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Saturday 22 November 2008

Web Extra: The Tories should fear the dynamic new team of professionals that Brown is assembling

The Tory press operation is another success. It outguns the government so often that ministers are whingeing to (and on) the BBC. Yet again, it is feared the results of this – favourable comment in the newspapers – is being confused for real progress. “I never confused the Guardian leader column with the vox populi,” wrote Baroness Thatcher in her memoirs. A message that chimes with the London media elite may not resonate north of Watford. The Cameron policies can be compared to Capital FM: great sounds, but they don’t get it up north.

One heartening comparison is that, at this stage in the electoral cycle, Baroness Thatcher had not yet commissioned the Stepping Stones document which laid out a clear five-step path to power and government. There is still time for one. But until there is then there is a limit to the longer-term progress the party will make. ‘It’s like the Somme in 1916,’ says a shadow cabinet member. ‘We’re fighting all out, all the time, and we gain a little bit of ground. They fight back, win a little territory back. Neither of us is getting far.’

Mr Brown may be overdue a disaster – but depending on one is a very dangerous strategy. Even the Prime Minister’s enemies within Labour will say that, of all his instincts, the desire to acquire and keep political power eclipses all others. So a 57-year-old man may not change his personality, but he will change his tactics if he believes the old ones are leading him to oblivion. Admitting weakness to the extent that he has, is a strength which few thought Mr Brown had in him.

Of course Mr Brown’s new team may yet collapse. When Ms Moses starts work, she may declare Mr Balls insufferable (she is a millionaire who does not need the money). The new team of experts in No10 may tire of him, or vice versa. The Prime Minister can be considered a recovering control freak on a 12-step rehabilitation plan, and could relapse into his old ways at any time.

But the Tories should focus on a just as likely an outcome: that his plan works, that the Goldman Sachs treatment works as well for Team Brown as it does for the failing companies they restructure. And that the enemy so many of their MPs have already written off may become stronger than ever.

More articles from: Fraser Nelson | this section

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