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
But low expectations can be a weapon in any leadership election, as Mr Cameron learnt. The criticisms of Mr Purnell as an airhead would be dangerous if he were struggling in his job, if there were daily crises at the DWP. But he has already shown himself able to do a better job than his predecessor. This is why bookmakers quote odds on this relative unknown, if only at 8/1. Mr Miliband is the clear favourite at 5/2 — which is all the more reason not to back him. Mr Blair is an exception to the general rule that frontrunners don’t win leadership elections. Ask Michael Heseltine and David Davis.
It is said by some that it is ‘too soon’ for Mr Purnell, but Labour has little scope to take its time and allow its future talent to mature. Mr Brown is struggling to respond to the Conservative attack, quite unable to understand why the Tories are successful. He insists that Cameron and his gang are just ‘public school bullies’ with a secret plan to tear apart the welfare state and he marvels that the public cannot see this. ‘One of our great advantages is that Gordon doesn’t have a clue what we’re about,’ says one shadow Cabinet member.
Mr Purnell has a much more measured opinion of the Tory revival: unlike Mr Brown and Mr Balls he has never dismissed Mr Cameron out of hand, not least because he knows many of the Cameroons well. For this reason, the Tory high command increasingly speaks of Mr Purnell as the man to watch — and to worry about. Unlike the PM, he understands the enemy he is facing.
The Labour party has a history of holding on to bad leaders for too long — Michael Foot for three years, Neil Kinnock for nine. ‘It’s time to get up off the floor,’ Mr Purnell said in a lecture to the Fabian Society earlier this month. But his party’s instinct is to adopt the foetal position. The free-market Tories specialise in the creative destruction of leaders. Labour’s cautious instincts may protect Mr Brown yet.
The best leaders normally start their campaigns being ridiculed by the press. At the start of the Tory 1975 leadership contest, when Edward Heath stood for re-election, the Economist decreed Margaret Thatcher to be ‘precisely the sort of candidate... who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly’. This reflected the prevailing Westminster wisdom. Only one publication saw the virtue in Mrs Thatcher and backed her before the first ballot: the one you hold in your hands now.
In last week’s Spectator, Matthew Parris offered a draft resignation speech for a member of Mr Brown’s Cabinet. The text was crafted for someone who would, without undue self-aggrandisement, suggest that the party needed a new voice, and that it could be his own. It is precisely the sort of speech that Mr Purnell could make. The question is not only whether he is willing to make that perilous leap, but whether Labour is prepared to listen to such a speech, from such a candidate. If so, it may yet have an chance of survival at the next election. If not, it will already be well on way to the long haul of the wilderness years.
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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