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Politics

What’s so special about 2020? Brownism is all about postponement

Fraser Nelson

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

Gordon Brown lacks urgency and only picks fights that he knows he can win.

And let us be clear: we are talking about al-Qa’eda. These are not isolated cells of homegrown jihadis, says Mr Evans, but local branches of a directly controlled global campaign usually planned in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where President Musharraf is steadily losing control. MI5 has found terror camps in Somalia which are exclusively devoted to plotting attacks on Britain. Mr Evans has been following al-Qa’eda since its first plot in Britain (which was, let it not be forgotten, in November 2000 in Birmingham — long before the Iraq war). No one speaks on the subject with greater authority.

Yet even in his speech (given in Manchester, itself a nod to the spread of the jihadi threat throughout Britain) there was no plea, coded or otherwise, for terror suspects to be held longer than 28 days. This is not surprising: as MI5 has no executive powers, it does not detain anyone and keeps a studious neutrality on this politicised debate. So the main cheerleader for extending the 28-day period is Sir Ian Blair, head of the Metropolitan Police. Given his current woes, he is hardly a witness Mr Brown would like to call on.

Nor would the Prime Minister relish anything which tests his support among Labour backbenchers, who rebelled in such numbers last time. Many of the Labour Left feel mugged by Mr Brown, and incensed by his ‘British jobs for British workers’ slogan. When David Cameron produced National Front literature with the same mantra in the Commons on Tuesday, one could sense the shiver running down Labour spines. Copying inheritance tax plans from the Tories is bad. But aping slogans from the British National Party and its predecessors is what many Labour MPs regard as ideological treason.

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Scary Biscuis

November 10th, 2007 12:45pm

In the shadowy but nontheless real, Labour leadership election last year John Reid said that if Gordon Brown had policy suprises then he should let people know what they are. The argument being that people could then judge his policies and 'vision' on its merits. Back then, the fear was that people wouldn't like his dashing new policies. Yes, the Bank independence was a nice surprise but others in the same style may not be so ammenable. Now, the slowly dawning terror is that the real reason that Brown kept his ideas so secret wasn't because he was afraid of them being copied but simply because he didn't have any.