Memex 1.1

Way back in December 2005 I wrote this:

Whenever someone intelligent seems to be behaving oddly, the hypothesis has to be that they know what they’re doing and that you simply haven’t figured it out. (Sometimes clever people do barmy things, but that’s not the best initial bet.)

So it is with Tony Blair and the Succession. If — as is widely believed — there is some kind of deal between him and Gordon Brown that the latter is the anointed successor, then Blair’s declared intention of serving “a full term” as Prime Minister seems bizarre. If he really wanted Brown to succeed and have a fighting chance of winning the next election, then there must be an orderly transition fairly soon (and certainly no more than 18 months from now). But this is not how Blair — steaming fanatically ahead with his reform-or-bust agenda — is behaving. Why?

Watching Brown in action this week as Adair Turner’s sensible report on the pensions crisis was published, an obvious thought occurred to me (I’m slow on the uptake, alas). It’s this: Blair doesn’t want Brown to succeed him, and he’s going to do everything in his power to stop him becoming leader!

What’s more, he’s right. If Labour goes into the next election with Brown facing David Cameron as the Tory leader, then they will lose.

Since then various people have pooh-poohed this analysis as the purest fantasy. So it’s really interesting to find this story in this morning’s Observer.

Gordon Brown’s leadership was in turmoil last night after claims that Tony Blair does not believe he is capable of beating David Cameron and winning the next election.

The humiliating charge from Blair’s former fundraiser and confidant Lord Levy came as Labour MPs pleaded for Brown to stay away from the campaign trail in this week’s critical London mayoral elections for fear of wrecking Ken Livingstone’s chances. Levy’s intervention will confirm fears that Brown is becoming an electoral liability.

Even though Blair last night issued a statement categorically denying the claims and insisting he did believe Labour could win under his successor, there was consternation in Downing Street.

In his memoirs, serialised today in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Levy writes that Blair ‘told me on a number of occasions he was convinced Gordon “could never beat Cameron”‘.

I can’t claim any special insight for my original analysis. Just common sense.

Well, his sidekicks are — on his behalf. See his Twitter channel. As of this moment, he’s got 1,332 followers.

Thanks to Michael (who has some other interesting Twitter-channel links too) for spotting it.

Martin Kettle thinks the unthinkable?

This much, though, is certain. Brown is not ready to give up, but nor is he confident he can win the public’s support back. For whatever reason, he lacks the certainty of his predecessor. Even when Blair was wrong, he was clear about where he was heading. But Brown lacks Blair’s confidence - and this is now corrosive. “The challenge is primarily psychological,” says a senior minister, “It’s about being confident.” “He simply doesn’t know what to do,” responds a senior backbencher. “There’s no sense of direction whatever. There’s nothing there.”

What can Brown do about this mood? Helpfully meant suggestions abound - be more radical, be more centrist, be yourself, be someone else, get a speechwriter, get a haircut - yet most of these miss the point. Guys of 57 don’t change much. The way people have behaved in the past, a wise minister observed this week, is still the best guide to the way they will behave in the future. A large amount of the wishful-thinking school of commentary on the Labour government’s predicament persistently overlooks this obvious point. There isn’t an Attlee or Roosevelt lurking inside the prime minister. There’s just the same old Gordon with the same old strengths and weaknesses…

Perceptive column by Polly Toynbee

Why is Brown on the slide? Why has that 12% lead he earned in the early months evaporated? Those were Labour voters expecting something better, looking for the mission and vision lacking in Blairism, looking for the change, change, change that Brown promised. The mystery of this premiership deepens with every day, perplexing some who thought they knew Brown best. Now he refutes any suggestion he has changed any Blairite “reform” one iota.

Most dismayed are those who toiled for him for 10 long years, drinking midnight toasts to the king over the water, plotting and obstructing, singing the old Gordon-is-my-darling songs, and telling any of us who would listen that when the bonnie prince sails home, the egregious sins of opportunistic unprincipled Blairism would be expunged. But now the prince is here, his leadership is a pale shadow of what they promised. Inept generalship looks in danger of leading the Labour clans towards their Culloden - and they can see it coming.

Here is the puzzle. Those who know him know Gordon Brown to be a man of sincere beliefs with a profound concern for the poor at home and abroad. There is nothing showy or sham about him. But, alas, a good man doesn’t necessarily make a good prime minister. So was it right when the Blair camp malevolently tarred him as “psychologically flawed”? Well, who isn’t? There’s no reason to think him any crazier than others with the vaulting ambition to reach No 10. Blair was considerably madder and badder by the time he left office - what with war, Catholic conversion and shameless plunder from fat directorships.

Gordon Brown is certainly the cleverest prime minister in living memory - but then intellectuals rarely make good leaders. His bookishness may account for his worst failings. He has studied every aspect of every dilemma, met every global expert, perused every research paper, communed with every contrary opinion. He knows there is rarely one simple answer and the world is made of nuanced grey areas. But prime ministers have to make black and white choices every day. When he doesn’t, he increasingly ends up with the worst of all worlds, pleasing no one…

The disintegration of the Brown government is almost painful to watch. here’s the latest example of the replacement of policy by well-intentioned but fatuous gestures:

LONDON (AP) — The British government wants to ban convicted pedophiles from using social networking Web sites such as Facebook, the Home Office said Friday.

The plan involves forcing sex offenders to give any e-mail address they use to police, who will then ask the Web sites to block their access, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.

Smith said the proposal is aimed at sending out the message that the Internet is ‘’not a no-go area when it comes to law enforcement.'’

‘’We are changing the law … so that we have got better control over the way in which child sex offenders are able to use the Internet,'’ Smith said on GMTV.

The government wants to prevent pedophiles from using social networking Web sites to groom children to be sexual abuse victims, according to the Home Office.

Under the proposed legislation, it would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison for a convicted child sex offender to use an e-mail address that has not been registered with police, a Home Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

However, the report goes on to say that “the government acknowledges it has yet to work out the details of how the plan would work.”

Yep. That’s the Broonies for you.

So Northern Rock is to be nationalised — something that should have happened months ago. What’s interesting is the light the affair shines on Gordon Brown’s shortcomings — his chronic indecisiveness, coupled with mindblowing stubborness, which means that his government is invariably dragged by the force of events into doing the obvious thing — but too late. This is an administration in terminal decline.

Later: Anatole Kaletsky is speechless with indignation:

Why should a Government that has consistently refused to offer public funding for potentially viable commercial projects of real national importance - aerospace, public transport, nuclear power - now be spending tens of billions on supporting a bust mortgage bank? Is it because Britain is short of mortgage lenders, lacks employment opportunities for bankers or suffers a deficiency of financial innovation?

Even if politicians at Westminster are unwilling to ask such questions there can be no doubt that others will. It is quite likely that the European Commission will veto the business plans for Northern Rock unless these provide for a rapid rundown of both its lending and deposit-taking operations.

Just because the government has been shown to be disgracefully casual in its handling of confidential personal data doesn’t mean that the Brown administration is proposing to do anything radical about it. That’s not just an uninformed, cynical take on what’s happening. It’s also the view
of Rosemary Jay, Head of the Information Law team at Pinsent Masons (the law firm that publishes OUT-LAW.COM)

I was idly browsing and came on this picture of David Miliband and wondered if he was the youngest Foreign Secretary ever. He has amazing hair — like astroturf that’s been sprayed jet black. Will it go grey as the strains of office multiply?

And then I came on this passage in Janet Flanner’s New Yorker dispatch from Paris for June 23, 1948:

The most worried, wearied, unthanked, and necessary public servant in any government today is its Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is like a mother-in-law — in the bosom of the family, yet not of it. Essentially, he is related to a world outside, a go-between harried by what the family thinks is its due and by what the neighbours say it deserves, which is invariably a lot less.

She was writing about Georges Bidault, the French Foreign Minister of the time, but her observation is generalisable. For example: As Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher was pathologically suspicious of the Foreign Office. Just as the Ministry of Agriculture was effectively the ministry for farmers, she reasoned, so the Foreign Office was the ministry for foreigners, and so she installed her own policy advisers in Number 10 and ran an independent foreign policy from there. Gordon Brown is also a control freak, so perhaps it is legitimate to worry about young Miliband’s hair.

Hmmm…. Strange how confused various people seem to have been about who is and is not a ‘permissible donor’ within the meaning of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (c. 41). Here’s what Section 54 says:

Permissible donors

(1) A donation received by a registered party must not be accepted by the party if—

(a) the person by whom the donation would be made is not, at the time of its receipt by the party, a permissible donor; or

(b) the party is (whether because the donation is given anonymously or by reason of any deception or concealment or otherwise) unable to ascertain the identity of that person.

(2) For the purposes of this Part the following are permissible donors—

(a) an individual registered in an electoral register;

(b) a company—

(i) registered under the [1985 c. 6.] Companies Act 1985 or the [S.I. 1986/1032 (N.I. 6).] Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, and

(ii) incorporated within the United Kingdom or another member State,

which carries on business in the United Kingdom;

(c) a registered party;

(d) a trade union entered in the list kept under the [1992 c. 52.] Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 or the [S.I. 1992/807 (N.I.5).] Industrial Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1992;

(e) a building society (within the meaning of the [1986 c. 53.] Building Societies Act 1986);

(f) a limited liability partnership registered under the [2000 c. 12.] Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000, or any corresponding enactment in force in Northern Ireland, which carries on business in the United Kingdom;

(g) a friendly society registered under the [1974 c. 46.] Friendly Societies Act 1974 or a society registered (or deemed to be registered) under the [1965 c. 12.] Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 or the [1969 c. 24.] Industrial and Provident Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969; and

(h) any unincorporated association of two or more persons which does not fall within any of the preceding paragraphs but which carries on business or other activities wholly or mainly in the United Kingdom and whose main office is there.

Seems clear enough, doesn’t it? I suppose the Labour party could argue that, under 1(b), since they knew that Mr Abrahams was really the man behind all those donations, then it was all ok, because he is, after all, clearly a ‘permissible donor’. So it might all hinge on how feeble the ‘anonymising’ dodges were.

The Bagehot column in the Economist gets it about right:

It is true, or seems to be, that Mr Brown is maniacally ambitious but politically timid. He is intellectually curious but cripplingly indecisive. Witness the barrage of procrastinating policy reviews that he unleashes in every speech; unsurprisingly, more were set up this week, after the tragicomic loss of two doomsday discs by the revenue and customs service (HMRC). It is true, as the uncharitable gave warning, that Mr Brown copes badly with criticism—so badly, it turns out, that he sometimes shakes with pain and rage. He appoints supposedly independent ministers, then bullies them into line-toeing submission. He shies from blame when it is due and sucks up credit when it is not.

Unfortunately, the gristle and the guts—the ugly secrets of the Brown abattoir—have been gruesomely displayed for all to see. During the non-election fiasco in October, the country witnessed the low political calculation and fake ecumenicism, the shallow bombast and obfuscation, the indecision and ultimately the cowardice. In the first days of the Northern Rock crisis, it saw—or rather didn’t see—Mr Brown hide behind the sofa that he kept in Number 10 when Tony Blair left, just as he kept the uncollegial approach to government associated with it. Those who thought he could shuffle off his old skin when he realised his prime-ministerial dream, or at least that his psychological tics would not warp his tenure, seem to have been wrong. For Mr Brown, perhaps personality is destiny after all.