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Saturday 22 November 2008

Politics

Here’s how Gordon Brown could sweep Middle Britain off its feet and win next time

Finally we must consider Mr Brown’s contacts book. It is often said that the Chancellor can be charming when he can be bothered to find the ‘on’ switch. Among those he has won over stand some of the world’s most powerful figures. The two most likely contenders to win the American presidency, Hillary Clinton and the Republican Rudy Giuliani, both prefer him to David Cameron. Whatever else one may say, it is hard to argue that he is an inconsequential figure on the world stage.

So here stands Mr Brown’s opportunity. He is a man of immense political gifts, has a proven mastery of government and a fearsome strategic brain. What will determine his success is whether this brain leads him to recognise his failures of the past ten years and whether — at the age of 56 — he is capable of changing tack. Does he actually believe in the Potemkin economy conjured up by his selective statistics, or does he appreciate the depth of the problem he is concealing?

Ten years ago unemployment among the under-25s was 14.4 per cent, a figure that Mr Brown then decried as a ‘human tragedy on a colossal scale’ and announced that his ‘ambition was nothing less than the abolition of youth unemployment’. Little is heard about this ambition today. That is perhaps because the figure has risen to 14.5 per cent, and the Chancellor has moved on to other grandiose goals with faraway targets. His New Deal has been an expensive failure.

This has been the strange thing about Mr Brown’s economic expansion. It has made almost no dent on Britain’s aggregate welfare figures — about 5.5 million on out-of-work benefits throughout the Labour years. Most worryingly, the Sure Start nurseries, which Mr Brown describes as ‘havens’, have been shown to impede learning of the most deprived children. It is fairly clear that new policies are required. To pursue the old ones would entrench failure, and guarantee election defeat.

But the Chancellor hinted at precisely this change in direction at his speech at Knebworth on Friday. He pledged a ‘new kind of politics’ where he would ‘give power away’ — precisely the opposite to the centralising policies he has been associated with so far. It was an intriguing hint, which he has not elaborated on. It may be a false scent, or it may signal a point of departure.

Might Mr Brown offer the upfront tax cuts, however cosmetic, which the Conservatives have foresworn and attempt to attack from the right? ‘You’d think that would be impossible,’ says one shadow Cabinet member, ‘but to win the election, I’d say he is capable of anything.’ Mr Cameron regularly reminds his team not to underestimate Mr Brown and to rule nothing out. It is sound advice. After a year and a half of cold war between them, battle is finally beginning.

More articles from: Fraser Nelson | this section

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