The great New Labour civil war

06 September 2006

Matthew d’Ancona says that the Prime Minister’s power has now gone for good, no matter when he stands down formally. The Labour party will descend into a battle to define its future as Gordon Brown struggles to prevent a leadership contest

Two days before David Cameron was elected Conservative leader, I asked one of his closest allies what the founding principle of Cameronism would be. He pondered the question. Would it, I wondered, be something to do with quality of life, the public services, the environment, social justice, nationhood? ‘Our starting point,’ he finally replied, ‘is that the Tory party can never beat Tony Blair.’

This First Law of Cameronism, he explained, had an important subclause: Blair himself could beat Blair, by contaminating his own brand to the point where he could no longer plausibly hold office. All the same, the fundamental concession offered by this shadow Cabinet member was a huge one: after 12 years, the Conservatives themselves have still not found a way of defeating the Labour party’s most electorally successful leader, a politician whose record of parliamentary majorities exceeds even Margaret Thatcher’s.