With speculation of a leadership challenge to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, perhaps time to reflect on an article published in April 2007:
A week is a famously long time in politics. But, as in the past, the week between Tony Blair’s resignation and the close of nominations for the Labour leadership will be the longest of all.
Time and time again this short period has turned expectations upside down. Throughout history most leadership contests have followed surprisingly similar patterns: matters rapidly come to a head, unresolved issues get resolved and, usually, the outcome reflects what is best both for the country and for the Party. Important though personal ambition always is, larger considerations take centre stage.
In 1940 Neville Chamberlain resigned, sure that Lord Halifax would succeed him as Prime Minister. Within a few turbulent days, however, it was Winston Churchill who was walking into Number Ten.
It is commonplace to recall that in 2006 David Cameron surprisingly defeated David Davis for the Leadership of his Party. There is less discussion of the way in which he emerged from a large field as the main challenger.
Margaret Thatcher was the unlikely successor to Ted Heath in 1975 because she had the courage to step into the race while Willie Whitelaw and Keith Joseph were still dithering. Fifteen years later she was brought down and John Major was the surprise winner – possibly helped by undergoing dental surgery and therefore absent from the fray while the grisly political scene unfolded in London.
It’s been true for Labour too. Harold Wilson’s speedy emergence after Hugh Gaitskell’s death in 1963 was not foreseen and Jim Callaghan rapidly went to the front of the field after Wilson’s surprise resignation in 1976. Following Labour’s massive electoral defeat in 1983 after ‘the longest suicide note in history’, Neil Kinnock was a far less obvious successor than his more senior colleagues, such as Denis Healey, John Smith and Peter Shore, none of whom eventually even entered the race, let alone Tony Benn who had been unexpectedly defeated in the General Election a few months earlier.
In 1994 John Smith’s sudden death led to a week of deep inner-Labour Party argument. This included the infamous Granita restaurant conversation which reportedly led Gordon Brown to stand aside in favour of Tony Blair. I have always maintained that it would have been better for all concerned if the two men had contested the leadership there and then.
In a month or so Labour’s long week will begin when Tony Blair declares his intention to stand down as Labour Leader after 13 years. I expect the announcement a few days after the Scottish, Welsh and English municipal elections and I do not think that the outcome of those elections will significantly influence its timing. The precise date will belong to the Prime Minister alone but we will have reached the time for him to go and for the Labour Party to choose a new leader.
It is impossible to predict what will happen then. Despite the punditry, the puffs of white and black smoke and the pompous certainty of the media soothsayers, the outlook at the end of that week, when nominations close, will be very different from the initial expectations.
The only certainty is that Gordon Brown will be a candidate and that he will easily receive the 45 MPs’ nominations required. Whether the other currently declared candidates, John McDonnell and Michael Meacher, can secure 45 nominations is much less certain. And there is no certainty that anyone else will run – despite the speculation – though if they do I believe that there is enough support for 2, 3 or possibly even 4 candidates to contest the leadership.
All of these aspects will remain uncertainties until Tony Blair makes his announcement. Only then will decisions be made, nominations confirmed and hats thrown into the ring – or not.
The conduct of that week will determine whether there is to be a leadership contest. By the end of the week we may well know the likely result and have the first indications of Labour’s future policy agenda. We will know just how serious Labour is about winning the next General Election.</P>
So how are the political dynamics of this contest likely to play out?
Labour starts in a position of some demoralisation. This is true despite the enormous achievements of Tony Blair’s premiership. Think back 10 years and you cannot fail to see that he has transformed the country for the better. Historians will certainly recognise this, despite the mixed reviews today. The current malaise does not arise from particular policy concerns, (these always exist) but from a general sense of drift since 2005 which has become acute in the last year or so. This has undermined Labour’s capacity to deal with day to day political problems.
As a result the first thing that Labour MPs will seek from a new Leader is a clear sense of direction and purpose. It will have to mean more than a celebration of Labour’s achievements or a critique of Labour’s failures (such as that offered by John McDonnell). Nor can it mean a return to narrow policy disputes intended to highlight differences between so-called ‘Blairites’ and so-called ‘Brownites’.
A clear sense of direction means much more than changes in Government structures or promises of continuity or specific policies however worthy. This sense of purpose needs to encapsulate a renewed Labour approach which is founded on the achievements of the Blair decade but recognises its mistakes, deals with future challenges and is markedly different in content.
I have argued in detail over the past year that we need to build a sense of the kind of country Britain will be for the next generation. By 2020 will we be leading the world with a sustainable green economy? Will we have instituted effective protection from dangerous individuals, tackled anti-social behaviour, given young people hope for their future, and reduced prison numbers and levels of re-offending? Will we be working enthusiastically within the European Union tackling the problems of the world in a co-ordinated way? Will wealth be more fairly distributed? How well suited will our schools and hospitals be to the demand of the modern world? Will we really have a modern constitution and participative democracy fit for the 21st century?
Others will have different priorities, but I am certain that Labour’s long week will make it clear that there can be no return to the outdated elements of Labour’s past.
Opinion polling, and of course the results of the real polls in May, will fashion the climate within which Labour MPs will make their judgements. But the central question, which will determine both the identity and character of Labour’s new leadership, will be ‘How does Labour best shape itself to meet the challenges of the future and win the next General Election?’ That, rather than the ‘character’ or ‘personality’ issues predicted by some commentators, will dominate real political thinking.
And the spectre at the feast will be the fear of bitter and destructive Party division, of the type which damaged Labour in the early 1980s and the Tories during the mid-1990s. Such division can end a political party’s prospects for a generation. On the other hand, respectful, well-conducted and open debate about the future can revitalise politics. This is both essential and very difficult to achieve at the end of a long period in Government. This balance between the fear and the opportunities of contest will be at the front of the minds of both potential candidates and Labour MPs as a whole.
Labour’s long week will be the prelude to a six-week leadership election campaign, focused on building the foundation of a General Election victory in 2009 or 2010. I am confident that Labour will achieve that, but in quite what way is more difficult to predict.
END
Charles Clarke is Member of Parliament for Norwich South.
He worked as a researcher and then Chief of Staff to former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock from 1981 to 1992. From 1992 to 1997, before his election as a Member of Parliament, Mr Clarke was chief executive of Quality Public Affairs, a public affairs management consultancy.
He has been MP for Norwich South since 1997. He gained extensive experience of local government in the London Borough of Hackney where he was chair of the housing committee and vice chair of economic development between 1980 and 1986.
Charles became Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for School Standards in July 1998. He was appointed Minister of State at the Home Office on 29 July 1999 and became Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair in July 2001.
Secretary of State for Education and Skills since October 2002, Mr Clarke was appointed Home Secretary in December 2004 leaving the Home Office on May 5th 2006. Educated at Highgate School, London , Mr Clarke read mathematics and economics at Kings College Cambridge, graduating BA (Hons). He was President of the National Union of Students from 1975 to 1977.
Born in 1950, Mr Clarke married in 1984. He and his wife Carol have two sons.
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