Brown is not the problem

In September 2006, as Tony Blair was forced to bring forward his departure date by backbench rebellion, The Spectator predicted a Labour civil war. It was not clear when this conflict would erupt, only that its coming was inexorable. This week, battle commenced.

In the wake of disastrous local election results and the loss of London to Boris Johnson, Gordon Brown faces revolt on many fronts. In Scotland, Labour’s leader, Wendy Alexander, has called for a referendum on the future of the United Kingdom. In Westminster, Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, has demanded that the PM drop his plans to extend the pre-charge detention period for terror suspects to 42 days, and that Mr Brown ‘finish with dog whistle language, such as British jobs for British workers, which flatters some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of society’.

The Labour Left, with all the logic of lemmings, urges the PM to embrace pure socialism. Rumours of ultimatums, ‘probationary periods’ and ‘stalking horses’ abound. Above all, the abolition of the 10p tax rate has become symbolic of the government’s rapid disaggregation.

The natural impulse of Labour supporters is to blame their battered leader: according to a Populus poll in the Times on Wednesday, 55 per cent of Labour voters believe that the party would be more likely to win the next general election if Mr Brown resigned ‘to make way for a younger, fresher, more charismatic alternative’. Less than a year ago, the PM could do no wrong in the eyes of his party. Now they attribute all their woes to him. In barely 11 months, Gordon has gone from hero to zero.

The PM’s shortcomings are so familiar that they scarcely need to be rehearsed — although Jon Cruddas, the MP for Barking and Dagenham, was right this week to contrast Mr Brown’s tone-deaf managerial language with the ‘much more sophisticated, emotionally literate Conservatism’ that David Cameron is developing.