2 out of 26 aint’ bad
I’ve not much to say on the current HewittHoon nonsense that’s not been said by Dave.
What did surprise me a little, though – at least before I realised I shouldn’t be so surprised – is how many MPs speaking out against HewittHoon yesterday were content to take at face value the call for a secret ballot as a way of deciding whether Brown should remain leader.
I did a quick look through all the MP responses collated in two different posts at Labourlist, and only 5 of the 26 I looked at made any mention of the fact that any idea of such a ballot was totally outside the rules of the party.
Only two MPs – and hats off to David Heppel and David Clelland - actually bothered to mention Labour party members. David Clelland puts it best:
It [the plot] also reveals a complete ignorance of the constitution and rules of the Party – drawn up for very good reasons – to think that the PLP could hold such a ballot in isolation from members and affiliates.
The rest, one way or another, seemed to assume that the decision on party leadership is the PLP’s, and the PLP’s alone.
I’m no media expert, but surely a consistent line that HewittHoon are utterly ignorant of the rules of an organisation in which they have been senior figures – indeed Hoon was Chief Whip with responsibilities for keeping stuff within the rules – and that any talk of a ballot was simply nonsense, and that no further discussion need be had, would have been more appropriate than protestations of loyalty, however immediate or delayed.
The whole point of the “orderly transition” in 2007 was to prevent the membership – and affiliated members – getting a vote on the leadership and to restrict it to the PLP.
And why do I get the feeling that a certain Prince of Darkness had a hand in the clueless coup?
There’s no point in aimless speculation. Whether or not it is, as the press seem to have portrayed it, that two outgoing/dead-in-the-water former ministers were used as stalking horses, in order to break Brown to the will of Darling and Mandelson, we’ll probably not know before the election.
Yet I regard it as somewhat unlikely. Gordon Brown, after all, despite the hero-worship Polly Toynbee et al heaped upon him in the preparation for and aftermath of his coronation as leader, is not a radical leftie. For ten years, his hand was clamped on spending. He’s probably the most unlikely figure in the whole cabinet to spin as somehow hoping that Labour will avoid the need to make cuts.
So the rationale which the media is creating, to position Mandelson as the eminence grise curtailing Brown’s power, is, in my view, flawed.
I have to say I agree – although unlike Mandelson, there’s no prospect of big private sector jobs for Brown, like Blair – which means he might have more incentive to win the election. And promising massive spending cuts, well, that doesn’t exactly encourage people to turn out to vote…