayer for nearly £168,000 for overnight subsistence payments. Peers could claim up to £165.50 a time for this allowance in the last financial year. He also claimed nearly £72,000 for day subsistence which was paid in 2007-08 at up to £82.50 a day to cover meals and "incidental" travel.
Separately, his travel bill totalled £70,500, including £9,722 in 2006-07 for flights, while his office costs amounted to just over £78,000. The total comes to £388,500 for the seven year period.
Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles said: "This is a serious matter and we need a full investigation into the use of taxpayers' money. If Labour peers are shown to have broken the rules, then Gordon Brown must remove the whip and expel them from the Labour Party.
"We also need to look at the sanctions faced by those peers found to have broken the rules."
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is a very large amount of money to claim on expenses, and taxpayers deserve to be told what it has been spent on.
"This latest scandal raises serious questions about what peers are using their privileges and power for. The whole system needs to be made public and fully transparent to ensure that taxpayers' generosity is not being abused for personal gain."
Lord Taylor declares non-parliamentary consultancy work including as an adviser to Experian Ltd, NPL Estates, Alcatel-Lucent, Canatxx Energy Ventures Ltd, BT plc, Gersphere UK Ltd and T-Systems Ltd, as well as being president of the Wrens Hotel Group, according to the Register of Lords' Interests.
His remunerated directorships include non-executive roles for A Division Holdings Ltd, Eisis Ltd, Building Themes International and Pine Mountain Resorts.
Lord Taylor could not be contacted for comment today.
He worked in the social administration department at Manchester University and was made a peer in 1978 during James Callaghan's premiership.
Susan Hill
January 27th, 2009 6:29pm Report this commentoh let`s just get on with it.
RW
January 27th, 2009 6:33pm Report this commentWhen the lemmings make that fateful collective decision to go skydiving over the nearest available cliff edge - who chooses the head lemming?
Or does it matter?
Christopher Bowring
January 27th, 2009 6:42pm Report this commentJust at the moment, as in early 2008, it looks as if the Tories are going to win the election with ease. We should also therefore consider just how likely it is that Miliband(s), Harman and so on will retain their parliamentary seats. Remember when the Progressive Conservative Party was driven from office in Canada in 1993? They ended up with just two seats.
Andy Leeds
January 27th, 2009 6:43pm Report this commentWell lets encourage them all we can. With any luck it will end with the Labour Party falling to bits. What a glorious thought.
Diswiss
January 27th, 2009 6:57pm Report this commentHarriet? You jest.
Hawkeye
January 27th, 2009 7:27pm Report this commentOh please, please, pleeaazzzze let it be Harriet.
The destruction of Labour would be complete!
Aless Bieri
January 27th, 2009 9:10pm Report this commentI had a conversation a few months ago with a Conservative MEP and a former PPC who agreed that they expect
a) Labour ministers to start criticising Brown's policy so that they can run a leadership campaign based on "if you'd listened to me we would have won the election"
b)Back-benchers to try to take apolitical high-ground to avoid losing their seats
I think that both these issues will cause exactly the same problems that the conservatives faced in the build-up to 1997.
The next election is going to be one where voters who defect from Labour will be looking for who to support and so the Tories will not only have to fight labour to increase defection but also fight minor parties for their support.
I expect that the 3-party saturation of votes will be much lower than in the last two elecions, and the best thing the Tories could do would be to steal UKIP votes
Hysteria
January 28th, 2009 1:01am Report this commentI wonder what happens when vast swathes of the population - working Brits - turn to the BNP..?
Paul B
January 28th, 2009 10:02am Report this commentI don`t think that will happen Hysteria. Not with working Brits anyway. They will turn to the Tories, those less robust and more fragrant will vote Lib Dem and a small percentage will vote UKIP & Green. The underclass, if they vote, will turn to BNP imo. Therefore, there maybe a slight upturn in the BNP vote, but nothing significant. Brits are not that uneducated or extreme at heart.We are intrinsically good people and know right from wrong. The BNP are bullies.
AngloWelshDragon
January 28th, 2009 12:30pm Report this comment@ Paul B
Paul you are right - at least for the 2009/10 election. However, white working class feelings on multiculturalism and immigration can't be ignored by an in coming Tory administration as they have been by Labour for years. The working classes are intrinsically good people as you say but their legitimate concerns about their jobs, communities and way of life have been ignored for too long -to the benefit of the BNP.
Verity
January 28th, 2009 5:19pm Report this commentPaul B writes "The BNP are bullies." Perhaps. But not on the scale that the Labourites are bullies, destroying the social fabric of our country. I see that a little brother and sister in Edinburgh, whose parents are incapable of caring for them, but are loved and treasured by their - fairly young - grandparents, are to be removed from the family and given to a couple of gay men.
Melanie Phillips has addressed this, and the totalitarian state we are in, in today's Daily Mail.
Paul B
January 28th, 2009 7:43pm Report this commentVerity, no doubt about it, the BNP are bullies and thugs, in much the same way as the SWP & Troops & Class War are as well.(All extreme left wing parties) All the little piggies look the same. There certainly are some Labourites who are bullies-the 50 or so this week for exampl, who are trying to bully the BBC into screening the Hamas Help line vid- but generally speaking, the Labourites are just deluded rather than bullies imo & not normally thuggish .
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