The PBR Suggests that Labour Thinks It's All Over but Peter Mandelson Knows It Is

Friday, 11th December 2009

Labour's Pre-Budget Report has been interpreted as a cynical electioneering exercise, a last-ditch attempt to to open up clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives. Perhaps paradoxically, I thought it was a sign that the Government knows the game is up. Of course the Labour Party has to fight the election - it can't simply not turn up. But it strikes me that using the UK economy quite so blatantly for party political advantage when it was already so fragile, was a strategic error. I am sure Alistair Darling believed he was doing the right thing. He is a man of principle. But it felt very much like a last throw of the dice.
Labour ministers (and, more importantly, their spouses) are beginning to talk about what they will do when they are no longer in office. Some are even talking of "gap years". There is every chance that next year's election will be closer than the Tories hope, but it may be closer than some Labour politicians hope as well. A generalised gnawing fatigue has set in.
The biggest indication that the Labour high command knows it's over was Peter Mandelson's pitch for the job of High Representative of the EU. I have it on very good authority that he was absolutely desperate for the job. The trouble is that he made himself so unpopular during his time in Brussels that no one (least of all the European Parliament's socialists) wanted him to get it.
It may be some time before we know exactly how Gordon Brown persuaded Mandelson to stay in the government when he failed to get the job. One suggestion is that he has demanded to be foreign secretary in the unlikely event of a Labour victory at the next election. But this can't be the whole story as the outcome is so unlikely.
As it turns out, Cathy Ashton was a popular, if surprising, choice for the job. Within six months she could well be the Labour Party's most senior politician in office, which is presumably why Peter Mandelson found the job so attractive.

Filed under: European parliament (7 more articles) , Gordon Brown (906 more articles) , Lord Mandelson (23 more articles) , Pre-Budget Report (45 more articles)

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Fergus Pickering

December 11th, 2009 3:43am Report this comment

It's good to know that Alistair Darling is a man of principle. What principle would that be then? That fighting for the Labour party is more worthy than fighting for your country? That principle. That defending the Government, your drawn salary in your hand, is the only way to go. That principle. Remembr one thing, Martin.If te tories sqeak in, by the merest whisker, that means they will win again, because they will reform the ridiculous electoral boundaries, get rid of the fraudulent postal votes, and chop sixty odd constituencies, most of them Labour. That should do it. Then we have to put right what you have put wrong. Ten years should do it. And THEN I suppose you lot will be back again to screw up again. Ah well!

mac

December 11th, 2009 8:05am Report this comment

Desperate for the job?
Gasp! Did dear, principled Peter dissemble during his Today interview, then? Aww, Say it ain't so.

Wily Trout

December 11th, 2009 11:37am Report this comment

So Tony Blair was a pretty straight-up kinda guy, Gordon Brown is a charming modest witty man in private and an economic genius, and Alastair Darling is a man of principle. Right. Okay.

Sir Graphus

December 11th, 2009 11:47am Report this comment

Well, we’re in for a rough old time for the EU, if even Mandy was too free-market & laissez-faire for them.

Geoff Miller

December 11th, 2009 12:30pm Report this comment

What so sickens me is that Labour - who are in power and could act now - have delayed any attempt to cut public spending until after the next election.

Given that the election will be March - May that means an incoming Government will not have much opportunity to act before this time next year having allowed for a settling in period, the summer recess, and the preparatory work.

Civil Servants and Public Sector management should be doing the work NOW in time for the commencement of the new financial year in April 2010.

As it is Labour has kicked the saving of our economy into the long grass for 12 months.

That is not just "politics" - it is CRIMINAL TREACHERY.

denis cooper

December 11th, 2009 1:19pm Report this comment

Geoff Miller

Well, if we want to prevent any government ever again being able to hang on in this way then we need to create legal mechanisms empowering the electorate to bring about an early general election at a time of its choosing.

Rather than leaving that decision with the Prime Minister for as long he can still command a majority of the MPs elected some years before, often under very different circumstances.

One possible mechanism being a national petition or requisition for a general election, which if signed by say 10% of registered electors would become legally binding; another being a similar procedure whereby constituents could force the immediate resignation of their MP, making it possible to remove the government's Commons majority through a series of by-elections.

But I can't see the politicians of any of the three main parties willingly giving that kind of power to ordinary people.

Jon Rosenberg

December 11th, 2009 4:21pm Report this comment

"Cathy Ashton was a popular, if surprising, choice for the job". This must be some new definition of the word popular of which I was previously unaware. In the round the press came close to almost total condemnation of her appointment. Not that many had any particular charge against save that she is democratically speaking a non-entity. Further it seems that the overwhelming view of the euro-jobs appointments list is that Brown handle it in a stupendously incompetent manner.