The Spectator

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 29 September 2007

Thank you for Peter Oborne’s ruthlessly accurate exposé of the Political Class (‘The Establishment is dead’, 15 September). Established truths Sir: Thank you for Peter Oborne’s ruthlessly accurate exposé of the Political Class (‘The Establishment is dead’, 15 September). The collateral damage caused by the killing of the Establishment can be distilled into just five words: the death of independent thought. This seems to apply to the populace as a whole as much as to politicians of all parties.   Ten short years ago Frank Field, an intelligent and thoughtful man, was appointed minister of welfare reform in the Department of Social Security with a mandate from Tony Blair to ‘think the unthinkable’.

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Did the Tories rock in Blackpool?

Spectator.co.uk has full coverage of the Tory Conference. Matthew d’Ancona and Fraser Nelson are reporting the latest development from Blackpool here. George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor and Tory election coordinator, is blogging for Coffee House, to read his thoughts click here. Up and coming Tory MP Nadine Dorries is also lending her unique perspective to Coffee House. While Tamzin Lightwater is keeping us up to date on all the latest gossip from inside Team Cameron. Norman Tebbit tells Cameron to ignore his advisers and instead listen to St. Paul, in his pre-conference essay. Frank Luntz, the American pollster, reveals what his focus groups are saying here. While Fraser Nelson previews the biggest speech of David Cameron’s life in this week’s cover story.

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The right stuff | 29 September 2007

Ostensibly, Gordon Brown’s first Labour conference speech as Prime Minister on Monday was grandly non-partisan: there was not a single mention of the Tories or of David Cameron. In practice, the Conservative party generally, and Mr Cameron specifically, were present in every line. Though presented as a lofty civic oratory by the father of the nation, this was in fact a brutally partisan speech by an expert Scottish machine politician. Everything was achieved by implication, but heavy implication. First, Mr Brown presented himself as a sort of Sarkozy from Fife, translating ‘love France or leave it’ into an extended discourse on playing by the rules, British values, the need for migrants to speak English and ‘British jobs for British workers’.

Tuesday

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How does Brown plan to deliver on his promises?

There is a consensus in the papers this morning that for all the politiical skill of Gordon Brown’s speech, it puts us no closer to knowing how Brown plans to achieve his ambitious aims. As Peter Riddell says in The Times, “we are no nearer to understanding how a Brown Britain would work in five or ten years’ time.” In The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland reports that, “One unreconciled Blairite listening to it all shook his head in despair, branding the speech as "dire". Everyone wants a personalised NHS, he bellowed. "How's he going to do it? "This central question - how?" - remained unanswered.

Monday

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Conference Update

We’ve just posted the latest instalment of Jon Cruddas’s conference diary which includes details of a classic encounter with Peter Mandelson and an explanation of what Gordon Brown is trying to appeal to. We also have a sketch from Lloyd Evans on Gordon Brown’s performance which absolutely skewers the Labour leader.

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Brown’s national party

Talk here is turning to Brown's decision not to blast the Tories in his speech. This fits with the idea of him transcending party division, and of course wooing Tory voters. The new business cards they're handing out here say "New Labour for Britain" the last two words in far larger type. And this is the new hype: Labour is trying to mutate into a British national party (so to speak) quietly picking up the flags, rhetoric and other nationalistic paraphernalia junked by the Cameroon Tories.

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Brown writes the Tories out of the script

For me, the most striking feature of Brown's speech was what was missing from it: not the election date but the Conservative Party. You would not think that less than a year ago most senior Labour figures feared that David Cameron's appeal to switchers in marginal seats was so strong that a hung Parliament was the best they could hope for. Now, in private at least, the same ministers debate the scale of the majority which they now confidently expect, whenever the election is called. Brown barely deigned to mention the Conservative Party or to pay David Cameron the compliment of launching a full-frontal attack on him. Instead, he spoke, as Fraser predicted last week, as the father of the nation.

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Gordon Brown’s speech

2:40pm: So far, Brown is trying to lay out a third way between equality of outcome and opportunity pitching New Labour as the party of aspiration and community. Brown’s delivery is relaxed and confident and he is managing, just, not to talk in his trademark machine gun blasts. 2:45pm Brown talks about a 10 year plan for education and how every student leaving school at 18 will now have a qualification. Low-income pupils will be financed from 16 through to the end of their university degree. This, says Brown, will be a symbol of a society not divided by class but united by aspiration. Aspiration and talent are clearly the words of the day; carefully chosen, one imagines, to appeal to Middle Britain.

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What Brown’s speech will tell us about his election plans

The word is that Gordon Brown’s speech will not mention when he might go to the country. Indeed, judging by his rather tetchy performance on the Today Programme this morning he appears to regretting letting the speculation reach such a fever pitch. But his address will still give us plenty of clues to his thinking. If it is stuffed with, to borrow a phrase, eye-catching initiatives with which he can be personally associated such as this deep clean of hospitals and a reversal on 24 hour drinking, which he hinted heavily at this morning, then it will suggest that he really is going to go. But if he sets out a more long term vision then he is likely waiting until the spring. One other shift worth noting is that November 1st seems to be emerging as the new favoured autumn date.

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The Sun rains on Brown’s parade

The one cloud on the Bournemouth horizon for Gordon Brown this morning is the vigorous campaign that the Sun has launched today for a referendum on the EU treaty formerly known as the constitution. The front page of the paper declares, “Never have so few decided so much for so many.” Inside, the first seven pages are devoted to the issue with the Sun warning that Britain “faces the greatest threat as an independent sovereign state since the dark days of World War II.” There follows a pledge to fight this cause “right up to the next election.” As Tim Montgomerie notes, this campaign might give Brown pause about going to the country in the autumn; especially as the final negotiations on the treaty would take place so close to polling day.

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Brown previews his big speech

Today is G-Day, and Gordon is doing the rounds of the broadcasters before his big speech this afternoon. Up against Sky's Adam Boulton, Brown led off, as he did on Marr yesterday, on the "personalised" NHS - although when Adam mentioned that this very New Labour approach to health reform had been welcomed by Peter Mandelson at a meeting last night, the PM could barely muster a nod of disgusted recognition. On election timing, he was positively sharp in response to Adam's perfectly legitimate questions: "The first person I shall talk to is The Queen and not Sky TV." Let's remember that promise if, by chance, the date is actually announced in due course on the front page of a red-top newspaper. At any rate, the PM is conspicuously leaving open his options.

Sunday

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More good poll news for Brown

The case for Gordon Brown going to the country in October just keeps getting stronger.  A poll in tomorrow’s Sun puts Labour on 42%--8 points ahead of the Tories, an increase in the lead of 3 points since the start of the month. (The indispensable Conservative Home has details). While the Sunday Times reports that Labour’s internal polling has them up by a massive 14% if the election were to be held now.  I’ve always been sceptical about the likelihood of Brown calling an election so soon as it undercuts one of his key assets, the perception that he is a serious man who is just interested in getting things done.

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The new Labour split

In the conference hotel bar, there is but one subject under heated discussion, and it is, like treason, a matter of dates. The old Blair-Brown conference clash (RIP) has been replaced this year by a rather different sort of division: the Octobrists versus the Mayites, the 'go now, Gordon' camp versus the 'wait and see' crew. I suspect that this divide within the conference is nowhere more vivid than inside the capacious brain of the PM himself. He is, we know, capable of great resolve, boldness and theatricality: witness his granting of independence to the Bank of England, and his formidably choreographed entrance as Prime Minister.

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Jon Cruddas’s conference diary

All week, Jon Cruddas will be writing a conference diary for us from Bournemouth. We’ve just posted his first entry in which Jon explains why the Labour party is parting like it is 1996 all over again and why he suspects that his wife might not have voted for him for deputy leader.

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Fisking Darling

The Labour Party conference is already turning out to be a stage where a fictional narrative of events is being established and Alistair Darling’s speech was no exception. Here is a small list of correctives.   1) “Record of economic growth not achieved by any other economy” Um, the UK has had the worst growth in the English speaking world since 1997. Most developed countries have grown faster. See theOECD growth tables for proof.   2) “Youth unemployment is down by 90% in Dorset and that is what a Labour government has delivered”. Um, youth unemployment has (scandalously) risen under Labour across the UK (see here).   3) He claimed Bournemouth has a 1.5% unemployment rate.

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Will Brown take the October plunge?

Two moments stood out for me in Gordon's Andrew Marr interview: when the PM discussed the health service, not only personalised but capable of delivering to patients the "doctor that they want, the GP at the time they want" he was echoing his recent tea-guest, Margaret Thatcher (I want to go to the hospital of my choice, on the day I want, at the time I want.) Not much comfort for public sector workers there. Second, when Marr expertly pressed him on election timing, Brown let slip the extent to which he is now absorbed by this matter. Asked about Callaghan's famous decision not to go to the country in 1978, Gordon smiled and said there are "so many historic analogies" - revealing that he has indeed been consulting his extensive historical library for precedents.

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What to watch for in Bournemouth

Gordon's first Labour conference as Prime Minister begins today: it could conceivably be his last. Just as last year's gathering of the party in Manchester was dominated by Tony Blair's farewell and the prospects for smooth transition to the Brown regime, the proceedings in Bournemouth will be consumed by a single question and one that will almost certainly not be mentioned on the conference floor: the timing of the election (see Andrew Rawnsley's typically shrewd analysis of the pros and cons of an early poll in today's Observer). As absorbing as this question undoubtedly is - will he? won't he?

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Which Blairite will spill the beans on Brown?

After the censored purity of the Campbell diaries, the Blair era memoirs competition finally looks like becoming a race to the bitchy bottom. Jonathan Powell's autobiography is to have the splendid title "Great Hatred, Little Room". I'm told it will focus on Northern Ireland rather than No. 11. But from the second greatest Brown hater in No. 10 (Cherie being the first) it has much potential.

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 22 September 2007

No call for a referendum Sir: Your leading article overstates the case for a referendum in the UK (15 September). It would be interesting to know how many newspapers thought there should be a referendum on the decision to go to war with Iraq, or other far-reaching decisions that Parliament takes, such as on counter-terrorism or euthanasia. We live in a parliamentary democracy where our legislature is entrusted to take decisions on behalf of the people. Eurosceptics routinely bemoan the loss of parliamentary sovereignty, but the calls for a referendum would ironically neuter Parliament at the time when it should be centre stage. Furthermore, hysterical complaints about the submergence of the UK into a United States of Europe are far-fetched.