If cats are supposed to have nine lives, how many should prime ministers expect? At least three, if the experience of Gordon Brown is anything to go by. This week’s failed coup attempt against him almost certainly means the Prime Minister will survive to lead Labour into this year’s general election. But what does it say about his leadership, the attitude towards him of his cabinet colleagues and the party’s chances in that election?
The attempted coup came out of the blue, or almost. Disillusion with Mr Brown among many Labour MPs has never gone away. Hopes that he would prove himself the leader who could secure the party a fourth term in office have never materialised. Rather, the nagging belief that another leader might save many Labour MPs their seats and even prevent the Tories from coming to power has never disappeared. But not enough significant figures seemed prepared to do much about it.
James Purnell’s resignation from the cabinet last June failed to prompt others to follow his example. Single voices, such as that of Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, have consistently called for the Prime Minister to go or be toppled. But nothing has ever come of these now familiar calls and almost everyone, including most political commentators, had reached the conclusion that the matter was closed. It was to be up to the voters, not Labour MPs, to decide the Prime Minister’s fate.
So the coup that was mounted at lunchtime on Wednesday was a great surprise even to those who had been wanting something like this to happen for a long time. Two former cabinet ministers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, wrote to their colleagues in the parliamentary Labour party to say that something had to be done.
Ostensibly, their proposal was not that Mr Brown should be got rid of but rather that the issue of whether or not he should survive should itself be got out of the way. They suggested that Labour MPs should be allowed a secret ballot on the issue next Monday. They said: “This is a clear opportunity to finally lay this matter to rest. The continued speculation and uncertainty is allowing our opponents to portray us as dispirited and disunited. It is damaging our ability to set out our strong case to the electorate. It is giving our political opponents an easy target.”
But although that was the stated aim and purpose of their move, few mistook its real design: to oust the Prime Minister. In short, it was an attempted coup.
It fizzled out almost as quickly as it was mounted. Only a few backbenchers publicly supported the plan. Many others rounded on the rebels, accusing them of taking leave of their senses (or much worse). No ministers joined the coup by resigning. By the evening Mr Hoon himself conceded that it had failed: he and Ms Hewitt had provided MPs with the opportunity to deal with the problem, he said, but they had chosen not to take it. Lord Mandelson, the deputy prime minister in all but name, said the move made by his ‘friends’, Hoon and Hewitt, had been a misjudgement because it was the ‘settled view’ of the Labour Party that Mr Brown should lead it into the election.
If the purpose of the rebels was what they said it was – to close the issue of the leadership once and for all before the election – then they have probably succeeded. But Gordon Brown is still there. So although the coup has failed it is not quite the end of the matter. For the very attempt has revealed several things and created new difficulties for the Prime Minister and his party.
In the first place, the very fact that the coup should have been attempted at all shows the depth of unhappiness with Mr Brown in the party. Both Ms Hewitt and Mr Hoon (a former chief whip, no less) are very experienced politicians. They would not have taken this risk, a risk not only with their own reputations but with the public standing of their party, had they not been convinced both that Mr Brown really did need to be got out of the way if Labour were to have any hopes in the forthcoming election, but also that a significant number of people in the party agreed with them. The fact that they failed to rally enough support to succeed does not itself contradict either point. Their opponents in other parties can now claim that Labour is a divided and unhappy party. And they are doing just that.
In addition, the coup, even though it failed, exposed the far from robust confidence in the Prime Minister on the part of his cabinet colleagues. Some came out in his support straightaway. But many took their time and when they did issue statements backing their leader those statements were widely read (and, it would seem, intendedly so) as lukewarm.
In particular, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, regarded by many people as the most likely figure to succeed Mr Brown should he fall from power, waited six hours before committing himself, and then simply said: “I am working closely with the Prime Minister on foreign policy issues and support the re-election campaign for a Labour victory.”
It is widely believed that the rebels thought that up to six senior cabinet ministers had been ready to back them. That none of them in the end did so is perhaps because each was waiting for another to take the lead, hence the delay in their muted endorsements of Mr Brown. If that is so, then they may be accused of wishing to wound but being afraid to strike.
The fact is, though, that both the Prime Minister and the Labour Party have been wounded. For the episode has allowed the opposition parties to claim that neither is fit to govern and that a general election needs to be called as soon as possible. David Cameron, the Tory leader, argued that with the country facing so many difficulties, from the war in Afghanistan to the state of the economy and the public finances, it cannot afford to have a government at war within itself and preoccupied with the issue of who should lead it.
Mr Brown may hope that time will help and that we shall all soon have forgotten this dramatic but brief episode. Perhaps we shall all quickly become preoccupied again by the much more pressing issue of how to survive what’s turning into the coldest winter many can remember. But he knows that he does not have much time left before he faces the voters and he can be in no doubt that the events of this week have done him and his party no good at all.
What’s your view about the attempted coup? Were Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon right to mount it or not? Does their move make you think there is deep unhappiness with Gordon Brown’s leadership in the Labour Party or not? What do you make of the refusal of backbench Labour MPs and ministers to support it? Do you share the view that the slowness of many cabinet ministers to back the Prime Minister and the tepid nature of some of their endorsements exposes their disillusion with him or not? Do you think Mr Brown is now safe until the election or not? Would it make any difference to how you would vote if Labour had another leader? And do you agree or not with David Cameron that we need an election as soon as possible?
