Though Cowards Flinch

It would be amusing, if it wasn’t so tragic, to watch the sad parade of Labour no-hopers calling for leadership ballot papers to be sent out, or calling for a change of direction in their passive-aggressive article in Progress. Many of these people rose to become junior functionaries and at least one of them thinks that her perfect record of voting with the government is something to be proud of.

Steve Ladyman, elected in South Thanet, is almost surely destined for the dustbin at the next election, his election majority from the 1997 landslide now whittled down to six hundreds. Ladyman signed the Progress article calling for a change of direction from Gordon Brown. Many of the other signatories are just like that. Glancing upwards they note that the sword hanging above them is heavy and the suspending rope slight.

They have an unremarkable record in office, perhaps occasionally speaking up on local issues that might serve to get them re-elected but rarely if ever rebelling on an issue of principle. These are the passing hacks of the Labour Party, distilled by their years in Parliament, soon to be culled en masse and replaced by the legions of Ions, Twiggs, Angells and Peacocks. An awe-inspiring thought to be sure.

All this is set against the backdrop of a fast approaching Labour Party Conference where, no doubt, the number of Labour Party delegates will have dropped steadily further against the number of lobbyists, journos and people attending in a professional capacity for various commercial endeavours. At this Conference, nothing will happen which will bother the government and Brown will remain, like a spider in his web.

I very much doubt whether Brown is troubled by the thought of a leadership election, because even if seventy MPs pluck up the courage to call for one (unlikely, bearing in mind how rigorously most of them have been screened) there is no clear alternative likely to command enough of the PLP, popular vote and Unions to unseat the Dear Leader. Don’t get me wrong, All Glory To McDonnell, but it ain’t gonna happen.

So, what next? Opposition, populism, the pretence of those who replace the New Labour clique that they’ll do better? Probably. Perhaps this is an unconscious projection on my part but all I can see washing over the Labour Party is a wave of apathy from the young to match the virtually apolitical greybeards who currently run the party at a local level. Only those focused on office will fight on – for career and country!

Amusing. If it wasn’t so tragic.