The line-up remains the same
Matthew d'Ancona 4:54pm
Yesterday, as the McBride resignation story raged, a distinguished former Labour minister asked me a rhetorical question: why is it always the same faces coming back? Derek Draper, Damian McBride, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Charlie Whelan: all have supposedly resigned, disappeared from the front line, retired to explore new careers - and yet, here we are, in 2009, a decade and a half after Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party and the faces remain the same. In this line-up, McBride, who only became a political adviser officially after the 2005 election, is very much the new boy.
The answer is to be found, like so much wisdom, in the Blues Brothers: it is the politician's instinct always to "get the band back together again". Every political leader establishes a gang that gives human form to his psychological comfort zone. Members of the gang come and go over the years; new members are cautiously admitted. But the politician will always revert to the tried and tested core of the original gang if he can.
After his disgrace as a lobbyist promising access to government in 1998, Derek Draper said goodbye not only to the Labour Party but to politics: he trained as a therapist and wrote extensively of his newfound happiness away from the dark arts of the political world and what he called his "idiot years". And yet it took little to tempt him back into the milieu as Labour web strategist - very well-connected, as we now know, with the Brown attack machine at Number Ten.
No wonder Alastair Campbell - the man who keeps coming back - has disowned McBride. The incestuousness of the gang must be concealed, because it is its primary weakness. Where is the new talent? There is none. Not really. Whatever Blair and Clinton claimed to the contrary, the truth is that you can't renew in office; and the deep psychological reason is that you don't really want to.
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Ricercar 3
April 12th, 2009 5:47pm Report this commentPerhaps because they are so
desperate. It's really scraping
the barrel and coming up with
worst than scum.
porkbelly
April 12th, 2009 5:49pm Report this commentLike any criminal organization they are bound together by their shared knowledge of each other's criminality.
Karen Barclay
April 12th, 2009 6:05pm Report this commentMatthew
Thank you for this article. The revolving door at Downing Street through which these characters pass has puzzled me too - and I find your argument very credible and insightful.
The Coffee House contributions this weekend have been brilliant - thank you too all the team.
Jenny
April 12th, 2009 6:08pm Report this commentNormal service resumed. That's right. James Forsyth on the post below asks if we're fed up of hearing about this. Well, the only thing I'm fed up with is this government and its cheerleaders. Why did so many in the media pretend, less than three years ago, that we had a 'new broom'?
Many people write him off because of his black comic style, but as is so often with Richard Littlejohn, he wasn't buying a bit of it from the outset. This is Littlejohn when most others were giving Brown his political honeymoon:
'Switching from Blair to Brown is like dumping the wife you hate and then shacking up with her uglier, fatter, even more miserable older sister.
'It beggars belief that anyone is buying in to this new broom nonsense. There's going to be acres of it when Gordon actually gets the job next week, so I thought I'd get my retaliation in first.'
Get in there, Rich.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-462903/LITTLEJOHN-Ten-years--Im-Blaired-out.html
And now the rest of the media has caught up with Uncle Rich. If you want to know why Uncle Rich is so popular, that's why.
What on earth were they doing swallowing all this stuff about a holier-than-thou son of the manse?
Grunt
April 12th, 2009 6:41pm Report this comment"Whelan is now political officer for the giant Unite union, and he funds Draper's website." Iain Dale - Telegraph
Looks promising - is this the hinge that will keep the story running?
Is Guido taking a break before revealing more smeargate?
The trouble with smear it justs spreads and spreads right to the top.
Andy
April 12th, 2009 6:47pm Report this commentNever mind the 'new' in 'new talent' - where is the talent?
Austin Barry
April 12th, 2009 6:49pm Report this commentWere this the US the Cabinet could probably be indicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ('RICO')- Brown as capo di tutti capi seems more apposite than either Mr Bean or Stalin.
Oscar
April 12th, 2009 7:12pm Report this commentThis item about the return of all the discredited men of new labour's past reminded me of a playground chant from my long lost childhood:
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their guns and shot each other
The latest revelations put the Staines/Draper head to head on the DP in a new light. It is very clear now that Guido was setting up Draper to expose his lies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7965869.stm
David Ossitt
April 12th, 2009 7:15pm Report this commentJenny.
"Switching from Blair to Brown is like dumping the wife you hate and then shacking up with her uglier, fatter, even more miserable older sister"
I think that should be 'older brother'?
Austin Barry
April 12th, 2009 7:50pm Report this commentDavid Ossitt
You've not heard the rumours then?
Tankus
April 12th, 2009 8:10pm Report this commentMay be that Browns thinking is that this is the election team that won hands down the first two elections ...perhaps ?
The only muppet missing is Blair...and he never saved the world .
Bluebottle
April 12th, 2009 8:24pm Report this commentYou've got the wrong film, Matthew: the longer New Labour goes on the less they look like the Blues Brothers and the more they resemble The Sopranos.
Think about it. They once had one all powerful Boss whose position was envied by an underboss, the capo di tutti cappi's right hand man, who spent 20 years lying, scheming, plotting and betraying his way to the top job; each capo (called a "Minister" or "Secretary of State") has a consiglieri and his own crew of made men who do the dirty work; every so often a capo is caught by the feds (the newspapers)on a minor rap and has to disappear for a year or two before returning, kissing the Boss on both cheeks, and getting his job and status back. They even have a judge in their pocket, who they know will give them an easy ride if ever they have to come to court (the House of Commons)to explain themselves. Everything they touch, they corrupt.
Incidentally, I don't believe the current Boss knew nothing about the McBride Black Op. I have little doubt he was unaware of the content of the emails (certainly there will be no evidence that points to him) but nothing happens in No 10 without the Boss being aware and approving it. He micro-manages everything. McBride would have sought the Boss's approval of the plan and would have been told: "do it but if anything goes wrong, you are on your own". And so it came to pass
Ray
April 12th, 2009 10:03pm Report this commentOcean's Eleven, Brown's Five.
Stephen
April 13th, 2009 1:17am Report this commentIf 'the truth is that you can't renew in office' what will be the next Conservative government's sell-by date?
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