The plot against Brown is rumbling on, every few hours another MP is publicly joining the call for a leadership vote. It seems that the idea of a crowning a new leader has been abandoned and that there will be a contest if Gordon goes.
Given the electoral college that Labour uses in its leadership contests, Alan Johnson would probably be the best placed candidate if he did run. He has appeal among MPs, party members and the trade unions and as a fairly non-ideological politician he would be acceptable to all the wings of the party. He is also seen as someone who ‘connects’ with the public and his biography is a plus.
The biggest question mark against him is whether he wants it or not. Some say that his confidence has been badly shaken by his loss to Harriet Harman in the deputy leadership contest last year, others that he really means it when he says that he doesn’t think he would be up to the job.
But if I was a Labour MP something else about Johnson would concern me: does he actually connect? As Mike Smithson has noted, Johnson came out badly when various possible Labour leadership candidates were focus grouped in 2006. Today’s Times suggests that Johnson still doesn’t poll well.
A panel of twenty people who all voted Labour at the last election but who were split evenly between those who had switched to the Tories, were now undecided and those who were still with Labour were asked to react to Brown, Johnson, Cruddas, Miliband and Purnell. In this message testing, Johnson did appallingly, worse than everyone else—even Brown did better than him.
Intriguingly, it was Jon Cruddas who most impressed the panel. Cruddas, who ran the best campaign for the deputy leadership last year and came a strong third, has long been viewed as a possible Labour leader after an election defeat. But this Times story is going to set off chatter about his more immediate prospects. Certainly, a clean hands contender—someone who hasn’t served in either the Blair or Brown cabinets—would be hard for the Tories to attack. He is also fresh enough that he would have a chance of stealing ‘change’ from the Tories. Those who say that he is too left-wing, should think about the fact that most of the political opportunities for Labour now are on the left.
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