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
Next, he has an unusual grasp of detail. The private firms which have dealings with him about welfare-to-work placements say he has a striking knowledge of the finer detail of this devilishly complex area. And he understood the politics in all this at once. One of his first moves at the DWP was to woo back David Freud, the former Blair adviser who denounced incapacity benefit as ‘economic house arrest’. This was a blow for the Conservatives, who were about to claim the Freud agenda as their own.
Contrast this with Mr Balls’s attempted attack on Tory education reform on Monday, which was an almost total failure. Mr Purnell has taken better aim at his quarry. One may accuse him of plagiarism, offering a diluted version of a real Tory policy. But within a few weeks, he has denied the Conservatives the clear lead they had threatened to open up on welfare reform. If the Brown government were as effective across the board, his party might not be languishing with the lowest share of the vote since the introduction of universal suffrage. Ironically, image may be the biggest problem for this fashion-conscious minister. ‘If he wanted to conceal how serious he is, he couldn’t do better than those awful sideburns,’ says one friend. A Cabinet colleague says of him: ‘He is relaxed, and has a life outside politics which a lot of us don’t. But his public persona is a little too relaxed.’ His fling with a Newsnight producer caused him both personal and political embarrassment.
He looks and dresses like a member of the fashionable London media world through which he cut a swath before entering parliament — he was, for a while, head of corporate planning at the BBC, which many regarded as a non-job. When a hospital superimposed his image on a group photograph after he arrived late, the result cemented many suspicions that he is in fact a Blairite clone with no substance. ‘Purnell’s cardboard cut-out would be a better leader than Purnell,’ says one shadow Cabinet member.
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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