A very rubbish coup

The Paul Richards column

I don’t know exactly what Geoff Hoon and my old boss Patricia Hewitt had in mind on Wednesday morning when they published their letter calling for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown’s leadership. Perhaps they had been promised more vocal support which failed to materialise. Perhaps they were advised that more Labour MPs would line up behind them. I doubt they imagined the degree of opprobrium that would be heaped on their heads.

Attack dogs Geraldine Smith and John Mann were let loose on them, savaging their motives and reputations. Patricia Hewitt was accused by Mann of not being an assiduous constituency MP, an assertion for which he has no evidence. Hoon was accused of organising a failed plot against Blair. Smith called them ‘cowards’, an odd choice of words for a pair of politicians who have publicly put their heads on the block in such a foolhardy fashion. One unattributable briefing from a member of Brown’s inner circle described the pair in terms that Sky’s Jon Craig said would be unrepeatable, even after the watershed. The pair were denounced as ‘Blairites’ (in the manner of the denunciations of Goldstein in Nineteen Eighty-Four) even though Hoon was a Labour MEP in the 1980s, and was elected to Westminster in 1992, and Hewitt worked as Neil Kinnock’s press secretary in the 1980s, and with Harriet Harman at the NCCL in the late 1970s. A bucket-load of nastiness was emptied on their heads from the upstairs windows of No.10 Downing Street.

By the middle of the afternoon, it was all over. With cabinet ministers pledging loyalty, some more belatedly than others, and Charles Clarke and Frank Field backing the call for a ballot, it was clear that a very rubbish coup was finished.

One thing you can say about Team Brown is that they are adept at putting down revolts; they’ve had the practice, I suppose. They’ve survived two and a half to my reckoning. The speculation about David Miliband over the summer of 2008, when a combination of Miliband’s reticence and the killer line ‘no time for a novice’ in Brown’s conference speech (when television broadcasters were being directed by Damian McBride to cut away to David Miliband sitting on the front row as that line was uttered) kept Brown in office. Then Peter Mandelson’s support for Brown in June 2009 ensured that James Purnell’s bombshell resignation was a solitary act, not the start of an avalanche. And now this week’s call for a confidence vote was swatted away with little trouble.

So why did the plot, if we can dignify it with that title, fail?

The first reason is that there is no appetite for a leadership election in the Parliamentary Labour Party. Labour MPs have their reasons: some are reconciled to losing their seats, or are planning to announce their retirements in coming weeks, and don’t want to rock the boat; others are instinctively loyal to the party, and fear the rancour that a leadership election may well cause; many more are on the pay-roll vote, and owe their status as PPS’s or ministers to Brown; some are genuine Brown supporters, and believe he is the best man to lead the party. Labour MPs had the chance to remove Brown, and didn’t take it.

Second, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Not only has the ‘long campaign’ started in earnest, but also Labour had just had a positive few days. The Tories were on the ropes over their policy muddles and obfuscations, their ludicrous poster campaign was attracting ridicule, and PMQs had gone well for the PM. There was a sense amongst Labour supporters that the jig wasn’t up just yet. There were even embers of hope from the opinion polls, which showed some small improvements in Labour’s position. So, unlike in the wake of Labour’s defeat in Glasgow or the drubbing in the European elections, the party was feeling optimistic, not desperate.

Third, there is no leader-in-waiting, behind whom disaffected MPs can coalesce. This has been the primary reason for Brown’s success at holding on. The reason the ‘curry house coup’ succeeded in getting rid of Tony Blair months earlier than he had planned to go in 2007, was because there was a clear candidate in the shape of Gordon Brown. Around Brown was a unified team of supporters, each bringing complementary skills to the table. In Tom Watson he had an able fixer. In Ed Balls a brilliant policy wonk. In Ian Austin a skilled media operator. They stayed in touch through conference calls and over curry, and planned each move with care. Brown had supporters in Parliament, in the unions, and in the media, all lined up and ready to roll. When the co-ordinated resignations of PPSs started (each on a promise since fulfilled), Blair made a judgement: it is better to go now, rather than allow more resignations to do harm the standing of the Labour Government.

But there is no obvious alternative to Brown. The prospect of David Miliband, Harriet Harman, Ed Balls or Jon Cruddas as Prime Minister has always been enough to scare enough people into acquiescence with the current leadership. ‘Be careful what you wish for’ was the most persuasive refrain from Brown’s supporters.

Bad timing, misjudged levels of support, and MPs clinging to nurse for fear of something worse is what scuppered the Hoon & Hewitt show. I hope it doesn’t taint their reputations too badly, given the years of service they have given the Labour movement. Neither has anything personal to gain; they thought they were acting for the best.

What’s the lesson of the past 48 hours? The Tories are weakest when being challenged on policy, and a little scrutiny can cause a lot of disarray and confusion at CCO. That was the real meaning of Blair’s memorable metaphor the ‘big clunking fist’ – that Brown’s intellectual fire-power was more than a match for Cameron’s public relations skills. If we can make the election about policy we stay on our feet, landing punches. If Labour chooses a different course, to draw attention to Brown’s supposed failings as a communicator by making public some MPs’ private misgivings, we will throw in the towel before the bell even sounds.