The Spectator’s Notes | 1 October 2005

If you are not part of the ‘selectorate’, you feel annoyed at the suggestion that Gordon Brown can become prime minister by acclamation and without a general election. It is not so much that another candidate might be better — though I rather like the look of Alan Johnson, the Trade and Industry Secretary — it is just that a party’s choice of leader is a very different thing from running the country. The country should decide on the latter. Of party leaders since the war chosen while in government only Harold Macmillan could be accounted any sort of success. The others were Anthony Eden, Alec Douglas-Home, Jim Callaghan and John Major. The ones who kept winning elections — Wilson, Thatcher and Blair — were all chosen in opposition. It is Eden that Brown most resembles, in that he has been the impatient yet almost unchallenged heir for years and years. Eden’s particular area of expertise was foreign policy, but he gave us Suez. Brown’s acclaimed skill is economic management, but he is at last admitting that his own predictions of growth cannot be sustained. His omens are not good.

Against all evidence, however, including Mr Brown’s brimming confidence, this column clings to the idea that Tony Blair will not, in fact, step down before the next election. This view is based on the simple belief that when Mr Blair absolutely, categorically promises something, he does the opposite (‘at our best when at our boldest’). My thesis will be proved wrong, though, if the desire for money overcomes the love of power. After a few years, prime ministers always develop the view that they are poor, and indeed they are, compared with the money they could make if they left office. Mr and Mrs Blair have a notable fondness for the company, houses and holidays of the rich, and if they calculate that all these could be theirs if only they could become Bill and Hillary Clinton-style celebrities on the world stage, I expect they are right.