Robert Peston’s definitive biography of the Chancellor rocked the government. Here he sets out Brown’s plans, his promise of a ‘new individualism’ — and the nightmare he faces positioning himself in relation to Blair
At last comes the final settling of accounts between the bosses of The Two Families, Don Antonio and Don Gordono. Don Antonio, the capo di tutti capi, still sits at the head of the table. But not for much longer, as Don Gordono stares him down. In a relationship measured out in mutual accusations of betrayal over many years, the mayhem of the past few days can be traced in part to what Don Gordono sees as the great treachery of 2004.
This was when Don Antonio failed to honour what Don Gordono saw as a firm and unsolicited commitment to resign in that autumn. At the impasse, Don Gordono looked daggers on Don Antonio and intoned in his rich baritone, ‘There is nothing that you could ever say to me now that I could ever believe.’
Instead Don Antonio made his famous commitment that he would lead Labour into war against the Conservatives one last time. It was, in fact, a promise that he would not go on and on. But his departure date remained vague. In theory he could stay until 2010. But most believed he would be history some time between 2007 and 2009.
The intelligence of Don Gordono’s people was that Don Antonio had no intention of quitting as capo till 2008 — and never mind his seductive hints that he would stand down sooner. The soldiers, even some owing allegiance to Don Antonio, were becoming restless at the uncertainty over the succession. Then the coup: a theatrical and tactical series of resignations from the lower ranks of New Labour’s command structure forced Don Antonio to agree to be off during the course of the next few months.
Did Don Gordono order this putsch when the young gunny, Tom Watson, visited his familial home just under a fortnight ago? Of course not: deniability is vital for Don Gordono, as it is for Don Antonio; they must never be told of the bloody acts committed in their names. And, anyway, Don Gordono is something of the comedy mafia Don — always fretting about the bickering in the family, never actually ordering a hit. But when Watson mentioned to Don Gordono that he was ‘bringing a present for the baby’, Don Gordono knew better than to probe further.
You get the picture. The tension between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair — and between the Blairites and the Brownites — is rooted in a deep sense of mistrust, tinged with ideological difference. For their party, this poses dangers in the short term — but should mean that, as and when Brown becomes leader and prime minister, Labour may be more governable than (for example) the Tories were when infected by European mania in the 1990s.
What are the risks? One stems from Brown’s primeval fear that Blair actually wants crisis and chaos as his legacy. He sees it in Blair’s predilection for picking fights with his own party — over tuition fees, or foundation hospitals, or ID cards, inter alia. Brown’s reservations about these policies have only in part been about the ideas they embody. He is more troubled by a policymaking process in No. 10 Downing Street which in his view goes out of its way to alienate more traditional Labour supporters, and thereby prove Blair’s ‘progressive’ credentials, rather than build consensus for change.
Which is why Brown will deny in the coming weeks and months that he would be a less radical premier than Blair has been and will argue — sotto voce at least — that he would make the case for reform in a more thorough and effective way.
Also it is an article of faith among Brown and the Brownites that Blair’s motto is ‘Après moi, le deluge’ — that it would suit him for the Labour party to be engulfed by civil war in his wake. His place in history would then be as the only Labour leader to have brought harmony and magnificent electoral victories to a party that proved to be uncontrollable by anyone else. But tragedy lurks within the Brownites’ night terrors. The less they trust Blair to deliver a smooth transition to a new leader, the more prone they are to sow dissent and strife — and the more they would bring about the very carnage that would destroy Brown.
Armageddon is less likely at the moment because Brown recognises that he has made a breakthrough. Although there is not yet precision about the leadership election date, Blair appears to have settled for announcing the timetable in February, initiating the contest on 4 May and giving way to his successor in mid-June. Like many Labour members, Brown will fear that the process is all too long and drawn out — that government would be ineffectual until a new leader is installed, and factionalism could become endemic. But he will not argue against Blair’s wishes, for fear of having the infamy charge levelled back at him.
Brown can at least see a date for the handover of power. Since he would hold a general election in 2009, he would have sufficient time to put his imprimatur on the Labour party. And it is possible that Blair’s sense of personal autonomy may persuade him to spring one final surprise and bring forward his farewell. Which is why it is not in Brown’s interest to turn a Nelsonian eye on rebellion, unless he is gratuitously needled by Blair. As an academic student of Labour’s past failures, he does not wish his party to re-acquire the habit of disunity, since that would be a guarantee of imminent rejection of Labour by the electorate.
If he does finally replace Blair, will he be good, bad or indifferent? Is he disqualified by being, in Charles Clarke’s bilious words, a ‘control freak’? Well, there are control freaks and control freaks.
Brown may not be as open as he could or should be to debating sensitive issues with fellow ministers, and his constitutional inability to concede an error is troubling. But he has an unusually clear sense of direction for a politician, he has a fearsome grasp of detail and he inspires remarkable loyalty from talented colleagues.
What’s more, the rehabilitation of the Treasury under his stewardship since 1997 is an unarguable fact, while the reputations of most other departments have not been burnished under New Labour’s command.
Brown, as Chancellor, has not done everything right. There are questions about his extension of means-testing in the provision of state pensions, the increased complexity of the tax system and about the troubled execution of his most ambitious redistribution initiative, tax credits. But it would be churlish to deny him credit for the unprecedented economic stability of recent years. And in terms of his alleged shortcomings as a manager, the Treasury is more motivated than it was ante-Brown and remains a magnet for superior public servants.
But what does Brown say of matters beyond even the Treasury’s long reach? On the most resonant issue of all, Iraq, he does not wish to estrange himself from either the White house or Rupert Murdoch by repudiating the invasion. Instead, he can — and does — criticise Anglo–American failure to prepare adequately for the process of rebuilding after the war.
Then there’s the delicate subject of the influx of foreign nationals to the UK. Here, he is turning populist. His conviction hitherto has been that a liberal approach to immigration is a stimulus to economic growth, but he has made up his mind that unfettered flows from Bulgaria and Romania would be de trop.
Where he is likely to be less conventional is in an area of importance but of minority interest: the constitution. His obsession with promoting ‘Britishness’ is combined with a renewed emphasis on the role of Parliament. Thus for him it would be OK to lock up terrorist suspects for more than 28 days, if MPs were given oversight of the more draconian detention system. And he is minded to make the Lords an elected chamber, so long as the role of the Commons as the dominant chamber is not undermined (which would be tricky, to put it mildly).
It is in the area of local government that Brownites are doing more imaginative thinking. Brown is alarmed by the worsening climate of disenchantment with the main political parties and established political structures. His long-term prescription is likely to be in the area of devolving decision-making power to smaller and more accountable units than traditional local authorities.
He talks of a ‘New Individualism’ — or perhaps it should be called state-sponsored Thatcherism. It will combine measures to promote saving and the accumulation of assets by households with reforms to schools and hospitals that make them more responsive to their local communities.
But there is an appalling dilemma which he will have to navigate during his leadership campaign — which to all intents and purposes he launched on Sunday in his interview with Andrew Marr on BBC1. On the one hand, it is difficult for him to distance himself from Blair and his works, for fear of licensing attacks from the Blairite Ultras, such as Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers.
But if Brown dare not criticise his predecessor, he may find that Blair’s unpopularity with the wider electorate — as evidenced in opinion polls — will rub off on him. If the electorate believes it is time for a change, how does he deliver that without fomenting fresh dissent within his party?
Somehow he has to be both Blairite and anti-Blairite, which may mean that it will prove almost impossible to be himself, unless and until he becomes leader. Much of his campaign for the leadership may have to be conducted in code aimed at the Labour cognoscenti, or in a language so twisted and deprived of proper meaning that ordinary voters are alienated.
An inability to show himself properly probably won’t cost him the leadership election — whether or not a serious contender emerges (who could only be John Reid or Alan Johnson, in the unlikely event that one of them perceives advantage in challenging Brown: in fact it may be in Brown’s interest for one of them to run, if it allowed him to bury Blairite dissent and dissenters long before a general election). But he would have to work that much harder in his early days as leader to establish his credentials.
The corollary is that if he has any great policy petard, he won’t set it off till after his formal anointing, come the day. After his long wait, and having been a household name for the best part of a decade, Brown is acutely aware that even if familiarity may not necessarily breed contempt, there is a clear and present danger of voters simply becoming bored with him.
Robert Peston is business editor of the BBC and will present a short film on Gordon Brown for BBC2’s Daily Politics on 25 September. He is the author of Brown’s Britain (Short Books).