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
This is the post-Blairite wing of the party, watching in horror as the electoral alliance Mr Blair built crumbles across the country. Yet part of the fallout from Mr Miliband’s decision not to stand last year was the collapse of the tacit deal that he would have a clear run in future contests. Since then, his friends and peers have been considering their own positions — particularly as the Brown government is unravelling faster than even the most ardent über-Blairite could have expected. Mr Byrne, a former businessman, has just three parliamentary years behind him: he has the managerial expertise, good instincts, and certainly the ambition, but lacks the track record. Which brings us to Mr Purnell.
To tip the 38-year-old Work and Pensions Secretary for the leadership now may seem as absurd as tipping the then 38-year-old Mr Cameron seemed three years ago. Yet since he succeeded Peter Hain at the Department of Work and Pensions, his name has started to be factored routinely into the what-if scenarios being played around Westminster. Many laugh this off instantly, regarding him as a smooth lightweight who prefers tailoring to politicking. But those who do know him well regard the prospect as eminently plausible — and believe that he may leap over Mr Miliband’s head, just as Mr Blair overtook Mr Brown in the early Nineties.
Mr Purnell has successfully dodged the limelight for most of his time in politics. ‘I told him to keep his head down, work hard and let the results speak for themselves,’ said one senior Labour strategist (who also begged me, for Mr Purnell’s sake, not to write up his prospects). ‘To reach Cabinet at his age focuses perhaps more attention on him than he realises. But he’s playing it well.’
Two characteristics set him apart. One is that he cannot be described as a political obsessive. As Max Hastings wrote of Mr Blair recently, he does a good impression of a human being. Mr Balls and Mr Miliband can often sound like the senior policy wonks they once were. Like Mr Blair before him, Mr Purnell speaks as if he has just arrived in the political game, and is on the same verbal wavelength as the rest of the public. On Question Time last week he looked like an ordinary person who had somehow ended up defending a wretched government. Instead of reeling off a litany of defensive, cooked statistics and alleged Labour achievements, he conceded the humour in the dreadful polls and the scale of the predicament facing him and his colleagues. This ability to avoid the deathly countenance of the professional politician is some accomplishment, given that his CV is that of the quintessential Blairite apparatchik — think tanks, journalism and a spell as a special adviser.
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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.
Norman Miles
July 9th, 2008 5:55amI contacted the DWP on May 30th,requesting that could they ensure my pension was put in on time,If it was the fault of the bank I apolagise,their response was to ignore me and then stop my pension which was due on June 28th,and have not replied to any e-mails I have sent giving me an explanation why they have done this.Is the department staffed with a bunch of sick perverts or what.
N.S.Miles