There is a housing development in Brockley, south east London, with an extraordinary piece of graffiti. “Thanks to Gordon Brown, I will never buy a house,” it says, and in super-large lettering no less. It is not without economic rationale. Brown’s easy-money policy at the Treasury led the Bank of England to chase a dodgy inflation measure – therefore, making credit too cheap, and, therefore, inflating an asset bubble. Also Brown’s failure to reform planning laws put an artificial restriction on supply of UK housing in the face of ever-rising demand. But is Brown entirely to blame for housing boom? Not even I would go that far. But this isn’t the point. If many people believe this to be true, it becomes in itself a feature of our political landscape.
To me, this is reminiscent of anti-Thatcher graffiti in Glasgow in the late 1980s, a time when contempt for the Prime Minister is widespread and a general election anxiously awaited. In a tiny space of time, Brown has hit this level of notoriety. Just as anti-Toryism was for a long time the strongest political force in Scotland, so anti-Brownism has become a huge force in Britain. Ask anyone campaigning in Crewe right now, or anyone who tread doorsteps for the local elections. Pensioners, borrowers, teachers, soldiers – each has their own bone to pick with him. As I say in my News of the World column today, he has somehow become a tartan lightening rod absorbing the nation’s anger. I am a critic of Brown, to put it mildly, but I am still taken aback by the level of opprobrium.
The Tories minimised their exposure to anti-Thatcherism by knifing Thatcher and Major won the next election. The hot question at Westminster is whether Labour can and will do the same. My hunch is not: there’s no mechanism, no candidate. And Labour always keeps bad leaders for too long. It had Foot for three years and Kinnock for nine. A former Blair-era Cabinet member told me that this explains the otherwise inexplicable 49% support for the Tories – the Tories have supplanted the LibDems as the repository of anti-Labour votes. And for as long as Brown stays, the more resentment there will be against this PM whom no one elected. This is why Brown’s survival is vital to Tory chances at the next election. Anti-Brownism is a force very much out there in Britain and I suspect his sofa offensive will only reinforce the public’s reservations about him. So the Tories had best be careful how they do in Crewe: I know more than a few Shadow Cabinet members who would see victory there as a mixed blessing. They have their eye on a new formula, more important: the longer Brown stays in the current climate, the greater Cameron’s majority will be.
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