Leader of the lemmings

Wednesday, 30th July 2008

The Spectator on the Labour leadership speculation

Some in Labour’s ranks seek a ‘caretaker’ leader — as if a caretaker is of much use to a building already in flames. Jack Straw fits the bill in the narrow sense that he takes huge care with the language he deploys in defence of his boss. On Sunday, the Justice Secretary said that he was ‘absolutely convinced that Gordon Brown is the right man to be leading the Labour party. I was convinced of that when I was his campaign manager last year and nothing that has happened since has changed that view.’ But, by heavy implication, something might yet do so. These are the words of a man weighing up his options.

In all this speculation, there is much talk of ‘who’ and some of ‘how’ and even ‘when’, but much too little about ‘what’. The party’s public inertia partly reflects its collective uncertainty about Mr Brown’s prospective successors, and the absence of an undisputed favourite. But this inertia is a symptom of a much deeper identity crisis.

Old Labour knew precisely what it stood for; New Labour was defined by its appetite for power, its success in achieving it and its determination to hold on to it. But the failure of its social democratic experiment in the past 11 years and the departure of Mr Blair have left the party utterly confused about its future trajectory and its raison d’être. Precisely when Labour ought to be fizzing with ideas that might save it from electoral disaster, it has succumbed to a form of intellectual aphasia: unable to think and speak creatively about its direction of travel. In this respect, party and leader have been hideously co-dependent. Last year, Labour anointed Mr Brown without a contest, the first such succession in the party’s history since George Lansbury in 1932. Mr Brown was spared a potentially gruelling battle for the crown he regarded as his as of right; the party, no less cynically, was spared the effort of debating publicly what it stood for and what it wanted to achieve post-Blair. It is now more than 14 years since the party last held such a debate. Small wonder that its intellectual muscles have atrophied, along with its sense of purpose.

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L Greaterman

August 1st, 2008 7:51pm Report this comment

Our Broken Society is no 'Tory myth'; indeed, the Tories are right behind Labour (their usual position anyway) when it comes to deserving blame for the wrecking of our once great nation.

Stephen

September 6th, 2008 1:28pm Report this comment

L. Greatrman repeats this odd myth. That our society is in some way broken. I don't think it is. There maybe problems but broken? Afghanistan is a broken society not ours. We don't know how well off we are in this country if we imagine our society is broken.

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