Can Purnell rescue Labour?
Fraser Nelson 3:48pm
Can anyone take Labour out of this mess? I have previously dismissed the younger leaders on the grounds that they’d wait for Labour to lose, then try and get back. But with Brown’s ability to hit rock bottom and start drilling, they may be ushered forward anyway. There is never a right time, the best leaders are often decanted too early. David Cameron has grown into his job. So, too, could someone for Labour. And in tomorrow’s Spectator, we choose one: James Purnell.
I can just feel the CoffeeHouser comments coming on now: he’s a spiv, more FHM than PM, A Stepford clone, a perfect example of Peter Oborne’s identikit political class. Iain Dale’s recent verdict (“The empty vessel that is James Purnell”) fairly represents the conservative consensus. As one Shadow Cabinet member put it to me: “Purnell’s cardboard cut out would be a better leader than Purnell.”
The irony is that the fashion-conscious man has an image problem. “He’s too relaxed” one of his Cabinet colleagues tells me for the profile I write tomorrow. One of his friends (who all call him Jamie) says this: “If he wanted to conceal how serious he is, he couldn’t do better than those awful sideburns.”
Against this stands the testimony of people who have dealt with him on politics or policy and been taken aback by his grasp of detail. He can enter any statistical battle, and win. He understands welfare reform far better than Hain (okay, doesn’t say much). But he has responded well to Grayling on welfare, wooing back David Freud and effectively denying Grayling the clear lead he deserves on welfare reform. If Brown was as effective against the Tories across the board, Labour wouldn’t now be on the lowest share of the vote since universal suffrage.
Whereas Ed Balls and David Miliband often come across like the former senior policy wonks they once were, Purnell comes across as a type of accidental politician – a guy who woke up and found himself the Cabinet. Some accomplishment for someone whose pedigree is 100% apparatchik (IPPR/BBC/Blair) He comes across as being not of a Westminster tribe, more in tune with the outside world. This is precisely what Labour needs.
What swung it for me was Matthew Parris’ brilliant piece in last week’s magazine, where he wrote a draft resignation speech for a Cabinet member who would challenge Brown. I could only imagine Purnell delivering that speech. Being underrated, he might then create the type of momentum that Cameron had. But this is from what I know and hear about him inside Westminster (and from people like the private welfare-to-work firms that deal with him). I would not have come to this conclusion if all I knew was what I read in the papers.
My guess is that it is too late for anyone to save Labour and the party’s choice is between various shades of defeat. Its best-case scenario is a hung parliament and keeping three quarters of its MPs. But Brown is leading them to an historic wipeout from which it could take a decade to recover. He is unable to hold together the rapidly-unravelling New Labour coalition of voters. He cannot understand Cameron, like Purnell can.
When Thatcher stood against Heath in 1975, The Economist summed up the consensus saying she was “precisely the sort of candidate . . . who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly”. Only one publication supported her before the first ballot: The Spectator. I am by no means saying Purnell is a Thatcher. Just that one cannot always identify good leaders before they are appointed. The right leadership choice is very seldom obvious in advance, as Labour is finding out to its cost.
If I were a Cameroon, I would regard any option other than Brown as leader as a bad option. But seeing a Labour party with its back against the wall take a gamble on Mr Purnell would – I submit - be the most disconcerting option.
Previous
David Lindsay
May 14th, 2008 3:59pm Report this commentYou're not serious? Because he's not. And he'd lose his seat in the Cameron landslide, should there be such a thing, anyway.
Nick Longworth
May 14th, 2008 4:13pm Report this commentThe obvious difference with 1975 (Thatcher) and 2005 (Cameron) is that the Conservatives were in opposition. If Labour are to replace Brown before and election they have to choose someone who has the experience to be prime minister straight away. Clearly, Purnell does not have this and would have to call an immediate election; not something already-nervous Labour MPs are likely to vote for. No, if Brown is to go it has to be a grey-hair who replaces him. He/she'd also have to call an early election, but could get away with a six-month honeymoon before calling one.
Ted Tedford
May 14th, 2008 4:17pm Report this commentIt's an interesting theory: but I'm not sure that this isn't a bit of metropolitan media narcissism. Just because a pretty boy with a technocrat bent looks attractive to political journalists and goes the same sort of parties and has the same numbers in his Rolodex, doesn't mean he'll appeal to the country. I think he just *looks* like he looks in tune, if you're the kind of person who hangs out with politicians and their ilk.
More importantly, I think he'd need more of a blooding before he could command the necessary loyalty in a Purnell cabinet. How long before a spurned Miliband or Balls started briefing against the usurper? Assuming enough of them - or even Purnell himself - weren't culled.
And I don't think the lesson of Mr Brown's implosion is that we need someone younger, prettier and less experienced. (Although there are few candidates for the position of Labour's elder statesman in the Commons.)
Pat
May 14th, 2008 4:17pm Report this commentI saw James Purnell on TV this morning and was amazed at his stuttering performance and look of sheer panic until the mantra, learnt off by heart, clicked in. He might be bright but if he is the best the labour Party could come up with then God help us. I cannot decide whether he is one of the children or one of the pygmies of the Cabinet.
Mike
May 14th, 2008 4:17pm Report this commentIf Labour wants a leader that actually represents the views of the majority of Labour party members then that candidate is John Cruddas. They will only choose Purnell if they want another Blair-clone. So they won't.
It doesn't matter anyway. Labour are going to badly lose the next election. Purnell, Straw and Cruddas will lose their seats leaving the competition for the Labour leadership between Milliband (D), Balls and Burnham
Faceless Bureaucrat
May 14th, 2008 4:28pm Report this commentCome on Fraser, to quote the vernacular "Are you 'avin a Larf?". Do you honestly think 'Blinky' and 'Milipede' will let the likes of Purnell elbow their way past them for the Big Job?...
Tiberius
May 14th, 2008 4:29pm Report this commentI saw him on QT last week and he's seemed competent if not dazzling. I'd seen Cameron on QT before his 2005 conference speech and had judged him about the same. So who knows. What I would say is that whenever (if ever)Labour win another GE, I hope to high heaven that the leader is not a man (or woman) who allows socialist dogma to override all areas of policy, as every Labour leader to date has (Blair possibly unwillingly so). The present day shows yet again, that Labour always leaves the country in a worse state than when it assumed office.
JR
May 14th, 2008 5:07pm Report this commentHe's too busy thinking the unthinkable I suspect. Although you might well question why he is thinking the unthinkable.
Floating Voter
May 14th, 2008 5:10pm Report this commentI also saw Purnell on QT and thought he seemed revolting.
I dont know his background. Does he have real world experience or is he another teenage mutant Labour clone?
ChrisD
May 14th, 2008 5:32pm Report this commentFraser, at the moment the Labour party need a confident media performer with some gravitas that will bridge the fault lines within in the Labour party and start a healing process.
I don't rate Purnell to be honest, and there is a real danger that one or two of his mistakes as a young cabinet minister would come back to haunt him in a leadership contest. Admittedly they were minor gaffes, but remember what a baseball cap and drinking 10 pints of lager did for William Hague.
The present Conservative party machine is much more professional and it would seek to IMHO successfully undermine him in much the same way New Labour were able to with Hague and IDS.
Having watched the train wreck that was my party for so long, never underestimate the ability of the members of a political party being the last to realise what they need in a leader if they want to come in from the political wilderness.
I think that the Libdems are already in that place and are still in denial at the moment.
Having watched what happened with the coronation of both Brown and Alexander in the Labour party, their MP's and MSP's are like lemmings, they have still to find the courage to even start making a decision about a leader on their own. Not a good position to be in.
C Powell
May 14th, 2008 5:38pm Report this commentPersonally I'd prefer to have someone who appears to be a member of the human race, has done real jobs and has had a real life (DC may not win on the first but having a disabled son teaches you pretty smartish what life is really about) and doesn't look and behave as if he's only just put on his first pair of real trousers. We need someone with steel and no-one I've ever seen mentioned has that quality. But if we're going to suggest teenagers can't we just pick a bright one from one of our schools? I know plenty with nerve, intelligence, humour and sheer obstinacy who'd knock any of this lot into a cocked hat.
Ian C
May 14th, 2008 5:40pm Report this commentThis is fun, but pointless spec[tator]ulation. A replacement for Brown as leader therefore PM, would have to call an election. So either it's Brown who calls the election (when? tomorrow or OK, next week but no later please) or the men in grey suits who say, here Mr Straw be PM for 3 weeks and come up with a plan to limit the damage. These are the only options left. I knew that when the wheels came off it would be fast, but not this fast. Blair must be p*ssing himself (along with the rest of us).
Liz Brown
May 14th, 2008 5:44pm Report this commentOh God, not another graduate/cum researcher cum Politician - The country (in both senses of the word) wants someone who has had real experience of work - running a whelk stall would be a start, managing a business or -novel idea a Brigadier or General (but not Mike Jackson) would also cut the mustard. However, David Cameron is still the one to beat the Labour kindergarten
John
May 14th, 2008 5:56pm Report this commentOh, please: it's 'a historic'. Only hacks and would-be academics pretend any more that 'historic' is a French word pronounced with a silent 'h'. And it sounds, not surprisingly, pretentious.
salieri
May 14th, 2008 5:57pm Report this commentWasn't he the Minister for Culcha whose qualifications were that he'd once been to see a play?
Superficial Sexist
May 14th, 2008 6:13pm Report this commentI've just seen Caroline Flint on SkyNews.
She's a pretty young thing, isn't she?
Not sure if she's any good though.
Steve
May 14th, 2008 6:19pm Report this commentShould Brown go before an election, and I don't think he will. Then the next leader will be a caretaker elder statesman type figure, aiming to minimise the coming likely catastrophe (step forward Jack Straw) after the election it will be one of the younger guard, but it really depends who is left standing after the deluge.
Water
May 14th, 2008 6:31pm Report this commentTiberius seems to have summed it up nicley.
Lance Diatessaron
May 14th, 2008 8:10pm Report this commentMr Sexist: An excellent point. I'd vote for her. (See 'Gaffe Central' thread otherwhere.)
Nicholas
May 14th, 2008 9:24pm Report this commentBrown won't go. He will hang on like Mugabe, at any price, at any cost. The great clunking socialist totalitarian machine is gearing up behind him to turn us into a one party police state for our "own good". The extent of legislative interference in the "statement" today is quite staggering and we have had another portent of National Socialist Labour's mindset from Hazel Blears.
Local state security committees to which all the cranks and chip-on-the-shoulder Lefties will flock and the PM appearing on a TV quiz show to identify budding young party activists. ID cards have not gone away, they were being trumpeted on the Politics Show today by a NSL back-bencher as the answer to our terrorism, crime and disorder problems.
Spin, propaganda and turning the country into a paranoid hell hole. The New Labour experiment has finally revealed itself - the marriage of barmy socialist idealism and the extreme right. The worst possible combination for the once liberty-loving people of Britain. East Germany, 1960 here we come.
If I'd known then what I know now I would have asked the Russians for political asylum.
Perry
May 14th, 2008 11:00pm Report this commentI agree with Nicholas. I see increasing evidence of people planning moves that reassert the need to clear the overgrown footings of the socialist utopia and build the ramparts. We all need this of course. It’s just that some of us don’t realise it (and therefore need re-education – yawn).
It’s for our good you see. Whether we want it or not. Besides which, it is doctrine. Like the mantra about child poverty.
And anyone who mouths the right words with sufficient gush to influence the gullible will be called to serve in high office. Simple as that.
mitch
May 14th, 2008 11:05pm Report this commentThe sideburns are to make him look older.....
Unfortunately, he still looks 15.
John W
May 15th, 2008 12:20am Report this commentIt's not often I think Iain Dale has been very astute (I like the man, but he is clearly a bit of a ninny) yet in the phrase you mention I think he hits the nail on its proverbial:
The empty vessel that is James Purnell.
The thing about empty vessels is that they easily crumble under pressure. And get filled with sh... [enough now]
Elcan
May 15th, 2008 12:49am Report this commentFraser, for once your brilliance has flickered and temporarily dimmed. Purnell is a superficial lizard driven entirely by ambition who has neither the drive and guile to get all the way to the top entirely through ego, nor the vision of a Thatcher or Blair to pull others along with him. The fact that you even consider this lifeless character to be a potential usurper of Brown simply shows how little choice there is in the party. Ten years of power and internecine plotting have bled Labour of ideas and energy and left it with no leadership alternative. Poor though Brown is, they'll probably decide better the devil you know and let him 'do a Callaghan' and take the heat for the coming general election loss. Then watch the party completely melt down after they mistake the defeat for a sign to move sharp left rather than restore trust and competence and reclaim the middle ground.
rlorentz
May 18th, 2008 11:16pm Report this commentI am not normally roused to respond to the internet but Purnell?. You must be being ironic. No real job, no charisma and a smug face that demands to be hated or other more violent reactions.
I saw him on Boris election night and to say he was weak against the weedy tory lady is being kind.
However, good wheeze by the tories to talk him up and keep brown in place.
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