Gordon’s one-man show

This will not be a Labour conference. It is Gordon’s one-man show

Fraser Nelson

19 September 2007

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Brown will be father of the nation at Bournemouth

For the rest of the conference, the party should, by rights, be debating tactics for the next few years. But while there will be fringe meetings aplenty, there will be no serious suggestion that any of them will shape policy. The policy agenda for the next few years is in the Spending Review document written for Alistair Darling, due to be announced next month. Then, and only then, will Labour learn where its trajectory lies. It has gathered in Bournemouth as an audience rather than a debating forum to watch Brown attempt to take off, glide above party divides and present to the world his all-conquering ‘new politics’.

The PM’s analysis is, in parts, disarmingly similar to that advanced by my colleague Peter Oborne in his new book The Triumph of the Political Class. It is that party political identities have weakened, to the point of collapse, and that voters cease to see any real meaning in labels like Right, Left, Tory and Labour. Mr Brown’s response to this modern phenomenon has been to try to rise above such old and supposedly petty divisions as a kind of supra-tribalist. In Bournemouth, he’ll pose as a father of the nation, having outgrown the role of sectional Labour leader.

This new style was already implicit on the evening that he strode across St James’ Park to the summer party of The Spectator. Before you knew it, he was inviting Lady Thatcher to tea at 10 Downing Street and ensuring his elder son, John, handed their guest a bouquet. He radiates confidence that the Labour Left is sufficiently persuaded about his trustworthiness after all these years, risking such dramatic moments of ‘inclusiveness’. ‘The Left are keenly aware of the difference between what’s said and done,’ one Labour official explains. ‘The policies won’t change.’

For all its soft focus and benign rhetoric, the murderous aim of Mr Brown’s ‘new politics’ is the destruction — rather than simply the defeat — of the Conservatives. To do this Mr Brown must attempt almost to swallow up the Tory party, welcoming them into his new big tent, and to be seen to be taking advice from them. Crucially, he needs human props for this exercise.