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Politics

Fraser Nelson

Wednesday, 20th August 2008

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

It is dangerous, almost reckless, for a British Prime Minister to leave the country while in a jam at home. Had Margaret Thatcher not gone to Paris during the Tory leadership contest of 1990, she would probably have found the two extra MPs she needed to survive. Had Callaghan not jetted off for a Caribbean summit in 1979, he wouldn’t have looked so preposterously out of touch when returning to the winter of discontent. So it must have been with the greatest reluctance that Gordon Brown set off on Wednesday for a five-day trip to China.

The Prime Minister dislikes travel at the best of times, so the prospect of the 30-odd hours of flying which his multi-staged trip entails must have been his very idea of hell. If, as is likely, he drops in on Afghanistan, he will be strapped to the side of a Hercules, unable to read or hear anything. Once in Beijing, the time difference presents a clear choice between sleep, or staying in touch with London. He has left Jack Straw in charge, and will have to pray no crisis erupts which allows the Justice Secretary to shine.

Mr Brown is as fond of strategy as he is inept at tactics, and will have plenty to mull over in Beijing. If he plays the next few weeks correctly, he can survive until 2010 and hope for a miracle. If he flounders, he could be gone by Christmas, after which his party might simply disembowel itself. But — to his horror — he is now fighting on four separate fronts. He needs victory on all of them to survive.

The first battle, and the one for which he is most prepared, is against David Miliband. The truce agreed three weeks ago was temporary: neither had the time or inclination to fight in early August. And Mr Brown’s aides have anyway agreed a strategy to destroy the Foreign Secretary. They will caricature him as the puppet of the ‘ultra Blairites’, an exiled sect masterminded by the wicked, cat-stroking Alan Milburn. This narrative was established when Mr Miliband was on a beach in Minorca, and has already done some damage.

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Mike, Brighton

August 21st, 2008 10:57am

A very thin red line, given his troops are revolting (in both senses)

Cogito Ergosum

August 21st, 2008 10:40pm

"Yet British politics usually yields a stop-the-frontrunner candidate". Especially the two you failed to mention: Duncan Smith was not Ken Clarke; nor was William Hague.

Wily Trout

August 26th, 2008 1:09pm

"The British like their Prime Ministers to be statesmen". Or should that be "The British Media..."? Only politicans and newspapermen seem to think it important that we 'punch above our weight'. I don't think most Brits care to see their Prime Ministers prancing on their hind legs on the world stage making meaningless pronouncements and avoiding the problems back home.

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