Gordon Brown has survived the first 30 hours after Crewe and Nantwich. In public, the cabinet has remained supportive and even among backbenchers those prepared to openly call for leadership contest are few and far between. Behind the scenes, though, things are different—just look at the string of anonymous quotes in today’s papers. But no one is yet prepared to be, in Martin Kettle’s phrase, ‘Labour’s Geoffrey Howe.’
One man to watch in all this is Stephen Carter, the man that Brown hired to create and market ‘new Gordon.’ If Carter were to walk it would be taken as proof that Brown is incapable of change and that Labour has no chance of winning the next election. As one friend of Coffee House, a particularly astute Tory, pointed out to me yesterday, Carter going would—in terms of impact—be equivalent to a cabinet minister resigning.
There are a couple of reasons why Carter might walk. First, he was strongly opposed to the toff-baiting elements of the Crewe and Nantwich campaign but was overruled. If Brown doesn’t start listening to his advice, he might decide that he’s had enough of trying to save the Brownites from themselves. The second reason is more cynical: Carter might conclude that being associated with a government that gets routed could be detrimental to his future earnings potential. It has always been thought that Carter would go back into the private sector at some point; his stint as the Prime Minister’s chief strategist would make him a trophy hire able to dictate his own terms. But if Brown takes Labour down to a defeat equivalent to the Tory one in 1997, then everyone in Downing Street will be tainted by this failure. There’s hardly like to be much competition among private sector firms to hire Brown’s chief strategist in these circumstances.
Unlike most people who work for Brown, Carter does not feel a sense of tribal loyalty to the Labour party so is less likely to be concerned about what quitting might do to the party’s prospects. On top of this, he did not really know Brown before taking the job so is unlikely to feel particularly constrained by ties of friendship. Back in March, one Labour insider was quoted as saying about Carter “He will give it his all for six months. If it doesn’t work out, he’ll go back to the PR world.”
If Carter goes, expect those he brought to Number 10 to follow him out the door. In the Brown bunker, the rule might be last in, first out.
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