GB demolished by TB
Peter Hoskin 9:54am
Earlier this week, the expectation was the the Brownite attack dogs would set about demolishing David Miliband in today's papers. But - as I outlined here - they were soon brought to heel by Brown, on Stephen Carter's advice. So what's in today's paper's instead? Answer: a whole load of trouble for our Prime Minister.
The worst for him is in the Mail on Sunday. They've managed to get their hands on what is alleged to be a memo sent out by Tony Blair after last year's Labour conference. In it, he lauches a scathing assault on Brown and his premiership. Our Dear Leader is accused of being a "lamentable" and "vacuous" prime minister, who's "junked the [Blairite] policy agenda but had nothing to put in its place". Here's the full text [TB = Tony Blair; GB = Gordon Brown; DC = David Cameron; NL = New Labour]:
"I am passing this message on to GB – not in these terms – and will try to help; but at present, there is every indication that the lessons will not be learnt.There has been a lamentable confusion of tactics and strategy. Tactically, it was thought clever to define by reference to TB i.e. this was not the era of spin, we are going to be honest, the style would change etc.
Strategically the consequence was twofold: a) we dissed our own record – instead of saying we are building on the achievements, confronting new challenges, we joined in the attack on our own ten years – a fatal mistake if we do not correct it and b) because we were disowning ourselves as a government, we junked the TB policy agenda but had nothing to put in its place.
So tactically we took the benefit of the anti-TB feeling, but strategically, we ended up accepting our opponents’ propaganda and appearing incapable of articulating a forward policy agenda.
The real problem was not the brilliance of the Tory conference, but the hubris and vacuity of our own. This meant the Tories, by having something to say on policy, appeared substantial and to represent the future.
The truth is that DC was in trouble long before TB left, but that was because he was being forced to choose on NL policy and found as a result that he couldn’t differentiate properly. The Tory policy is still not up to much but they are able to get traction on inheritance tax – unbelievably boosted by our own briefing – because otherwise the policy field is left wide open. DC is confused by proper strategy but immensely empowered by short-term tactics.
The choice is and was always between GB running as the change candidate or as continuity NL. He never needed to worry about distancing on Iraq – it was never going to be seen as his issue; but he really needed to be seen as continuing NL not ditching it. By trying to be change, he played exactly the same game the media wanted but never the game that gives us the only chance of a 4th term."
All of which will have Brown spluttering into his cornflakes this morning. There's more though. The Mail on Sunday have produced two polls. Respondents to the first designated Brown as the worst post-war prime minister. Whilst the second found that only 16 of the 22 Cabinet ministers were prepared to tell the newspaper that they think Brown should be leading the party into the next election.
It's the Blair memo that commentators will return to again and again - and rightly so. It's significance is hard to overestimate. Brown did everything he could to undermine the Blair premiership, and now he's reaping what he's sown. The memo should encourage the old divides between Blairite and Brownite to emerge from their relative dormancy and reap more damage on the party - and its leadership - than ever before. Who leaked it? Someone close to Team Miliband, most probably. Someone who wanted to undermine Brown no end.
Previous
john miller
August 3rd, 2008 11:07am Report this commentWritten by Blair - I don't think so.
Written after last year's Labour conference? Just before Glasgow East more like.
These tactics show what a cesspit these guys really are - and this is just the tactics that have made it into the light. What's going on under the stone must be far worse.
This is the sort of dirty, convoluted fighting used previously on enemies of the state, err, the Labour Party and we can all remember the consequences of some of those battles.
Faceless Bureaucrat
August 3rd, 2008 11:40am Report this commentFascinating, not to mention timely…
And with Stephen Carter advising GB not to go on the offensive this weekend over the Miliband piece, the PM is left with absolutely nothing of worth in the Sunday Papers to deflect attention from this Memo. Damian McBride will be spitting blood over Stephen Carter’s latest misreading of the political landscape and the fact that his bungling means Brown is left without even a fig-leaf. My advice to Stephen Carter would be to stay out of the shadows for the next few days – some mistakes you can get away with, but McBride is not a man to cross.
A J Scott
August 3rd, 2008 12:05pm Report this commentThis load of ferrets in a sack and their behaviour tells us that democracy as we knew it is doomed. But what next? Perhaps Gen Walker and his buddies were on the right track all those yaers ago. I wd rather any CDS in charge than these loonies.
Verity
August 3rd, 2008 1:22pm Report this commentWhen I read the headline "GB demolished by TB" - I thought the reference was to Great Britain and thought, "They've only just realised it?"
Gordon Brown self-demolished through his utter inadequacy. Who cares? He was only temporary, as are all prime ministers. The damage to our country deliberately perpetrated by Blair will be permanent, unless a very strong individual takes over, with the will to reverse it.
I don't see any on the horizon.
George Steiner
August 3rd, 2008 3:08pm Report this commentMr. Verity, you can't reverse what people don't want reversed. The commentators of the Spectator are few. But there are 62 million others.
One of Maggie's children
August 3rd, 2008 4:44pm Report this commentI second Mr Steiner's remark. I was about to write the same. It's very sad.
It's ironic (if you're a cynic) or tragic that as always the people who suffer most from incompetent, leftist policies/politics are the people who vote for them. At any rate, if you just look at the record of this Labour government: massively increasing the public sector; increasing taxation to a percentage of GDP higher than Germany's; not improving schools, hospitals and other public services by introducing markets/vouchers; running down the armed forces (abolishing age-old regiments, reducing the navy to less that of France); making a mess of the constitution through bungled and/or misunderstood Lords reform, devolution, incorporation of the European Convention, etc. And so on. If you look at this, weep. I can see why people fell for that charlatan Blair in 1997. But afterwards?
Personally I really thought that with the Thatcher reign, despite its flaws, a new dawn had broken for Britain (yeah, I know TB used that phrase). To see these pygmies mauling about with her legacy is depressing beyond belief.
Alex
August 3rd, 2008 5:21pm Report this commentInteresting is when this memo was allegedly written by 'Tony Blair': when Labour were ahead in the polls.
Makes you wonder what TB is thinking now? He must be laughing his head off.
Verity
August 3rd, 2008 6:19pm Report this commentOne of Maggie's Children writes: " I can see why people fell for that charlatan Blair in 1997."
Well, I for sure can't. The first time I saw his face on TV, I saw nothing but evil and a road map to destruction. To me, it was so striking that I was baffled that so many others didn't see it. (Some did, I know.)
Silent Hunter
August 3rd, 2008 9:25pm Report this commentJohn Miller has it absolutely right.
Labour are just a cesspit.
WE WANT A GENERAL ELECTION....NOW!
Austin Barry
August 4th, 2008 1:23am Report this commentThe great mystery is what, exactly, was the vision that Blair and Brown had for this country. What did they imagine would be the outcome of their patronising machinations? Did they know that they would spend 11 years micro-managing a process that would crash and burn leaving us with a host of smouldering wreckage? The list is almost endless: the huge and ever-growing Nu Labour client state - Inertia - where blubbery, taxpayer-funded malingerers squat, transfixed by their 42" TVs, guzzling booze and smokes until being carted-off to their expensive last rites on the NHS; the wonderful gerrymandered diversity of the inner cities where marauding patois-spouting Morlocks terrify without restraint; the debt-fuelled Potemkin village of 'prosperity' and, pehaps most debilitating of all, the sense that a self-serving, self-regarding bunch of expense-fiddling Onanists has taken the ship of state, thrashed it and then run it aground on the rocks of their own gross ineptitude.
John F in Aberdeen
August 4th, 2008 5:55am Report this commentSilent Hunter I agree WE WANT A GENERAL ELECTION...NOW,, before they do any more damage.
Its long overdue time when the Nulab Socialists, Brown, Blair etal and their media friends in the Westminster Village eg, The Guardian, BBC, CH4 and yes some of the goofballs now masquerading as journalists in the Telegraph and Daily Mail ,,, were all sent back to the gutter they climbed out of in 1997.
I feel also time must be approaching where we all need to lay down our pens and blogs in favour of more direct action such as a million plus demonstration in London, a General Strike etc.
Finally, if getting put out of power is all Brown, Blair etal suffer,, they are very lucky, because in some countries they would be either Jailed for Treason or executed and frankly,,,, after incidents such as sending our troops ill prepared into war zones like Afganistan and Iraq where many have been killed through not having proper equipment,,, jail and/or execution would be a just punishment.
John F in Dorset
August 4th, 2008 10:33am Report this commentI agree with my namesake John F in Aberdeen. I would vote for any party who would throw the bastards into the Tower of London.
However, dream on...
They have still got 2 years to turn the country into a monumental basket case, and will leave office to peerages and eternal punditry courtesy of the BBC taxpayers (- sorry licence payers).
The most I can do to vent my spleen is the get myself a car sticker at the next election "If it's brown, flush it down"
Back to top