Meet James Purnell: the best hope Labour has of avoiding disaster
Fraser Nelson says that the 38-year-old Work and Pensions Secretary is the best candidate to succeed Gordon Brown. Already surging ahead at his department, he has the gift of sounding like an ordinary human being — and he understands the Cameron Conservative party
Nor is Mr Miliband a natural insurgent. One of his allies told me he would not try to depose Mr Brown because ‘David is not clinically insane’. Yet when David Cameron made his pitch to be leader of the Conservatives, he did so against all the odds. Well into the summer of 2005, the main question in the Cameron campaign was at what point they should call it a day and cash in their chips. What the malcontents in Labour’s ranks need is the sort of candidate willing to try his or her luck today — someone who grasps what Barack Obama, quoting Martin Luther King, calls ‘the fierce urgency of now’ — and to hell with the consequences.
When Mr Miliband considered running against Mr Brown last year, he was the undisputed leader of a group of Labour ministers who socialise with each other and share a political outlook. Sometimes called the ‘Primrose Hill set’, they include Liam Byrne, 37, the Home Office minister, Jim Murphy, 40, Europe Minister and James Purnell, 38, the Work and Pensions Secretary. They broadly share the Blairite worldview. This time last year the understanding within the group was that if anyone was to challenge Mr Brown, it would be Mr Miliband, already a well-established Cabinet minister at the time (Tony Blair himself, convinced that Mr Brown cannot win a general election, kept close tabs on the group, while conscious that it was a tall order to stand against Gordon). It was hardly a Granita pact — more of a ‘Stop Brown’ campaign team that was never activated.
If this loose-knit group has a common cause today, it has changed: to stop Ed Balls, Mr Brown’s 41-year-old protégé and the schools secretary. His decision to make a big political issue of the statutory admissions code and to target excellent state schools — especially faith schools — which he suspects of charging for places, was seen as a sign that he was already on manoeuvres. ‘Who is this aimed at?’ asks one Cabinet colleague. ‘Not at the public, but at the Labour party selectorate. Ed is not even subtle.’ His campaign particularly appalled the younger Blairites, who regarded it as a negation of everything Mr Blair sought to achieve. Good state schools are local beacons of aspirational Britain, they believe — and if Labour is seen as the enemy of such aspiration, then the electoral battle will be over.
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Water
May 15th, 2008 11:46amGood to see labour waking up. This said I still don't see them coming back during the next GE.
Toby Tobias
May 15th, 2008 4:15pmA divisive, kamikaze-style move for the leadership?
Sounds like the most direct route to ten years in the wilderness to me.
If there's one thing we learned from the Major and Thatcher years, it is that.
Comparisons with the Cameron leadership campaign are dead wrong:
Dave was, to all intents and purposes, his predecessor's anointed successor. And in a leadership campaign initiated by that predecessor!
Mikemadf
May 15th, 2008 6:24pmI listened to Purnell on the program referred to above.
Did he strike me as human?
Yes.
As a natural leader?
No.
As a reciter of Labour mantras ?
Partially.
I was neither over- nor underwhelmed.
He seemed bland.
Milliband is no fool. Anyone who wants Brown's job now is a 100% certifiable lunatic and will be a loser.
Purnell did not strike me as either.
Brown's going to take the Labour ship frmly onto the rocks and beach it solidly. Unless of course he is deposed cos C&N is so bad (like a Conservative majority of over 5,000) that most Labour MPs see wipeout and decide to tell him to go.
As most appear to have the courage and leadership ability of lemmings@ I reckon Brown is safe.
@ I apologise to lemming lovers who read this. They are not as stooooopid as Labour MPs...
Frank Pulley
May 15th, 2008 9:08pmFraser
I don't get this; why are you canvassing for a better leader of the Labour Party? This is the Spectator blog. isn't it? I haven't clocked into the New Statesman by accident, have I?
You wouldn't be singing his praises in the hope that this will cause even more back-biting and confusion in the NuLab ranks, would you? Poor young James - you may just have put paid to his career.
Chingford Man
May 16th, 2008 1:43pmSo then: private school, Oxford, think tank, BBC, special adviser, Parliament, Cabinet. Thank goodness for his experience in the real world, eh.
Get real, Fraser, you can do better than this PR puff.
Jim Taylor
May 16th, 2008 6:37pmThe only good thing I can think of about Purnell is that he is preferable to the detestable Ed Balls. But then so is my dog!
D Short
May 17th, 2008 4:36pmPicking out 'rising stars' is not that useful apart from filling up space. Remember that John Major was an accident; as he himself was reported to have said when he entered his first Cabinet: 'Who'd have thought it?'
And it was the same with Tony Blair. He got to be Prime Minister because John Smith had a heart attack.
David Short
May 17th, 2008 7:09pmIt's not easy or pleasurable to read Mr Nelson's prose, but I've just dutifully read this very overlong piece again before once more responding.
Is he trying to damn Purnell with faint praise, and there a few too many anonymous quotes?
Purnell's Question Time contributions were by no means brilliant.
And surely there should be room in such a wordy piece to mention what his policies or programme might be? Nobody understands what on earth the Blair ten years achieved. Apart, of course, from ten years of Blair.
Did Mr Nelson have a deadline and a big word count to fill, but no real story?
John R
May 18th, 2008 12:09amThis is all very well, Fraser, but Purnell, along with about 200 other Labour MPs, is going to lose his seat at the next election.
The choice may come down to Broon or Harperson. It really is going to be that bad.
Water
May 18th, 2008 11:27am"I don't get this; why are you canvassing for a better leader of the Labour Party? This is the Spectator blog. isn't it?" Pulley you echo my thoughts exactly on this.
Luis Artimez
May 19th, 2008 4:29pmYou're having a laugh!!
Bob T
May 20th, 2008 10:38amA judicious appraisal of where Labour will most likely go next. Fraser Nelson has seen what other journalists apparently have not: that David Miliband is and remains in reality a policy wonk and deficient in all those qualities: maturity of judgement, self-control, presentation - and dissimulation essential not only to a leader but even to a Minister and thus not a real contender. Purnell has the complete package. Significant that there is hardly a mention of policies but that too reflects the reality of the modern world.
Janice Weeks
June 1st, 2008 4:54amThe public will never take to him. He doesn't look good, plus he's already heavily into the expenses trough.