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Tuesday 2 December 2008

Another Voice

A speech recorded in Hansard on an unspecified day in the near future

‘For many months these doubts have been widely advertised in the media, sometimes in unfairly personal terms. But stripping hyperbole and vituperation aside, a solid core of commentary remains: its burden is that at the very top of my party, and in Downing Street, there is a want of direction, of decisiveness, and of that important art in a political leader: the art of persuasion.

‘When we welcomed my right honourable friend to the leadership of our party and country, we did not expect showy salesmanship. We were prepared to trade his predecessor’s crowd-pleasing qualities for the quieter persuasiveness of a man of depth and determination, and of strong ideas. We let go of a charismatic leader. Unfortunately we did not get, in return, the depth, the resolution or the big national ideas for which we had hoped.

‘I shall say no more that is negative. I shall add that both the Labour party and the country owe my right honourable friend great gratitude for the skill with which he steered the British economy through a decade of successful government, some of that success owing much to his navigation. If it had ended there, he would be rightly and almost universally admired. It should have ended there.

‘Mr Speaker, we on this side of the House are now in a dangerous and exasperating position. Our leadership has lost steam but we have not. We are full of energy and ideas. Meanwhile the principal opposition are getting up steam, and there are two years left before my right honourable friend seems minded to call an election.

‘Before the recent local elections much was said about my party having hit rock bottom already, four years ago, in the seats being contested. After the counts were over, a lot more was said about my party having plunged even lower. The rock proved permeable. Now, it is said, we really have hit rock bottom. I beg my honourable friends to consider whether there is any more reason for confidence now, than before the May elections, that this is the lowest we can go. The only way may not be up. Some of my honourable friends underestimate our own capacity, led as we are, to drift lower still and fall into public contempt.

More articles from: Matthew Parris | this section

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