Politics

The Labour party has ended up as the unloved child of the Blair–Brown divorce

8 December 2007

The Brown camp are playing a dangerous game in trying to push the blame for donor-gate onto the Blair era.

This isn’t just about the Old Believers. The ministers who look most ill at ease these days are those of previously Blairite inclination on whom the PM relies to prove that he is not running a narrow, sectarian government. So the chief whip, Geoff Hoon, ends up lawyering away on some point about Mr Abrahams’s relationship with the fundraiser Jon Mendelsohn, of which he could have no certain knowledge — and being confounded.

Some of the sons-of-Blair are miscast under Mr Brown even without this trauma: the engaging Andy Burnham does not look or sound right on the (startlingly under-par) Treasury team. Liam Byrne, battling away as immigration minister, the toughest job under Cabinet level, finds himself heaved on to TV at No. 10’s behest to sound upright about the donor issue. As hardly anyone outside Westminster yet knows who Mr Byrne is, he cannot carry a message of loyalty and reassurance with much conviction.

For now, the usual suspects we might expect to shout ‘Told you so!’ remain quiet. Mr Milburn indulged in a little light sermonising in the Sunday Times about the dangers of old leaders with no fresh ideas — and yes, of course, he meant Australia’s fallen hero, John Howard. Well, what were you thinking? Others fulminate privately, but fear being the ones to bring the curse of disunity down upon the party.

It would be a miracle if this state of affairs were to last. There is too much ill feeling pent up. ‘The past is not dead,’ says a character in a Faulkner play. ‘It’s not even past.’ As the excavations into Donorgate II begin, the Labour party is about to find out just how true that is.

Anne McElvoy is executive editor and columnist of the London Evening Standard.
In Peter Oborne’s political column last week David Abrahams’s name was incorrectly given as Peter Abrahams.