Tuesday, February 27, 2007
BROWN AND OUT?
Gordon Brown’s lack of a serious challenger for the leadership, yet apparent widespread unpopularity with the electorate has left Labour MPs with a serious dilemma.
The facts of the Labour leadership race are stark; Gordon Brown is the overwhelming favourite to win the race, strong odds-on with any bookmaker you care to mention and spoken of in parliament and the press as the certain victor. It would be a shock of tumultuous proportions were he not to inherit the crown when Tony Blair finally steps down. However, as more and more polls pit Brown rather unflatteringly against David Cameron, and hint at strong antagonism from voters and large Tory leads, Labour MPs find themselves damned if they do, and damned if they do not. Seemingly, Brown cannot lose the Labour leadership race, but cannot win a General Election.
Last week’s ICM poll in the Guardian gave Cameron’s Conservative’s a 13 point lead over Brown’s Labour, and for months research has suggested he would be less popular among women and floating voters. Brown polarises the electorate, pushing Lib Dems and waverers into the lap of the more consensual and empathetic Cameron. Furthermore, personal attacks, of the like seen this morning when senior backbencher and sworn Brown enemy Frank Field described his accession to the leadership as “like letting Mrs Rochester out of the attic. He has no empathy with people.” have hardly helped.
Field and others have called from a heavyweight Blairite, such as John Reid or David Milliband, to challenge Brown. The former seems handicapped by what is becoming another annus horriblis for the Home Office, and the latter by his youth and inexperience. Labour MPs who privately feel the Brown juggernaut has far too much momentum, in terms of Union support and ‘careerists for Brown’ sewn up votes, appear to be correct.
Milliband would appear to have little to gain if he can’t win, and he is the only candidate likely to offer something genuinely different to the Brown’s brand of brooding moralising. It is almost certain there will be no heavyweight challenger, and almost certain no-one from the left has any chance of usurping the Chancellor. The juggernaut truly is unstoppable. Labour MPs problem is that it appears headed for an exit marked ‘Conservative majority’.
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