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Saturday 22 November 2008

Your chance to vote in the Spectator awards

After a gripping week of political theatre in Manchester, James Forsyth invites readers to submit nominations for a new category in our Parliamentarian of the Year Awards: the prize for the Readers’ Representative

If a week is a long time in politics, then a year is an absolute age. In Manchester, Labour delegates appeared staggered by what has happened since the party’s last conference. Now it is the Brownites, not the Cameroons, who take comfort in how quickly things can change, with Ed Balls reassuring Labour supporters that because things have gone so wrong for Labour since last September, they can go equally wrong for the Tories next year.

The last 12 months have been the most dramatic in British politics since the Tories came from behind to win in 1992. We have seen the fall and fall of Brown — at every point when we thought that the Brown bottom has been reached, it turned out that there was further to fall. Labour is now staring at a defeat of epic proportions. Yet the party appears to lack the will to save itself. Among Labour delegates in Manchester there is a grim mood of resignation rather than any fighting spirit. If there is no leadership contest, it will be a sign of Labour despair, not unity.

The New Labour project has unravelled. The compromises that bound it together depended on prosperity, something that will be in short supply in the next few years. While the Tory attempt to replicate them — sharing the proceeds of growth — has been outrun by events.

Labour’s defeat in Glasgow East showed just how far the party had fallen. To lose your 26th safest seat is quite something. But worryingly, the defeat also suggested that Alex Salmond’s plan to break up the Union is on track. The victory there confirmed that the SNP is succeeding in its mission to take the title of Scotland’s largest party from Labour for the foreseeable future. An SNP administration in Edinburgh has enacted a series of populist measures, broadening the party’s appeal, and Salmond is skirmishing with London in his typically clever way. Once the SNP is undoubtedly the largest party in Scotland, Salmond will sit back and wait for a British Tory government. Then, at a time of his choosing, he’ll pick a fight — claiming that the Tories, who even on the current opinion polls would only win a few seats in Scotland, have no mandate to impose their will there. It is hoped that the Union will be strong enough to survive this effort to break it apart, but you had better believe that it is coming.

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